Greetings from Somoto ! My apologies for the multiday silence, but not only have we been having ceramic adventures galore, but there hasn´t been a ¨Cyber¨in sight (pronounce that see-bear, as in an internet cafe). Our two and a half day experience in the Santa Rosa agricultural collective with the Gutierrez family was just amazing. Angela, her daughters Consuelo and Jadira, and Consuelo´s husband Isidro welcomed us with hugs when we arrived each day, and sent us away with more hugs when we left in the late afternoon. They demonstrated for us, and we demonstrated for them, and we all made pots collaboratively as well. Under Robert Piller´s direction we built them a really cool barrel kiln for future firings, using local bricks that we cut with saws and machetes. We never thought it would work out, but we finished it in record time with everyone helping out. Their clay is wonderful stuff, incredible for both throwing and handbuilding, and Angela took us on an amazing hike through farm fields of corn and tomatoes and onions and peppers, then down into a low area near a stream where they have their mango and banana trees. It was there, while farming, that they found their current clay site. There are about 600 people who live in this flawlessly organized collective, and everyone who is allowed to join after a one year trial period both farms and pursues individual skills, such as the pottery business the Gutierrez family has established. Needless to say, at the end of our visit no one wanted to leave and we were given an open invitiation to return. Lovely, lovely people.
On Sunday we relaxed at a rural homestay accommodation high up in the cloud forests of the Miraflor Nature Preserve. It´s a fascinating combination of regulated land with working farms, and they are in the early stages of developing ecotourism in this pristine location. The electricity at our farmhouse was all solar, and in the evening we dined by candlelight on marvelous vegetarian food and slept under piles of blankets in the fresh, cool air.
Today we had a truly unforgettable experience as we made the 4 wheel drive journey and vertical hike (not kidding REALLY steep hill we walked up) to the mountaintop cooperative of Loma Panda, where a group of five women descended from traditional functional vessel makers are now created an endlessly diverse range of highly expressive figurative sculptures. Their signature work is making unique ceramic dolls in many sizes, all individually painted and with movable arms and legs. And again, a lovely group of women who welcomed us in, showed us what they knew, and were very grateful for our demonstrations and the knowledge we shared with them. The collaborative aspect of this trip has made our journey so very special.
Tomorrow we leave the northern potters behind and head south for the final days of our trip. Tomorrow night we are staying at a backpacker´s paradise called The Monkey Hut at beautiful Lake Apoyo, and Thursday we spend the day at the overwhelmingly incredible pottery village of San Juan de Oriente. That´s a lot of adjectives, but I visited in March and even after thirty years in ceramics I was totally blown away. I expect the students to have a similar reaction. Then Friday afternoon we head home on American Airlines, and should be back in Ft. Myers by midnight. I´m sure all your phones will be ringing as we drive across the Everglades.
Until then,
Tricia and the ´Gringa Circus´ (we´ll explain later...)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Weather´s Just Fine
Greetings from Ocotal,
This will be a quick post because we had a very full day visiting a tile factory where they also throw 130 lbs flower pots on kick wheels, a mens studio cooperative where they throw vases almost as big and ended the day with our introductory visit to our next major site, a family run ceramics studio in the agricultural collective of Santa Rosa. We will be spending quite a bit of time with them over the next few days, so more news will be forthcoming about these wonderful people. But for now- the weather´s just fine !! It looks like this storm front has passed and while we had a great deal of rain last night there´s been no problems with the roads and the rain has kept the temperature cool. We have a very full day tomorrow and then Sunday is our big day off at the Miraflor Nature Reserve. I´ll tune in at the next opportunity !
Tricia and The Gang in Ocotal
This will be a quick post because we had a very full day visiting a tile factory where they also throw 130 lbs flower pots on kick wheels, a mens studio cooperative where they throw vases almost as big and ended the day with our introductory visit to our next major site, a family run ceramics studio in the agricultural collective of Santa Rosa. We will be spending quite a bit of time with them over the next few days, so more news will be forthcoming about these wonderful people. But for now- the weather´s just fine !! It looks like this storm front has passed and while we had a great deal of rain last night there´s been no problems with the roads and the rain has kept the temperature cool. We have a very full day tomorrow and then Sunday is our big day off at the Miraflor Nature Reserve. I´ll tune in at the next opportunity !
Tricia and The Gang in Ocotal
Thursday, May 29, 2008
FGCU at the Ducuale Grande Cooperativa
Nicaraguan weather update: please don´t worry about this new storm named Alma - we´re not. Its at least a hundred miles away along the west coast, and while we are getting a bit of rain, its not a problem. It is, after all, the start of the rainy season here ! We have an excellent driver, and a schedule that is as flexible as it needs to be. We are staying on top of local and international storm reports, and do not anticipate any trouble of any kind.
Greetings once again, this time from the northern central mountainous region of Nicaragua. We left Leon Tuesday morning and spènt a wonderful day first visiting the bubbling mudpits at the volcano San Jacinto (really cool - the ground was actually boiling) and then drove in to meet Olga Reyes in the pottery vilage of Sabaneta. We got to see a traditional firing in a beehive kiln, and swapped throwing techniques on their fascinating ´side-saddle´kickwheels. The students demonstrated some of our new methods, and the ladies had a grand time trying them out. Then it was into the van and off north into the mountains to Esteli. Beautiful countryside, with rice fields backed up by stacked layers of hills spotted with bright yellow flowering trees. We spent the night at an agricultural NGO in Esteli (I held hands with a monkey !!!), and after a bit of sightseeing moved on to Condega and the Ducuale Grande cooperative - ten amazing potters who have a very distinctive smoke-resist surface that we have been learning how to do today. We´re staying at a marvelous tropical paradise called ´La Pósadita´, and are very comfortable indeed. Tomorrow we head further north to Ocotal, and begin our stay with a new group of women potters in the community of Santa Rosa. We´ve settled into a very successful travel routine, and the students are all doing great (and so are the rest of us !)
Take care, and I´ll post again when possible.
Tricia
Greetings once again, this time from the northern central mountainous region of Nicaragua. We left Leon Tuesday morning and spènt a wonderful day first visiting the bubbling mudpits at the volcano San Jacinto (really cool - the ground was actually boiling) and then drove in to meet Olga Reyes in the pottery vilage of Sabaneta. We got to see a traditional firing in a beehive kiln, and swapped throwing techniques on their fascinating ´side-saddle´kickwheels. The students demonstrated some of our new methods, and the ladies had a grand time trying them out. Then it was into the van and off north into the mountains to Esteli. Beautiful countryside, with rice fields backed up by stacked layers of hills spotted with bright yellow flowering trees. We spent the night at an agricultural NGO in Esteli (I held hands with a monkey !!!), and after a bit of sightseeing moved on to Condega and the Ducuale Grande cooperative - ten amazing potters who have a very distinctive smoke-resist surface that we have been learning how to do today. We´re staying at a marvelous tropical paradise called ´La Pósadita´, and are very comfortable indeed. Tomorrow we head further north to Ocotal, and begin our stay with a new group of women potters in the community of Santa Rosa. We´ve settled into a very successful travel routine, and the students are all doing great (and so are the rest of us !)
Take care, and I´ll post again when possible.
Tricia
Monday, May 26, 2008
Filters, press molds, stamps, and tortillas
Greetings from an improbably named but very nice hotel near Leon named ¨Charlie´s BBQ¨. We had a full-out pottery day here in Nicaragua : packed bags in the hotel lobby by 7am, and headed out after a fabulous breakfast (fresh fruit, fresh tortillas, rice and beans) for water filter factories, the PFP Pottery Training Center, the Guzman family pottery where we got to throw pots on Nicaraguan wheels, and a final visit to a wonderful traditional potter named Benita who taught us all how to make corn tortillas on a clay plate over an open fire. Awesome visits, and a truly grand time was had by all. We've included pictures of the group at the museum yesterday, at Lake Managua today, and Lindsey and Ehren having fun with tortillas. Tomorrow its off to the volcano pits, and then a half day visit with women potters in Sabaneta where we will see a traditional kiln being fired, and can really begin interacting in the studio. Today at the Training Center Ashley and Ehren were able to demonstrate the press molds and stamps they made , with excellent results. All the students are eager to share the work they´ve been doing with the potters here in Nicaragua, and to offer their knowledge in return for all the incredible things we are learning from them.
Tomorrow night we´ll be staying in the town of Esteli, and then heading further north to Condega and the pottery cooperative at Ducuale Grande. Every day holds a new set of incredible surprises and wonderful things to see, like the enormous handbuilt burial pots from Omotepe that we saw at the museum in Granda - beautiful womb-shaped clay vessels lined up along the walls, maybe a hundred of them, probably 600 or 700 years old. I´ve never seen anything like it. Just extraordinary.
Until the next post, adios !
Tricia
Sunday, May 25, 2008
We´re in Granada, Nicaragua !
May 25, 2008
We made it ! My apologies for the lack of notification phone calls after our arrival last night, but we had a few transportation adventures that delayed us several hours so that I couldn´t purchase minutes for my local cell phone. But we´re all set now, and having a fascinating time. Our journey involved a few predictable delays, like forgetting the phone in your pocket when you go through airport security, and a few unpredictable ones like the fellow on the plane who was removed at the Miami airport because he just couldn´t manage to be civil to the flight attandants after we got stuck on the runway for a couple of hours over a baggage snafu. After all that the flight was uneventful and we cruised into Managua over the beautiful volcanic landscape, landed, no problems in immigration, and all the bags came through just fine....except one. So we waited and waited and waited and finally like magic a later flight came through with our missing bag. Hurray ! Our Potters for Peace trip leaders waited all through this for us, and we piled everything into the van and drove off to Kairos, a wonderful non-profit meeting center in a gorgeous tropical garden setting. They had a fantastic dinner ready for us so we ate and ate and talked and then slept very soundly after such an eventful day.
Today we were up early for an incredible breakfast and lovely Nicaraguan coffee, and then set off in the van for the day´s program. We spent three fascinating hours with Judy Butler, an American journalist who has spent the last 25 years here, and now we are sightseeing in Granada, one of Nicaragua´s oldest cities with well-restored Spanish colonial buildings. Soon we are going to see a private collection of pre-Columbian ceramics, and tomorrow we take off in the van for our pottery adventure. I´ll post whenever possible, and will be passing my newly-recharged cell phone around so the students can check in with family. All is well !
Take care, and stay tuned,
Tricia and the Nica Travelers
We made it ! My apologies for the lack of notification phone calls after our arrival last night, but we had a few transportation adventures that delayed us several hours so that I couldn´t purchase minutes for my local cell phone. But we´re all set now, and having a fascinating time. Our journey involved a few predictable delays, like forgetting the phone in your pocket when you go through airport security, and a few unpredictable ones like the fellow on the plane who was removed at the Miami airport because he just couldn´t manage to be civil to the flight attandants after we got stuck on the runway for a couple of hours over a baggage snafu. After all that the flight was uneventful and we cruised into Managua over the beautiful volcanic landscape, landed, no problems in immigration, and all the bags came through just fine....except one. So we waited and waited and waited and finally like magic a later flight came through with our missing bag. Hurray ! Our Potters for Peace trip leaders waited all through this for us, and we piled everything into the van and drove off to Kairos, a wonderful non-profit meeting center in a gorgeous tropical garden setting. They had a fantastic dinner ready for us so we ate and ate and talked and then slept very soundly after such an eventful day.
Today we were up early for an incredible breakfast and lovely Nicaraguan coffee, and then set off in the van for the day´s program. We spent three fascinating hours with Judy Butler, an American journalist who has spent the last 25 years here, and now we are sightseeing in Granada, one of Nicaragua´s oldest cities with well-restored Spanish colonial buildings. Soon we are going to see a private collection of pre-Columbian ceramics, and tomorrow we take off in the van for our pottery adventure. I´ll post whenever possible, and will be passing my newly-recharged cell phone around so the students can check in with family. All is well !
Take care, and stay tuned,
Tricia and the Nica Travelers
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Welcome to the FGCU Nicaragua Journal !
Hello, and welcome to our new journal site for reporting on the amazing adventures of the FGCU traditional pottery tour of Nicaragua ! My name is, as you probably know, Tricia Fay, and I teach ceramics at Florida Gulf Coast University. Several years ago I had the good fortune to get to know Ron Rivera, the Managua coordinator for an organization called Potters for Peace. Set up in 1986, PFP has been leading groups of American potters around Nicaragua since 1986, visiting with traditional women's pottery cooperatives that have asked PFP for technical assistance. In addition, Potters for Peace has also been developing an extraordinary water filter project since Hurricane Mitch devastated Nicaragua in 1998. They now train potters all over the world to make ceramic filters that provide 99% pure drinking water from available sources. Just amazing. The students and I will be flying to Nicaragua on Saturday for two weeks (May 24 - June 6) to travel the countryside, meet women potters, learn their techniques and share our knowledge as well. I'll try to post reports every couple of days and let you know how we're doing. I've attached two photographs above - the first image is of a potter from the small town of Sabaneta - we should be visiting her on our third day to learn about traditional kiln firings. The second image is a picture of our trip leaders, Robert Pillers and his daughter Loehrl, with a lovely potter named Benita who will be teaching us how to make both ceramic comales and corn tortillas. . We are all so excited - this should be an incredible trip !
I'll try to make make sure and send a posting shortly after we get there. Stay tuned !
Tricia
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