Pottery Workshop in Santa María Atzompa + Poem

¡Hola!

This is Brenda talking to you. Welcome to my blog! I had always wanted one. When my website was ready, I didn’t know what to post first! It was a lot to pressure for me to think in my first publication: should it be something old that I really loved, something new, something about me, about my entrepreneurship? Well, there was no one to give me the right answer so, as my life is based on intuition, I decided to post new content. I thought: why looking back? It is certain there are pieces that meant so much for me. Maybe, when I’m ready, I’m will share them. In the meantime, this is one of the last poems I wrote.

This is about a pottery workshop I took, in Spanish it would be called “alfarería”. It is like ceramics but following more tradicional and artisanal methods. I took this workshop from October through December at Museo Comunitario de Santa María Atzompa with the artisan Adalí Vásquez Torres. She has won first place in many of the barro/pottery national competitions. She is also a wonderful and hard-working human being, woman and granmother. Alfarera Adalí specializes in Nativity Scenes. She has worked with CitiBanamex bank doing up to 10 Nativity Scenes per year. The goal during this time was to finish our own Nativity Scene before Christmas. Guess what? Even though I skipped so many lessons to visit my parents, I made it! (with a LOT of help).

To start getting familiar with the barro/clay, we did other pieces such as bowls, crosses and mezcaleros/shots for the first two Saturdays. Then the time to burn our pieces came and we visited her house downtown Atzompa. It was breathtaking to see the magic happening in that place. We got to see how the barro natural/natural clay, barro rojo/red clay and barro negro/smoked pottery process. The most surprising thing was that the pieces got dark because of the smoke (which is different than smoked pottery/barro negro) and, we were wondering if we were supposed to clean them after. But, when artisan Adalí would open the woud-fire kiln, she would say: “it is almost ready”. We would ask: “how do you know?” and, she would respond: “because it is getting cleaner everytime”. Does that mean it is true what the Catholic religion says about the fire, that it cleanses? Interesting!

I got to take my pieces home. They were 3 bowls of different sizes and my Nativity Scene which included: San José, María, baby Jesus, an angel, a donkey and a cow. I was admiring them on my bed when my roomate got home and asked how it went. I showed her and she said: “I like this one”. Chrismast was around the corner so, I said: “you can keep it if you want”. I will allow myself to be honest and confess: I didn’t want to gift my little barro negro/smocked pottery bowl to her. I did it because of preasure. I’m learning how to say NO when giving doesn’t come from the bottom of my heart. However, it was done and I couldn’t do anything but to manage my feelings. It was my responsability now so, I started to scratch the wound and I remembered that both my grandmothers had given a child away to their moms.

My mother’s side grandma: Josefina Hernández Jarquín gave her firstborn Miguel Ángel Gómez Hernández to Inés Jarquín Figueroa and Feliciano Hernández Cruz so she would have a second chance in life. On the other hand, my dad’s side grandma María Hipólita Ojeda Chiñas gave her firstborn Josefina Molina Ojeda to Aurora Chiñas Fuentes and Herón Ojeda Martinez so Aurora wouldn’t end up alone after her only child María Hipólita married. After thinking about this, I wondered: if this is what I feel for a pottery bowl, what would my great-grandmothers have felt for their children? So I wrote the following poem called: Lost Child, to honor my ancestors and every woman who has gone through the pain of losing a child. I hope you enjoy!

Hijo Perdido

Perdón.

Yo no te quería dar

a una persona que no sabía si te iba a cuidar,

que te quería porque para algo le servías,

pero que no te había hecho con estas manos que se llaman mamá.

Me arrepiento ahora,

no dejo de pensar:

¿qué habría sido si no hubiera cedido ante la presión de que nada te podría ofrecer teniendo tanto que arreglar?

Sin un lugar para ti en mi espacio personal.

Pensé que te podría soltar,

Extraño tu carita circular,

me hace falta apreciar tu tez proveniente del barro;

con tus hermanas no me pasó igual,

a ellas las pude entregar con gusto y madurez

cuando entendí que siempre serían mías

incluso acompañando a alguien más

pues de donde vienen ellas,

puedo crear, con asa o corazón,

a tantas niñas como mi cuerpo me lo pueda permitir.

Mientras tanto, dime ahora que descansas en otra habitación:

¿debería olvidarte, recuperarte o aprender mi lección?

No se regala nada cuando no nace del corazón.

Brenda Guadalupe Molina Gómez