The Zapotec village of San Marcos Tlapazola is famous for it’s red-burnished cookware. The bowls are made without a wheel, all formed with the hand. The intense red color of these pieces is given by a slip with a special clay gather from a hillside near the village and then delicately burnished with quartz stone. Theses special polishing stones are passed down through generations from every female potter to another. Mostly given by the grandmothers. There are a lot of female pottery in the village, not all of them work on a every day business like the Lopez family.
One of the potters from San Marcos Tlapazola, Macrina Martinez, started to created new forms as theses pig bowls in the late 1980’s. The pottery from the village is sold in local markets as well as in cooperatives like Colectivo 1050, and now by us.
These lovely bowls in pig form a made by Kiona Lopez and her family in the village San Marcos Tlapazola near Tlacahula, Oaxaca.