Auria’s signature cactus vases stand out amongst shelves and shelves of shiny green ceramics unique to the region of Oaxaca Mexico. We made it our mission to track down the creator of these special pieces and find out her story.

Auria welcomes us warmly into her home with the blue door, where she lives with her husband, daughter and granddaughter. She has a special space next to to the outdoor kitchen where she magically transforms brown clay, collected locally, into glazed green cactus vases.

She kneels on a piece of foam for comfort in her pretty apron beside a mound of barro (clay). She has a bucket of water at the ready and a few tools scattered around within arms reach. She begins with a taco-like base and slowly builds up the walls, which let me tell you from experience is definitely not as easy as she makes it look. She then rolls strips of thin sausages and attaches these one-by-one around the base, pinching them between her fingers to create the texture. I love this - that her fingerprints are part of this piece. You can see and feel a connection between you and the artist when you touch these pieces. There are no tools between the artisan and the piece, no paintbrush, or needle, which makes these earthenware pieces so special.

Once she has crafted the vase, it is left to dry in the sun for two days, more if it’s raining.

Next, we move outside under a tree with some pieces she has prepared earlier. Using a small bowl pours the special paint over the clay vessel which will give it the signature Atzompa green glaze. The paint is yellow and dull. So we’re excited to see the alchemy take place.

Her husband has been preparing the outdoor oven since we arrived, so it’s now at a temperature of around 500 degrees. The oven is small and round with stacked rocks creating its walls. They use old pieces of broken ceramics on top to hold the heat in. The coated clay vases are placed inside for 30-60 minutes. I don’t know how they know when it’s ready, I guess it’s just knowledge accumulated after years of experience. Once they’re ready Auria and her daughter work quickly with long metal poles to remove the red hot vases without a word, making it clear they have done this many many times across the years. These pieces are so hot, you can feel the heat coming off them from standing close by. The flames have turned the paint into a beautiful shade of rich dark green. They’re slightly splotchy on parts where the flame has been stronger. I like this though because anyone can paint a vase perfectly green, but to magically achieve this green glaze from heat, well that’s pretty special.
It begins to rain so we say our farewells until we return in the afternoon to pick up our pieces.

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Auria’s daughter has developed her own style, creating ceramic jewellery which means that she doesn’t plan to carry on the family’s tradition of making the signature green cactus vases. Fortunately however Auria’s four grandchildren love to help their “abuela”, so let’s hope the tradition continues through their hands.