One of the things I love about pottery is how it carries us through time. Pottery shards function as time, culture and location stamps. They are the bread crumbs maps of trade routes and local customs, of foods eaten and vessels dropped, of the marriage between techniques and materials. Even today, different regions are evolving customs and norms that will one day be noted in the historic record.
In my own collection, every piece I have symbolizes a trip or a relationship. They evoke a memory of where I was and what I felt when I first held that particular piece. The first piece of pottery I ever purchased as an adult was in 1985 while traveling through Mexico. We were staying in Oaxaca and rented a taxi to visit the small village of San Bartolo Coyotepec where Dona Rosa made her famous barro negro pottery. She had died a few years previously and at the time, her children had taken over production. Her son showed my companion and I some of Dona Rosa’s work and the work that they were still making as a family.
I fell in love with a simple jar, sitting on the ground, its burnished black surface reflecting sorrow and mystery, which at the time was pretty much where I was living due to the death of my son earlier that year. I bought a few other pieces as well, but that first pot, along with a curved shallow bowl that now holds my hair sticks, remains my favorite.