Day 5: Nicaraguan Journal

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Day 5

Ducuale Grande is a well-established all-woman studio with relatively sophisticated designs and techniques, although their leader passed away a couple of years ago so, along with mourning their loss, they are having to reorganize their group. They make both thrown and handbuilt pots, functional and decorative.

All their work is burnished and then fired once in a traditional wood kiln, which leaves the clay dark orange. Then they  paint decorations on the pots using a slip of liquid clay mixed with sieved wood ash and a brush made out of a chicken feather.

Here are some of the pots we came up with:

Dinner and lodgings were at La Granja in Condega (all the girls in one room, all the boys in the other) and most of us shivered all night due to the relatively high elevation.