Budding ceramists in Pucará

Fourth grader María del Carmen Flores fashioned a dog, a small pot, a flower, a cross
and a snail while her classmate, Diego Játiva spent his time getting exactly right the
anatomical details of a turtle because turtles are one of his favourite things. Another
classmate, Juliana Morales, also opted for life forms, in this case a little bird and a dog,
and Diego Caiza worked on a pizza with everything and a double layer of cheese.

These are just a few of the items 40 children from the schools in Santa Rosa and
Pucará created during a ceramics workshop held the morning of December 15 of last
year. The week before, some of them had participated in digging the hole that would
become the oven in which the works would be fired after they had dried.

The ceramics workshop was sponsored by the Casa Palabra y Pueblo, with
coordination by Carolina Carrión, and organized by the foundation’s Peace Corps
volunteer, Amy Woodruff with assistance from German volunteer Anton Bog. Amy
scheduled the event for the period when her brother Zack, an experienced ceramist,
would be visiting from the United States. Zack was accompanied by Carolina’s mother,
Henriette Hurtado, another artist in this medium, in providing the children with
guidance.  Henriette also provided the clay, one kilo per ceramist. Given that the
pieces would be fired in a traditional fashion, and at a temperature lower than that
produced by a professional oven, the clay had to be of a particular kind. Henriette
explained that it is a type used by Amazonian indigenous people to fashion their
ceramics.

Zack began working with clay in high school, fascinated by the fact that you begin with
a lump of clay and turn it into something, watching earth come to life. He spent 19
days in Ecuador, visiting the market in Otavalo, the cloud forest of Intag, climbing
Cotopaxi, swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Zack, a mechanical engineer, is currently
working on a doctorate in robotics at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. He
intends to apply that knowledge to the manufacture of prosthetic devices for people
with physical handicaps. For his ceramic creation, Zack fashioned a replica of a famous
pre-Colombian piece, a handsome monster.

Henriette Hurtado is a Chilean architect who has lived in Quito for 40 years. She has
worked with clay from a very young age, and has participated in workshops dedicated
to the art in Chile, London and now, Tumbaco, where once a week she attends
ceramist Juana Lloré’s Taller Barroquema. Henriette was impressed by the attention
the children demonstrated during the workshop, as well as their creativity. Working
with clay not only sparks the imagination, she explained, but it also helps develop the
children’s fine motor skills.

Any Woodruff, Zack’s sister, prepared the children for their creative activity with a
PowerPoint presentation. With slides to illustrate her points, she explained to her
audience that Ecuador is blessed not only with an infinite variety of life, being the
world’s most megadiverse country, it is also the site where, according to
archaeologists, the oldest ceramics are found. Valdivia, on the Ecuadorian coast, is
believed to be the birthplace of ceramics.

The students were accompanied by teachers Rosario Vargas from the school
in Santa Rosa, and Cristina Valenzuela and Ruth Manosalva, teachers who work at the
school in Pucará.

On Wednesday, January 7, the children’s creations were finally dry and ready to be fired. The children carried their pieces to the “oven” and then Amy, a volunteer firefighter in her
community in Alaska, gave them a little chat on fire safety. Then they went back to the “oven”, where a hose and a fire extinguisher were on hand, and lit the newspaper, sawdust, and kindling to begin the firing process. After the kids got tired of watching the fire, Anton Bogs, played games with them.

After firing and cooling, the pieces came out of the oven and the kids took them home, very
proud of their newly acquired skills.