The Making of Our Nicaraguan Pottery

Global Village works with the Sanchez family in the marketing and distribution of their pottery. The family has been producing pottery for generations. First, the parents began the craft and now, the six brothers and two sisters carry on the tradition. I continue to marvel how a simple lump of earth can be molded in to a beautiful piece of art. While the tools of the trade are simple, as evidenced by the sequential pictures in the slide show, the skill required and the resulting work is quite complex.

The Sanchez family uses locally sourced clay in the making of their pots. In the images, you can see the lump of clay placed on a stick. This is used as a marker to indicate how high to throw the clay. It is quite amazing to see the consistency of height and width of like pieces of pottery given the basic measuring "stick". This is a tribute to the years of experience of the potter as much as the method.

Each member of the family has a particular specialty. For some, it is throwing the clay, while for others it could be painting the pots, carving a relief design in to a pot, polishing the pots or overseeing the firing of the mud and brick kiln located in the back yard.

Working with an organization such as Global Village, who provides partial funding in advance, allows the family to purchase the raw materials for the project in advance. The family receives a fair price for their products and their work is marketed with dignity. Take a moment a view their handiwork in the pottery section of Global Village Trading Company's site.