Prolific potter Angel Ortiz Gabriel, famed Tonalá barro burnido (burnished pottery) artist, has his studio-house-workshop located in Tonalá, Jalisco, Mexico. He has been working with clay since he was 11 years old. His vocation has been passed down through generations, and was learned from his grandparents, just as he has passed down his art form to his children, neices and nephews... read more |
| This gallery showcases Angel’s nauhuales (legendary shape shifters), his pititos ronderos (clay whistles), his whimsical story scenes and revival of the more elaborate Spanish Colonial style of the early 1900’s. Angel Ortiz Gabriel's story is the tale of groups of artists from all parts of Mexco who are able to put their dreams and ancestral legends into tangible forms, of craftsmen delicately balanced between past and present. |
| Prices include packing. Shipping quoted separately. Discounts for multiple orders. Some items could take up to six weeks for delivery.
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| Angel studied with the famous Jorge Wilmot, an internationally renowned craftsman who has been honored with various accolades. Angel himself has won many important prizes over his years at both the state and national level in working his craft. Angel's work, born of function, has evolved to works of art reflecting the compesino's existence on earth. Whimsical images of farmers harvesting corn or tending animals, seasonal celebrations and fiestas, women kneading tortillas, observances of life and death, are among the subjects depicted on Angel's burnished pottery. |
| Concerned about the fate of his art form, his work reflects many of the glazing techniques and designs of the early 1900s to ensure his ancestral designs and techniques are not forgotten or lost. You see samples of this work in the elaborately designed vases and decorative plates. Currently, Angel is engaged in a project to revive the lost art of making pitito ronderos (clay whistles). Pitotos Ronderos come in a myriad of different shapes and themes - animals, calaveras (skeletons), heads, etc. Sometimes these whistles are also called ocharinas, a traditional folk instrument, that were known to both the Mayan and Aztec cultures. He is also fascinated and very much in tune with the nauhal legends of Tonalá, and has nahual stories to tell that he has learned from the children of nahuales. Nahuales are shape shifters that take on the bodies of animals at night. The nahual bodies allow the shape shifters to travel faster than in their human form. He says that when he is designing a nauhal, the nauhal designs itself... return to top |
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