Pomaire.

A few weeks ago Daniela told me about the small town of Pomaire about an hour's drive from Santiago. I love ceramics, both throwing things of my own and very skillfully made homemade things from other people: especially practical things. In Pomire I was a potter's heaven.

Rather than throw things, women scrape away clay called greda (clearly terra cotta) -- There wasn't a wheel in sight! I am especially keen on handmade ceramic cookware, this is what my crazy projects are meant to look like before they come out very ugly.

And very few things were glazed (the process which gives me the most troubled in my ceramics life). I never even considered not glazing! But I feel like that only works with terra cotta because of the nice red hue, but I can't work with terra cotta because it doesn't have enough sand for me to work with. But I digress. After my Poaire visit I have so many new ideas for projects when I get back into the studio at home.

I couldn't find anyone to travel the distance just to look at some hand-thrown pots, so I took the bus to the bus which landed me in this super cute small pottery town. People here were incredibly nice, even nicer than Chileans normally are. I had some homemade humitas with tomato (think tamales, but without lard or meat and with onions) and watch Brazil barely win against North Korea (surprising).

I guess I thought my bags weren't heavy enough and I bought way too many of these heavy fragil things. They were just so lovely (and cheap), I couldn't resist.

-- Lauren