San Ildefonso is known, among many things, for pottery, a craft that provides jobs to hundreds of residents and that is the pride of the area, such as the work done by Vicente Bartolo Lucas, better known by the people of the community as Don Vicente.
Don Vicente is preparing the next order; it's the cold season and he must deliver 20, 50, 100, 200 chimneys, and any others that come together. He handles the clay with the experience of someone who masters his craft from head to toe, “I’ve been doing this since I was a kid,” he says, while background music plays and his hands mold the sculptures and containers that he must finish. He is known as Vicente's Workshop; his business—located on the side of the road at the exit of San Ildefonso—looks colorful with the finished and painted pieces.
Vicente working on an order of 200 chimneys
Vicente looks up and starts to think, “It must be about fifty years of this workshop.” Previously, his uncles and father started making pots for water. Later, the workshop was modernized, and now they make figures and utensils based on the season of the year.
Pumpkins, snowmen, Santa Claus figures, carts, little skulls, flowerpots, kitchen items, cups, napkin holders, salsa bowls, and various animal shapes, in a workshop located in the community of San Ildefonso, where pottery is one of the main sources of income for the region.
“It’s a passion,” says Don Vicente, and he emphasizes that he puts in 12- to 14-hour days in a workshop that in turn has five rooms in which different figures are made in each one. His production—varied—reaches a thousand pieces per month, depending on demand.
“We help many young people who need extra income, so they come here, work, get paid per piece made, and we help the local economy here,” explains Don Vicente, while opening the oven that finalizes the artisan's step of the potter.
Proud of his work and of maintaining the tradition, Don Vicente's workshop, as a family business, seeks to bring the crafts, ceramics, talent, and knowledge of Amealco pottery—and that of San Ildefonso—to the world.
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