Mexico Travel – Guanajuato:
A Meeting with a Pottery Artist, Mexican Independence
Remembered in the Alhóndiga and a Market
Experience
After a beautiful restful night in my suite at
the Quinta Las Acacias I had woken up really hungry
and was looking forward to breakfast. This family-owned
boutique hotel was built as a private mansion in
1890 and has become one of Guanajuato’s foremost
luxury historic hotels since its opening in 1998.
The historic Quinta Las Acacias boutique hotel
On a crisp morning with brilliant sunshine I walked
through the hotel’s manicured grounds to the
restaurant in the hotel’s main building. After
a healthy fruit salad I settled in for an apple
cinnamon crepe that was beautifully decorated with
bougainvilleas from the hotel garden. My sightseeing
tour of the city was not scheduled to start until
10:30 am, so I had a bit of extra time after breakfast
to explore the local sights.
Delicious apple cinnamon crepes with bougainvilleas
Just outside the front door of the Quinta Las Acacias
is an attractive park that is nestled around a river
that flows into downtown Guanajuato. To provide
the city with a constant supply of water, a dam
was completed in 1749 that is called Presa de la
Olla. Today the dam is part of an attractive linear
park that is often used for special events. One
of the dams along the river had actually been damaged
just a few days ago and workmen were working on
repairing it.
The badly damaged Presa de la Olla dam
I headed back to the hotel because my local guides
Sujei and Roberto had arrived and were ready to
take me on a sightseeing tour of Guanajuato. Our
first stop was at the Gorky Pottery where 69 year
old owner Gorky Gonzalez showed us around his renowned
local ceramics workshop which produces traditional
majolica pottery that is exported around the world.
Gorky Gonzalez used to create workshops in different
parts across Mexico such as San Miguel de Allende
and the village of Marfil until he dedicated himself
to the rescuing the traditional art of majolica
in Guanajuato. His wife, Hisato Murayama, was instrumental
in taking him to Japan where he studied Japanese
pottery techniques under several Japanese pottery
masters.
Gorky Gonzalez and his wife Hisato Murayama
We started our tour with the private living area
of Gorky and Hisato which is highlighted by an extensive
art and pottery collection with pieces from all
across Latin America. One of Mexico’s famous
muralist painters, José Chavez Morado, painted
a portrait of Gorky’s wife, and other Mexican
fine painters are represented as well.
From this impressive art collection we started
our tour of Gorky’s workshop where he explained
the production of majolica. An Italian kiln fires
high quality ceramic products at a temperature of
1020 degrees Celsius. The clay actually comes from
the local mountains and is mixed with other clays
from other areas. Today’s kiln is computer
controlled while an older kiln had to be controlled
manually. Natural gas, the fuel for the kiln, has
to be handled very carefully in order to prevent
possible explosions. All the items undergo two firings.
Gorky Gonzalez' pottery is exported all over the
world
Gorky also introduced us to the paint techniques
that are applied to Mexican majolica. Traditional
motifs are painted on with horse or squirrel hair
brushes and the five main colours are blue (made
from cobalt oxide), yellow (antimony oxide), black
(manganese), green (copper) and a coffee colour
(made from a local riverstone called siderite).
Gorky Pottery employs several local craftspeople
that handle the production and the painting of the
pottery.
For his artistic achievements Gorky Gonzalez has
won numerous awards, including awards from the Government
of Guanajuato, the Federal Mexican Government and
various awards from national art organizations.
He has travelled the world to participate in exhibitions
such as the 1965 New York World Fair; Expo Montreal
in 1967; and expositions in Japan, Italy, the United
States, Brasil, Peru, Uruguay, Egypt, Germany and
France. Gorky Gonzalez’ pottery creations
have truly touched the world.
Beautiful pottery at Gorky Gonzalez' workshop
After this interesting studio tour we got back
in our van and started driving downtown. Guanajuato’s
topography is very unique as the city is embedded
among a series of hills and mountain slopes. What
is truly unique about this city are the tunnels
that run underneath different parts of the city.
The Guanajuato River used to flow in tunnels underneath
the city, but after engineers rerouted the river
into underground caverns in the middle of the twentieth
century, these tunnels have been converted into
roadways. I was fascinated by the cobble-stoned
tunnels that carry most of the traffic through the
city. Due to a general lack of space throughout
the city, many people park their cars underground
beside the roadways, and many people walk through
the tunnels at all hours of the day.
Tunnels criss-cross Guanajuato
Our short drive took us to one of Guanajuato’s
main attractions: the Alhóndiga de Granaditas,
an old grain storage building that was built between
1798 and 1809. With its almost square shape, its
impressive size and its small windows the Alhóndiga
is more reminiscent of a medieval castle. Based
on its fortification-like architecture this building
played a key role during the Mexican War of Independence
in 1810.
When the insurgent troops of Miguel Hidalgo approached
Guanajuato, the local Spanish colonial rulers barricaded
themselves inside the Alhóndiga and thought
themselves safe from the attack of the insurgents.
Local miner Juan José de los Reyes Martinez,
also called El Pípila, decided to break down
and torch the door of the Alhóndiga, protected
by a large stone on his back from the muskets of
the Spanish troops. Once the door had burned down,
the insurgents stormed the Alhóndiga and
killed all the Spanish soldiers and civilians that
had sought shelter inside.
Interior courtyard of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas
In this manner El Pípila had become one
of the most important independence war heroes in
Mexico and a huge monument was erected in his honour
on a hill overlooking the city of Guanajuato. The
nickname “El Pípila”, which literally
means “turkey hen”, had actually been
given to him because he had been born with mental
and physical birth defects. But based on his courage
and strength he became one of the most important
heroes of Mexico’s War of Independence.
Today the Alhóndiga de Granaditas holds
a large museum, the Museo Regional La Alhóndiga
de Granaditas, that documents local history, from
Prehispanic Meso-American art to the colonial era
that was dominated by the Spanish, the local history
of silver mining, to the making of modern Mexico
from the War of Independence in 1810 to the long-ruling
dictator Porfirio Diaz who controlled the country
from 1876 to 1911. The Alhóndiga is also
used as a large open-air auditorium for live performances
during the annual International Cervantino Festival.
Detail of mural in the staircases of the Alhóndiga
de Granaditas
One of the most stunning features of the Alhóndiga
are the murals by José Chavez Morado painted
in two stairwells in the 1950s and 1960s. They illustrate
historic events and the struggles of the Mexican
people for independence. One of the most striking
images is that of the severed head of Father Miguel
Hidalgo, the leader of the Independence Movement,
who was executed by the Spaniards in 1811 for instigating
the revolt against the Spanish a year earlier. After
he was executed by the shot of a rifle, he was decapitated
and his head and the heads of three other independence
fighters were displayed on the four corners of the
Alhóndiga for ten years, until the country
achieved independence from Spain in 1821. Today
Miguel Hidalgo is celebrated as the “Father
of the Nation”, and every month a lighting
ceremony inside the Alhóndiga remembers his
contribution to the independence of Mexico.
Father Miguel Hidalgo was executed by the Spanish
Sujei and I then set off to explore our next destination,
the Mercado Hidalgo, Guanajuato’s historic
municipal market. On our way there, we stopped and
walked through a church called the Parroquia de
la Immacolada Corazon de Maria, an example of Mexican
baroque.
Walking through the busy streets of Guanajuato
we arrived at the Mercado Hidalgo, which was built
in the early 1900s and inaugurated by then President
Porfirio Diaz in 1910. The building is reminiscent
of a train station and was constructed on the location
of an old bullring. The domed roof is held up by
iron support beams, and a gallery on the second
floor allows a great view over the dozens of merchant’s
stands.
Interior of the Mercado Hidalgo
The main floor mostly holds stands for food-related
products, from meat to vegetables and fish, eggs,
tortillas and many other items. The upstairs gallery
holds stalls for clothing, souvenirs, pottery, woodcarvings,
clay figurines and many more. Religious art as well
as the typically Mexican skull figures (“calaveras”,
general representations of skulls in connection
with the Day of the Dead, and “catrinas”,
the more elegant female version with long dresses
and large hats) add more colour to this bustling
marketplace.
"Catrinas" at the Mercado Hidalgo
After a very busy morning we were finally starting
to head towards a restaurant to have a much deserved
lunch before we would continue our explorations
in the afternoon.