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Published: February 4th 2014
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Friday, January 31
We were off on another tour with Charter Club Tours this time with Rosie as our tour guide.
The van left Ajijic at 8AM sharp and headed toward Guadalajara. We quickly came to a stop in the rush hour traffic. The city of Guadalajara has a population of 2 million people or 5 million if the suburbs are included. Tonalá is a suburb of Guadalajara which is well known for crafts especially pottery and glass. Our first stop on this tour was at the home and studio of Salvador Vázquez Carmona. Salvador is a world famous potter and artist whose work is found in many museums and galleries around the world. He is also featured in “Great Master’s of Mexican Folk Art”.
He learned the art of pottery at the age of 6 initially from his mother. He is now 84 years old. All of his work is handmade and painted. He showed us how he burnishes the pottery after painting to provide what looks like a glaze. Salvador often includes what he refers to as a “Trickster” in his painting on the pottery. It is said that if you have a trickster in your
home it brings good luck. He said that it might bring good luck but for him it doesn’t bring money. I bought two of his small vases, one with a trickster and one without.
He lives in a very old and humble home that has two bedrooms and includes his studio. His daughters make and sell tortillas from the front of his home.
Salvador was a very interesting man to meet.
Our next stop was the Sermel paper mache factory. This factory was first established in the 1960’s by two friends. There is only one left and the immediate family doesn’t seem to have much interest in retaining the business so it may not be around much longer.
Their paper mache products range in size from tiny boxes and eggs to large toucans and birds to then huge giraffes, camels and other animals. The finished product looks more ceramic than paper mache. It is only when you attempt to pick up an object that the difference in weight gives it away.
We watched the last couple of employees demonstrate the paper mache process from beginning to end. The detail they include in the finishing touches,
especially the painting makes them true artists not just factory workers.
After leaving the factory and before walking to the gallery, we strolled through the town of Tonalá and the market. I tried my first Churro, which is referred to as a Mexican donut. It was warm, crispy and sweet but not overly sweet. I think I could have eaten a few more but restrained myself.
Rosie provided us with a lot of history of the town of Tonalá back to the 1500’s which is extremely interesting and available on Wikipedia.
The paper mache gallery was filled with both beautiful and fun items. As usual we couldn’t leave without a couple of small purchases.
Our final stop in Tonalá was a glass blowing factory. Here we watched the many glass blowers create different pieces. The process of adding colour to the clear recycled glass was explained by Rosie. When we moved from the factory to the store front there were many tempting pieces that we would loved to have purchased. The problem especially with the larger pieces is getting them home in one piece.
Rick chose a low ball glass that he really liked and
we purchased four glasses. Although they are heavy, packing them should not be a problem.
We left the glass factory and made our way out of Tonalá and headed toward Tlaquepaque. Tlaquepaque is another suburb of Guadalajara and also famous for pottery and glass work but in most cases it is made in Tonalá and sold in Tlaquepaque.
We had all afternoon to spend roaming a pedestrian street full of shops, galleries and restaurants.
Our first stop was lunch and then we began going in and out of each shop. The shops or galleries at one time had been very large vacation homes and the structures were just as beautiful as what was being sold. We restrained ourselves and only purchased a couple of items. One item was a man’s shirt with hand embroidery for Rick. He never buys anything for himself so it was nice to find something that he wanted.
We met our van and driver at 3:45 pm for the trip home. I slept most of the way back.
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