Women's pottery in La Solana (La Mancha)

The last female pottery center included in the bibliography on Spanish pottery

Abstract

The author applied in 1997 to the research grant competition organized by the Provincial Council of Ciudad Real for the project "Ethnographic Study of Pottery in the Province of Ciudad Real." Based on the results of this study, the Library of Manchegan Authors published the book "Los Barreros. Pottery in the Province of Ciudad Real" (2001). This research had two fundamental objectives: first, to refute the hypothesis of some experts who speak of a provincial pottery shortage, and second, to fill the gap in provincial monographs that already existed in almost all Spanish provinces. Without a doubt, the most interesting of the "discovered" pottery centers in the province was La Solana, where two unique ethnographic phenomena converge: it was the last female center recorded in the literature on Spanish pottery, and its primitive clay-working technique, as the artisan wove the pieces on a work surface, using coils of clay, rotating them around the vessel she was making. Female pottery centers using this technique are virtually nonexistent in European pottery, although they are found on other continents, especially Africa. The pieces made by these women display a complete archaism, with incised and impressed decoration applied to the soft clay with their hands: with fingernails, pads, and the phalanges of their fingers. Among the products produced were jars, which the men distributed throughout the province. This center became extinct in the 1970s.