artisan hats

Perfect for holding beauty supplies like cotton balls and Q-tips, small desk supplies like paper clips, or kitchen essentials like rubber bands, this lovely ceramic cylindrical decorative jar is handcrafted by Mexican artisan Topiltzin Castro in the Talavera style. On the body of the container, the artisan hand-paints a motif of diagonal rows of white teardrops interspersed with warm brown dots and alternating scallop-edged rows of avocado green horizontal pinstripes. The background is left unglazed, allowing the matte, natural ivory colour of the ceramic to show through. The same motif is on the lid, with the rows spiraling in to the centre. The rims of the container and lid, and the lid's knob, are painted a warm brown.

Working in the time-honored tradition of Talavera ceramics, Ivan Martinez creates this pretty decorative plate. The plate is crafted from ceramic and painted by hand with 'La Calavera Catrina' before receiving the final glaze.

The original "La Calavera Catrina" was a zinc etching created by the artist José Guadalupe Posada in Mexico around 1910. Posada created the character, a female skeleton with an elegant hat, as a satirical portrait of Mexican natives who aspired to European style and denied their own heritage. The catrina has since become an emblem of Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration and a popular folk art subject.

Peachy brown flowers bloom on a yellow garland with green foliage to grace this voluptuous decorative jar and lid. Isabelle Collins works in the style and technique of classic Talavera ceramics to create a colorful ginger jar. This lidded vase is known in Mexico as a tibor; it was brought to Mexico from the Orient by way of the Philippines in the late 1500s.

"We use the same techniques and styles used in 16th-century Puebla. Classic Talavera used only six colors, all of which were natural glazes compounded at home with mineral pigments. We create our homemade paintbrushes using mule hair or horsehair from the mane or tail, according to the thickness desired for our motifs," the artisan confides.

Delicate crosshatch patterns become brown floral tendrils in the style of ancient China, first used in Puebla in the mid-15th century. They adorn a curvaceous decorative jar and lid in subtle beige. Isabelle Collins works in the style and technique of classic Talavera ceramics to create a colorful ginger jar. This lidded vase is known in Mexico as a tibor; it was brought to Mexico from the Orient by way of the Philippines in the late 1500s.

"We use the same techniques and styles used in 16th-century Puebla. Classic Talavera used only six colors, all of which were natural glazes compounded at home with mineral pigments. We create our homemade paintbrushes using mule hair or horsehair from the mane or tail, according to the thickness desired for our motifs," the artisan confides.