This morning began with a swim, followed by a walk to the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, a truly wonderful place. We started out with the intention to see everything, oh foolish dream. The first gallery was devoted to Dolores Porras, an extraordinary potter from this area. She began making pots at the age of 14 and worked for the next 5 decades. Her vessels are huge, decorated with fish, iguanas, mermaids, flowers, sinewy curves and geometrics. A woman who understood the power of the earth, and fire. In one note about her practice, specifically the firing of the finished pot:
The potters pray for everything to go well because they will finally see their piece “being born” as it gets transformed by fire.
I also loved the room devoted to Tomb 7 on Monte Alban, a place of great riches: the harbinger of the discovery being a large seashell, one end cut off so it could be played as a trumpet. The face of the Lord of the underworld, a skull with inlaid mosaic of turquoise. I couldn’t stop looking. And 30+ inscribed animal bones forming a codex.
There were rooms filled with pre-Columbian statues and I was reminded of Evan Connell’s beautiful novel about obsession, The Connoisseur.
And then we needed coffee.
i keep seeing the water trucks with their hoses reaching high on buildings to fill cisterns and I remember how the faucets in our hotel ran dry yesterday morning. As we left, we saw the water truck pull up to replenish, a reminder that we are in a high desert and the reason why so many of the city plantings are succulents and cactus. At the taco wagons on the streets, vendors rinse their wiping cloths in a precious half-bucket of water.
...Theresa Kishkan 