Lots of Pots

Latin Trade, August, 1999 by Greg Brown

Behind Pomaire's laid-back facade lies Chile's bustling ceramics industry.

POMAIBE IS NOT THE SMALLEST TOWN IN CHILE, NOR IS IT THE slowest-paced. But its 5,000 residents seem hell bent on capturing the title for being the most laid back.

Bicycles on its two paved streets easily outnumber cars. The speed limit through town is 30 kph, but that seems a rocket-like pace compared with the locals ambling down its dirt paths. A small dog lies sleeping in the middle of Calle San Antonio, forcing pickup trucks and buses to rumble around him. Visitors can almost feel their blood pressure dropping the instant they step out of their cars and begin to stroll the town' s sleepy streets.

At noon, the local volunteer fire brigade cranks up a siren to give field workers the signal to take lunch. Even though it's the loudest noise for miles in any direction all day, no one looks up. Chickens squabble among themselves and the dog yawns lazily. Erom any point in town--from the life-sized statue of Jesus at the town's entrance to the plaza in the center of the two main streets--one can stand on tiptoes and see countryside stretching for kilometers until the clay-packed hills on the horizon.

"There's practically zero crime, and what little there has been over the years is usually the result of outsiders who come into town on the weekends," says Hugo Montes, a writer and Spanish teacher who has spent 33 summers in Pomaire as an escape from the urban rush of Santiago. "They [the residents] are very gentle, generous, unassuming people. It would be very difficult to get into a fight with your neighbors here."

But don't let Pomaire's congenial, relaxed feel fool you. Behind its laid-back facade is a bustling new yet traditional industry.

It's hard to sit down to a meal in a home anywhere in Chile or even in its tonier restaurants without being served something in a Pomaire pot. They're tough as nails, distribute heat wonderfully and clean up more easily than glass. No self-respecting Chilean serves paila marina, a seafood gumbo, or the stand-by cazuela (stew) in just any ordinary bowl. Classics like pastel de choclo (corn pie) are nearly impossible to cook just right without the clay's predictable heating pattern.

Working clay is an ancient art form in Chile, dating back to indigenous crafts people. In other parts of Chile, such as Quinchamali near the ski resort town of Chillan in the south and the desert Diaguitas tribe of the north, pottery is also part of the cultural landscape.

But for most Chileans, Pomaire is the very definition of pots. Jose Vargas, the 34-year-old president of the local Clay Craftsmen Guild, explains that the town gained much of its fame in 1982, when the first Chilean soap opera filmed in color used Pomaire as a backdrop. Called La Suegra (The Stepmother), the wildly successful telenovela focused on a Chilean stranded abroad who makes pottery to earn the money to get home to Pomaire. "After that, the people really poured in," Vargas says.

Ceramica Heavy Metal. Tourism is a big change for Pomaire. A new highway brings more and more weekend visitors within 1,000 yards of the town entrance, which during the week appears to be nothing more than a row of ramshackle huts and a few empty restaurants. By Saturday, it's hard to see the buildings for the pots hanging all over their facades, and the restaurants are jammed with tourists hungry for Parrillada Pomairino, barbecued meat served over coals on a clay spit, or its signature half-kilo empanadas, meat-filled pastries almost the size of your head.

Outside influences are now clearly visible. One shop goes by the name "La Suegra." Another calls itself "Ceramica Heavy Metal," its sign scrawled in chalk with the names of rock bands like Kiss and Led Zeppelin.

Vargas himself has upgraded to an electric wheel, a concession to modern times and high-demand production. Restaurateurs in the capital order by the dozen, and the tourist trade is very busy on weekends. But, for making planters and urns, he still keeps an old-fashioned foot-run wheel alongside the electric version.

"This technology hasn't really changed since the time of Christ," he says, sitting on a high bench and kicking the wooden wheel below with his right foot. An axle connects the lower wheel to a small upper plate, upon which whirls a hunk of unformed clay.

Down the street is 62-year-old Francisco Almarza, who has worked his whole life in pottery. His shop floor is heaped with black firewood ashes and broken clay. In the open yard, two big ovens work around the clock, packed full with clay bowls for curing. It takes about five hours of slowly feeding firewood into the bottom to get the oven hot enough to cure a few dozen soup bowls. Then it takes seven more hours of red-hot heat to dry the clay into an iron-hard finish. Finally, the potter has to wait until the next day to remove the cured pots because they are too hot to touch. "It has always been this way, since forever," Almarza says.

Almarza's father worked clay, as did his grandfather--as a hobby when they weren't working in the fields. The tradition for decades has been for men to work the clay and women to run the informal, dirt-floor shops on San Antonio and Roberto Bravo streets. Almarza figures he puts out 50 dozen sets of bowls per week, selling almost all of them. "On Sunday, you can hardly walk down the street here," he says. "It's just too full of people."