The Guadalajara Reporter

Innovative Jalisco ceramicists emerged as the Latin American cultural ‘boom’ exploded, putting Tlaquepaque and Tonala on world’s aesthetic map

When internationally recognized Jalisco ceramicist Jorge Wilmot Mason talked of the halcyon stretch he and others in Mexico shared — the 1950-1960 era of surging creativity — he termed those days “another world.” It was an era when Octavio Paz stunned Mexican society and attracted international acclaim with his analysis of Mexican character, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” when Carlos Fuentes did the same with his novel “The Death of Artemio Cruz.” Mexican culture in all its forms seemed to catch the world’s eye.

Wilmot, who died January 12, was part of that cultural surge. He was born, 1928, in Monterrey, to a well-to-do family. In the early 1950s, he attended the School of Plastic Arts at the ancient and prestigious Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He chafed under the classical pedagogy of San Carlos, and by 1953 was in Europe, studying at the Instituto Franco-Italiano in Paris. From there he went to Basel, Switzerland, for further training. In 1957, he was working for ceramic companies in Monterrey that tended to be interested in adopting his innovative designs and techniques, but not in promoting him. In the early 1960s, he was in Jalisco, exploring Tonala, a suburb of Guadalajara known from pre-Hispanic times for its vast fields of clay that was ideal for making low-fired ceramic utensils: comals, jugs, plates, bowls, cups, storage receptacles, etc.

Another innovative ceramicist, Ken Edwards, from Kansas City, Missouri, had recently arrived in Tonala, and the two briefly became partners. Both were drawn by the centrality of pottery making in Mexico’s long history. But it had become apparent that both the practicality and the artistry of Mexican clayware had become stalled in a repetition of past utilitarian and ornamental design. Even local aficionados complained that claywork had no particular vision, with most potters merely repeating what their grandfathers had taught them. In particular, there seemed no impulse to adopt ways to make their product more durable. No one was producing (longer-lasting) high-fired ware. Wilmot and Edwards sought to change that while incorporating traditional artistry.

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