Stalin Torres Ceramica
soulbusiness
Stalin Torres and his mother live in San Juan de Oriente, a small Village that is known for one of the finest cultural pottery in the world. Their shop is one of the best ceramic outlets in Nicaragua. Their goods end up in some of the best retailers of Nicaraguan handcrafts. They compete with poorly crafted pieces being hawked for high prices by peddlers targeting tourists. He uses the same techniques and traditional methods used by his ancestors. Clay and natural colours bake in the dark basement’s kilns as Torres demonstrates shaping clay on a foot-powered pottery wheel. In moments, he molds an elegant piece and then proceeds to explain the etching and painting process. The natural dyes are taken from a plethora of local resources, most notably the varied coloured shores of Laguna de Apoyo, a volcano crater lake fed by hot springs.
