Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
My Eyes Glazed Over
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
To stave off my fatiguing loneliness. I am traipsing through Puebla, Mexico, talking to myself. When I run out of things to say, I turn to talking with shopkeepers. The world over, clerks will chat up a lonely tourist, a customer-in-the-making.
Puebla—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—doubles as a citywide advertisement for the town’s bazillion ceramic gift shops. Ceramic tiling is the public art of Puebla. Visual bling for the masses.
Tiles adorn buildings, church towers, hotel lobbies, eateries, museums and nearly everything else. Turning a street corner, I come upon a cozy plaza covered with decorative tiles. Around another corner, a ceramic mural. My eyes are dizzy-in-love with this storied art form.
Every souvenir shop flirts with me. They hold out the promise of discovery, then delight, then devotion and then—too often—disappointment. So many shiny pieces of ceramic catch my eye and then, upon a closer fingering, prove as distasteful as a wormless bottle of mezcal.
Under the white sunlight, not wearing a hat in Puebla is like sticking your head into a kiln. Every walked block feels like a dehydrating marathon. To escape cooking myself, I head to Uriarte Talavera.
Uriate is an oasis. I enter through a luxuriant garden courtyard with overhanging balconies, palm fronds, a gurgling fountain, the organic scent of greenery. Tiled urns and huge ceramic wall murals bedazzle me. A 19th-century kiln enthralls me. I feel lightheaded, my eyes unfocused.
Founded in 1824, Uriarte is the longest continuously operating factory in Mexico. It is a boast breathlessly amplified by the claim, “maybe the longest in the world.” Oddly, its longevity intensifies the thickness in my throat, the feeling I might tear up.
Uriarte makes ceramic pots, pitchers, plates, wall murals and every other imaginable bit of crockery. Designs date to the 16th century. The free factory tour, led by an artisan besotted with his job, winds its way along an ingenious assembly line intermixing efficiency with handmade piece work—a functional oxymoron.
Artisan pride dictates that, for the crime of shoddiness or outright ugliness, about a third of Uriate’s pottery is smashed to smithereens. Seconds are not for sale. Instead, the potshards, kept in large, rickety boxes outside the main showroom as if an embarrassment to the upmarket pottery, are sold in bulk by weight.
Uriarte Talavera is famous for a milky-white, lustrous glaze that brings to mind my pre-teen daughter’s still unblemished skin. I resolve to buy Brittany a souvenir piece of pottery.
As I muster my mental budget for a purchasing decision, I cuddle in my hand a pastel blue bowl. Perfect for holding coins, candy or jewelry on her dresser.
When I start to bargain for Brittany’s gift, to my red-faced mortification, I am informed that Uriate craftspeople never haggle over their market value. A self-esteem lesson.
Into the artful bowl in my cradled hands, I pour a father’s silent hope that Brittany will discover a desire to join me on a future father-daughter vacation. To pick out her own souvenirs. To reciprocate my gift with the gift of her companionship. To put an end to the lonely part of travel.
