My Favorite Place in the World

el lago de coatepeque

We've been visiting my wife's family in El Salvador during spring break. Haven't been in about 3 years and I'm wondering what took us so long to get back here. A trip wouldn't be complete without a visit to my absolute favorite place in the world. El Lago de Coatepeque. Actually, we were on an island in the middle of the lake...does it get any better than that?

Back to Austin, my studio and reality shortly. Pero, para mientras, vamos a tomar un poquito mas.

Copan

I found some old pictures of our trip to Copan, Honduras from 2004. I had mentioned it in a post a long time ago. The museum store is where I got the two pieces that have inspired much of my recent work.  It was a motorcycle trip from San Salvador across 3 borders and finally Copan.  I wasn't riding myself at that point so I had to, with much humility, ride on the back of my father-in-law's bike.

Here's the crew that took the trip in front of the temple.
Here's an inside wall...it was actually hard to tell what was original and what was a reproduction....a lot of the most valuable pieces reside in Boston at the Peabody Museum at Harvard.  That museum, by the way, is a definite must-see if you're in town. 

Slip

I posted pictures of the first couple of pots earlier.  They aren't the same without the black slip. 

Here's a small oval vase that I went circle crazy on.  I think it should look nice under a celadon. My in-laws have these great paintings from El Salvador(I think) that I always think of when I start incising this decoration.  I'm assuming one day some color will emerge from within the circles but for now it's going to be incised black slip under a celadon.

I hope I have enough celadon mixed up for when I start glazing...I think that I'll be using a lot of it in my upcoming firing.