Carlomagno Pedro Martínez and Magdalena Pedro Martínez segment

NEIGHBORS episode Carlomagno Pedro Martínez and Magdalena Pedro Martínez segment. PBS premiere Friday, September 29, 2017.

Carlomagno Pedro Martínez is a Mexican ceramic artist from San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca, Mexico, a Zapotec town famous for producing barro negro, polished black pottery. Carlomagno comes from a long line of ceramic artists and as a young child, began molding clay figures, and received formal artistic training at the Rufino Tamayo Workshop at the age of 18. Carlomagno insists on crafting work completely by hand so each piece is unique. After modeling, the piece is left to dry, then fired in a sealed underground oven, which limits the oxygen and allows the black color to develop.

His work has been featured in many catalogs and has been included in exhibitions in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe. His work has been highly praised by artist Francisco Toledo and in 2014, Mexico awarded Martínez its National Prize for Arts and Sciences in the Popular Arts and Traditions category. Today, he is also the director of MEAPO, the Museo Estatal de Arte Popular de Oaxaca in San Bartolo Coyotepec, a museum dedicated to the handcrafts of the state of Oaxaca.

Magdalena Pedro Martínez is an outstanding barro negro ceramist, in the tradition of her family in San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Trained as a medical doctor, she also devotes time to ceramics, specializing in female figures dressed in the traditional costumes of the regions of the state of Oaxaca. She views this as her particular contribution to the broader cause of preserving the culture.

The video below is in Spanish.
El siguiente video está en español.