The
process of making Mexican tiles, is not an ordinary process, it takes
time, arts & skillful knowledge and a lot of patience and love for
this antique Mexican handcraft industry.
The
way we start with the process is adding three differents kinds of clays,
mix up them with their feet,
then
is left, rest and dry in the sun for a couple of days to get the necessary
texture.
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Once the clay is obteined, they mixed with their hands and feet to get
the texture and softness that is necessary to mold each tile. When is
allready mixed they have to let it rest in a dark room during 24 or 48
hours depending on the humidity. |
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Then
the artisan places a bunch of clay on top of a table, with two skinny
boards aside, and then he rolls the clay with a tube, as "tortillas
or pizzas".
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The next step is to mark the square pieces and pick them up and place
them, one in top of the other, to finally cut the pieces and place them
in a dark room for another 8 to 10 hours, Please note that at this stage
they are called "Hawetes"
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When
hawetes are already dried, they are pleced outdoors to avoid possible
humidity during 6 or 8 hours. |
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They
are placed it in a rustic oven elaborated to cook them with wood and fired
at 600ºc. during 8 to 12 hours. |
When
they are Already cooked, they get the original terracota color. The
best Hawetes are selected to be glazed by the next artist. This is the
last point where they are call them "Hawetes".
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The
decoration of the "Hawetes" starts with the glazing , this is
the mexican white color, at this point they are call azulejos or "tiles".
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When
the glaze is dry on the tile, the artist is ready to start using
a paintbrush made of squirrel or horse tail hair, And the artist starts
painting the tile pattern. |
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The
artists works over a potery weel turning the tiles arround one by one,
giving the shape to the designs.
For
generations they have done that process, and slowly they make improvements
on their designs..
Here
we can see the process from one of our tile pattern design and how they
are colored before they are cooked. |
They
place the Mexican tiles over wood board to let it dry during
one or two days more.
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Then,they
put them on a special containers called "Setters" so
tiles can support temperatures arround 1,100ºc. between 8 and 14
hours, depending on the volume keeped on the oven.
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You
can see the inside of an oven where they put the setters full of
tiles up one on top of each other, and fired again at 1100ºc. giving
to the "Mexican tile" that gorgeous shinny colors that only
the Mexican tiles has.
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When
the oven cools down, tiles are ready. They can be packaged in
perfect order in the boxes, so we can send to any place in the world. |
Here
you can see the one of our tile tiles combinated with a solid
Mexican white sink already finished and installed, giving to the "Mexican
tile" that gorgeous shinny colors that only the Mexican tiles has.
If
you want to see more tile decoration, go to
showroom
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