13 The Spirit behind Talavera de la Reyna

Angélica Moreno’s Pottery

Rajagopal, Roberto Solano, Felipe Burgos, and Lilia Gamboa

Figure 13.1 Talavera de la Reyna Logo

In the early 1990s, Angélica Moreno, an elegant and action-oriented woman hailing from a family of average socioeconomic background in Puebla,¹ became one of the few businesswomen in this traditional and beautiful city in south central Mexico. Angélica always had a strong inclination towards art and aesthetics. She liked earthenware because it appealed to her sense of aesthetics and fueled her artistic passion. Pottery making is one of the oldest and most widespread of human activities, with a history that can be traced back to the Stone Age. Stylistic and technical changes over time reveal a great deal about the societies in which the pottery was made, so that clay vessels serve as essential cultural and dating indicators, as well as objects of individual skill and creativity.²

Angélica conceived the idea of developing an enterprise that established a milestone in the region for art lovers and also nurtured her entrepreneurial instinct. She opened a small pottery workshop in her hometown. She called it “Talavera de la Reyna,” which later became an enterprise and commercial brand name for the products manufactured therein. Angélica had been inspired by a history book from which she learned that Talavera de la Reina is a city and municipality in the province of Toledo in western Spain, internationally known for its ceramics, which King Philip II used as tiled revetments in many of his projects, such as the monastery of El Escorial.³ Angélica’s plan was to combine the tradition of Spanish pottery with the aesthetic values of Puebla, a blend that may be termed Talavera Poblana—a fully hand-made ceramic craft. She took the pertinent step of developing pottery using an organic and eco-safe manufacturing process.

Puebla was not new to pottery making. In 1565, when trade opened with Asia, Spain began importing Chinese porcelain in large quantities, and by the mid-seventeenth century Puebla ceramists had succumbed to the fashion for Chinese blue-on-white porcelain. Around the time of Mexican independence in the early nineteenth century, the Talavera Poblana ceramic tradition experienced a decline that lasted until the early twentieth century.⁴ Angélica’s Talavera de la Reyna ceramics are tin-glazed earthenware that incorporate elements of foreign porcelain products from the seventeenth century to the present day. “When I founded Talavera de la Reyna, my goal was to produce the best ceramics in the state of Puebla,” recalls Angélica:

Angélica rose to prominence as a handicrafts business icon in Puebla by sheer dint of her commitment to her goals, innovative skills, and her effective management style that drove her organization towards great success. She became known for espousing a set of humanistic values that were an extension of her kind and people-oriented leadership. She achieved her goal of turning Talavera de la Reyna into the most successful workshop established in her hometown, with some forty employees. Besides recalling the memory of the Spanish town that gave it a centuries-old tradition of ceramic production, Talavera de la Reyna is now a name recognized for its prestige in Mexico and abroad. Angélica believes that the art of Talavera Poblana is not only entrenched in the eyes of the public but also represents an important art movement among Mexican artists. Art is always changing and Talavera de la Reyna strives to achieve its craftsmanship by blending tradition and modernity and by a bridging dialogue between contemporary artists and local artisans.⁵

As part of Angélica’s way of blending business, art, and socially responsible activities, she established a Talavera showroom called ALARCA, in order to give people the privilege of appreciating the traditional Talavera pottery as well as enjoying the unique collection of masterpieces of contemporary artists. This is a one-of-a-kind showroom in Latin America.

Starting a Business in Mexico

Traditionally, most Mexican women entrepreneurs get their start as part of a family business, and only in a few cases do women purchase, inherit or acquire the business as a gift. Culturally, it is evident that women entrepreneurs receive maximum support from their families for initiating and further managing their business. Thus, husbands or boyfriends constitute an important support role for women, while parents rank second followed by other family members and friends. Women in Mexico take the initiative to start their own enterprises for various reasons, which include a search for independence by owning a business, a need to improve their societal values and life style, a keen interest in the particular line of business, the fact that it was a family business, factors linked to need and the loss of employment, and the search for personal achievement.⁶

Besides personality factors conducive to taking initiatives, women in Mexico are also deeply concerned about economic empowerment in their lives. This is one of the major concerns in households headed by women. Since their position as women and heads of families places them in a vulnerable situation, they must combine activities to obtain income not only for uplifting the family values but also to support the raising of children. A survey⁷ conducted in 2004 revealed that the status of typical female occupations in Mexico includes salespersons and shop assistants (20.3 percent), artisans and workers (14.8 percent), office workers (12.7 percent), domestic workers outside their homes (11.7 percent), and employees in services (9.2 percent). Some of the push factors compelling women to become entrepreneurs are poverty and the need to provide financial support to the family, while the pull factors include self-determination, desire for wealth, and self-fulfillment. However, some entrepreneurial motivations cross over income boundaries. Generally, women are most frequently motivated to become entrepreneurs by opportunity; however, necessity in entrepreneur ship is a larger motivator for women in middle-income family segments in Mexico. The difficulties faced by women revolve around funding and family support. Despite a woman’s level of education, corporate experience, and technical expertise, various business functionaries in areas like production, marketing, and logistics show lingering concerns about women’s commitment to their enterprises, leadership of high growth businesses, and ability to garner crucial resources.⁸ “When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice,” Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, once said. “You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”

Intrinsic Factors in Launching a Venture

Angélica Moreno was no exception to the familiar social and economic hardships faced by women entrepreneurs everywhere. Taking care of her family has been at least as difficult as dealing with her venture. For Angélica, her two children and husband have always taken priority over the demands of the business. She remembers the early days of working on pottery designs, setting up the workshop, and attending to small trade inquiries. Simultaneously, she was facing an uphill battle over clothing her children for school and helping them with school assignments and needs. However, friends stood by her throughout the adversities and encouraged her to move forward with her business and family objectives. Angélica received very valuable personal, family and professional assistance. Support rendered by loyal friends, colleagues, and craftsmen who believed in her goals and working philosophy had positively driven her efforts to shape the business culture and future of the enterprise.

Marriage and family were always the derived plans for Angélica. She was married several years after her workshop was established. With a growing family, combining work with her personal life was easier said than done. She had to play the quadruple role of wife, mother, friend and entrepreneur.⁹ Initially, her professional work had isolated her and kept her from expanding her circle of friends and limited her involvement in parental activities at her children’s school. “Though my grandparents had little resources, they helped me in taking a bold step to craft my dream,” she recalls:

The difficult dynamics faced by women entrepreneurs like Angélica can be summarized by the “LIFE” factors of liberty, intelligence, fraternity and equity.¹⁰ Women entrepreneurs require persistence, awareness of personal progress, and a careful analysis of the obstacles that lie ahead. Pressures from intensive parenting and increasing professional roles leave women entrepreneurs with little time to socialize with colleagues in order to build professional networks and accumulate the social capital that is essential to women entrepreneurs who want to get ahead.¹¹

Angélica constructed a sense of fraternity and equity in her business as she moved significantly ahead in her career path. People who work with Angélica have always been loyal to her as they are true believers of her philosophy of life and work. She has also been successful in developing and retaining good employees at Talavera de la Reyna. Nineteen years after being established, Talavera de la Reyna is known as one of the best, most innovative and high-quality places to work in Puebla, which has given Angélica the highest social equity ever dreamt.

Extrinsic Factors

Angélica worked mostly alone during the initial 3 years of manufacturing pottery. Only on weekends did she have some help in painting some of the pieces. Under these circumstances there were only few family resources to support her professional growth. During these initial years she learned the basics of manufacturing pottery on a trial-and-error basis. Eventually, she started producing pieces of the expected quality and managed to get a small business loan.

The growth of Talavera de la Reyna was also influenced by other external factors which were sometimes beyond Angélica’s control. As with many small and medium size enterprises, it was difficult to get financial assistance from govern ment programs. Women face problems in starting and running a company that involves family funding and support. It is difficult for women to benefit from govern ment funded programs because they need to acquire sophisticated knowledge and skills to deal with govern ment bureaucracy. The knowledge and skills necessary for obtaining govern ment financial support are very different from those normal everyday ones used in the family business.¹²

Angélica’s tenacity paid off when she received govern ment recognition and certification for Talavera craft. When the govern ment issued an Official Mexican Norm that established the manufacturing procedures and characteristics that a product must fulfill, Talavera earthenware obtained the NOM-132-SCFI-1998; TALAVERA Official Mexican Norm, which protects its fabrication under the following criteria:

• Workshop located and clay obtained from the predetermined region
• Individual fabrication and articles to be painted by hand
• Diffused colors to be used
• The base glaze should be neither completely white nor transparent
• Talavera products may be relatively heavier than other ceramics
• Rigid and very hard constitution of craft articles
• Great resistance to wear and fading
• Total compliance with industrial regulations regarding the lead content in glazed ceramics.

Talavera de la Reyna obtained the certificate of authenticity with the code DO4–002 in 1998, and is one of only seven workshops that have been certified, and the only one that has achieved renewed certification continuously over time.

The Talavera Workshop and Its Products

Starting a business is difficult but Angélica made it even more difficult. She was determined to not only open a new business but also a business that was to design, manufacture and sell art made following ancient principles and procedures. She intended to make the best pottery in the state of Puebla and realized the need to reposition the value of the ancestral ceramics tradition. She engaged contemporary artists and invited them to work together and bring out the most beautiful expressions of Mexican aesthetic craft. On September 8, 1990 she formally opened the workshop on the site where it stands today. Since the very beginning, the artisans intended to go further than anything that had been done in Talavera Poblana before, proposing new designs based on the replication of details applied in antique pieces. The workshop of Talavera de la Reyna speaks to ancestral traditions, languages, and cultures and contributes to the dynamics of the contemporary art without losing the original values. Simplicity was preferred over visual saturation, a historical characteristic of this craft. Starting from this idea, the artisans working with Angélica Moreno created new exclusive designs for the workshop which are termed as Casa Vieja, Las Américas, Mandarín and Células. Other colors, yellow for example, were used instead of the traditional blue in the feather (plumeado) design. All these changes were implemented in order to offer something different and contemporary for its simplicity. The innovation was the proposal, not the decorative motifs themselves.

Angélica likes to say that art is always changing. The goal at her workshop remains to harmoniously blend traditional with modern art and make the workshop and the Talavera art gallery a collection of contemporary art and design. She began only with three employees, a thrower (tornero), a glazer (esmaltador) and a painter (pintor). Angélica’s workshop was one of the original ten in the region that founded the Consejo Regulador de Talavera, an accredited organization designed to support the work of artists working in the traditional mayólica¹³ technique producing high-quality traditional ceramics.

Talavera de la Reyna pottery is unique in that it is totally ecologically sustainable. “In making the best pottery, we use the traditional manufacturing system, careful selection of clay that is kneaded with the feet, manually shaping the clay, glazing and then decorating the pieces with organic colors prepared in the workshop distinguishes our products,” Angélica explains. “Ours is one of the few workshops that follow the same steps of our ancestors in the production of Talavera without polluting the environment.”

Figure 13.2 Talavera de la Reyna Pottery

Source: Lilia Gamboa, August 2009.

Since 1993, Angélica has invited artists to work with the artisans in her workshop to create new designs using the Talavera materials and process. She carefully explained that the remaking of the traditional glazed pottery from Puebla is not illegal copying because the workshop has the appellation of origin established by Norma Oficial Mexicana (DO4), which further envisaged legal security in 1997 on selling Talavera products to the buyer.¹⁴ However, the initial 3 years were learning days in which to develop the innovative pottery manufacturing ideas for Angélica. During these years experiments were carried out with the quality of clay and raw materials to be used for colors. A special kiln had to be constructed for firing the products at a very high temperature. Six major colors—black, red, blue, green, yellow and brown—were also developed using high quality materials.

Talavera pottery is made with three kinds of clay which are mixed, strained and kneaded, then sent to the workshop. Each item is hand modeled and left to dry for 8–12 weeks. Once dry, the items are baked for about 8 hours at 1562°F (850°C). This process turns the grayish color of the clay into its traditional yellowish hue. In the next step each and every items is hand-dipped in a tin and lead mixture known as the traditional glaze. This glaze grants the Talavera pottery its traditional off-white background. After each coated piece is checked to ensure that the glaze is even and complete, the decorating stage begins. The stencil designs are sketched with charcoal powder as preparation for the painting stage. At this stage each item is hand-painted with natural mineral-based colors applied with mule hair brushes. Finally the pottery is fired once again, this time at 1922°F (1050°C), to reveal wonderful colors.¹⁵

Much time and effort was devoted in the early days to learn about painting Talavera products and also identifying efficient painters. The pottery is painted by hand using the six traditional mineral pigments to develop combinations of tones of blue, orange and purple. The pigments are made at the workshop following long-established formulas. The original Moorish technique was brought to Puebla by sixteenth-century Dominican monks from Talavera de la Reina in Spain, but seventeenth-century Italians introduced new colors, namely yellow, green and black, and Chinese imports inspired new designs depicting animals or floral scenes.

Workshop activities suffered during these early years because of the time devoted to learning the process of manufacturing high-quality ceramic products of various dimensions with cost effective propositions. Some of the major problems faced in building the workshop were location, land, installations for firing and clay mixing, and buying hand tools. Since financial support was not sufficient at first to build a fully equipped workshop, production capacity has been a sensitive issue throughout the story of Talavera de la Reyna in Puebla. Today, production is at one third of the workshop’s potential capacity as estimated by Angélica.

Angélica and her team recognize that even though the business is going well, there is a tremendous need to update and enrich training and development activity for all workers, especially those with managerial responsibilities.

Driving Market Response and Business Growth

Managing people in organization and production is much easier than marketing the Talavera products in Puebla. There are hardly any organized outlets supported by public or private organizations. Most customers are buyers who informally hear about Talavera and its art products, and have the resources to travel to Puebla to purchase them. There is no brand promotion or publicity given to Talavera crafts because of limited financial resources and lack of marketing knowledge. The only way this craft is getting noticed among people in the region and Mexico in general is by word of mouth. Indeed, hearsay has become an increasingly potent force, capable of catapulting products from obscurity into runaway commercial successes.¹⁶ Currently, the Talavera de la Reyna workshop is frequently visited by tourists. This has been generally good for the company, but insufficient, as the city of Puebla is not one of Mexico’s top tourist attractions.

Angélica Moreno’s Talavera de la Reyna is a place of art where ideas evolve and are aesthetically developed. However, it lacks the necessary business processes to further develop and grow. There is no set production schedule, no well-defined product line, no system to track raw materials, and no catalogue of products to promote in the marketplace. Consequently sales are low. In a more positive vein, the Mexican Ministry of Culture, in association with the National Council of Arts and Culture (Conaculta) has published a catalogue—Alarca 54 Artistas Contemporáneos—featuring the works of fifty-four contemporary artists, including Angélica, which serves both as a historical document with various images of artworks, and as a kind of commercial list for buyers.¹⁷

As of 2009 sales of Talavera products greatly depended on walk-in customers who had learned about the workshop informally. Often it is difficult to explain to buyers that Talavera ceramics are worth the relatively high prices, especially in the case of the fancier patterns and larger pieces which take many hours of artisans’ work and are unique as no two items are exactly the same.

Angélica feels the need to have a sales force to promote the Talavera Poblana products, and is engaged in lobbying activity with other Puebla ceramics producers to persuade the govern ment to help, with some limited success. For example, Talavera ceramic designs and private collections were exhibited in China in 2005, which boosted the image of Angélica’s products and helped motivate the artisans. This recognition helped in promoting exports of Talavera products to some extent. It is estimated that about 20 or 30 percent of the production at Talavera de la Reyna is exported to the United States, Canada and eventually Europe, to be sold at artisan craft stores. Exports began with a local trader who worked at the Amparo Museum, one of the most visited attractions in Puebla.¹⁹

Economic downturns have had a large impact on Angélica’s business. Talavera de la Reyna flourished from 1992 to 1994 but declined steeply in 1995 as the Mexican economy went into recession. The global financial and economic crisis of 2008 also affected sales negatively. Nowadays, the income generated from the venture is just enough to meet the working capital requirements, barely turning out a profit.

Looking Ahead

Angélica Moreno’s entrepreneurial life goes on with new challenges. She made her dream a reality and became a Talavera producer, turning her venture into a respectable business. Entrepreneurial growth is a process and innovation gets rediscovered as a growth enabler at every stage of develop ment of an enterprise.²⁰ A strong commitment to goals and the sincerity of work has worked wonders for Angélica and her team. She is considering diversifying her art products from manufacturing historical replicas of Talavera ceramics to mass production of tiles. There is in Mexico a rapidly-growing market for Talavera-style tiles. Besides diversifying the product line, Angélica is pondering opening a 12,000-square meter showroom in a commercial street two blocks from Puebla’s cathedral and main square. Though the initial cost of this proposal would weigh heavily on the venture, it would most likely make a huge difference in terms of sales.