by Julia

Last Wednesday, with a goal of learning more about our new community of Urubamba and its culture, 5 of us set off to a pottery class about 10 minutes away in Yucay on the public bus. Our teacher Marisabel picked us up from the main square and we immediately started chatting about everything from art to the beautiful view of the mountains from the bus stop. It was so fun to be able to practice our Spanish while also just being able to learn how to listen to the story of Marisabel. She has been doing art for longer than she can remember, always intersecting her love for ceramics, with her academics in anthropology and her passion for teaching- saying her favorite students were always the young ones who just loved to play with the colors.
When we arrived at her studio we immediately could feel how much she loved teaching. She was so prepared with all these activities, letting some of us paint pre-made llama and bull sculptures while Ana and I tried our hands on the large pottery kick wheel. While we had previous experience doing ceramics, most of our knowledge flew out the window when it came to this kick wheel. Marisabel taught us that this wheel required a lot of focus and care because it moved much slower than any electric wheel but still had the requisites to make a perfect dish.
Between the struggles of trying to make pottery, we got to slowly learn more and more about our instructor and her life filled with art, colors and love. Her studio is attached to her house which shares the same property as her nephew and his wife. Hew nephew even came down and we had the privilege to chat with him and even get a bit of help on the wheel. Then while Tammy, Shelley and Janessa were painting ceramics they learned more about Marisabel’s past and how she got to Urubamba. She was originally born in Lima, always proud of being Peruvian through and through but says she is happy that she got to settle in a small town because the city of Lima was too chaotic for her lifestyle. Before she ended up settling in Yucay, she went to Italy to connect with her Italian heritage and learn more about all the subjects she cared about. She spent many years crafting and implementing history and anthropology in her life and said to her they have become interchangeable.
While we learned about this, Ana and I took inspiration as we built and carved our newly made dishes. Using Marisabel’s love for nature as inspiration, I centered my dish on mother earth or what they call it in Peru- Pacha Mama. I tried to capture the spirit of nature through the sun,moon, trees and even a depiction of what Marisabel said was the original Apu, the mountains surrounding the glacier Chicong. Ana, too, carved natural elements into her terracotta pot and everyone who did painting used memories of adventures in Urubamba as inspiration for their llama, bird and cups.
In the end, we all left Marisabel’s studio all smiles and feeling 10 times more artistic then when we came in. Marisabel taught us that ceramics come with stress but you can turn that stress into passion and fun and that there are no rules to one’s imagination. While we learned a lot about Marisabel, we honestly spent a lot of the time just telling our instructor about our lives because she cared so much about all of our personal stories. It felt so good having someone who not only cared about her craft but also cared so much about those who she taught. We have big plans to go back to Marisabel’s studio and bring our whole group so they can experience the fun experience of ceramics with Marisabel.