Heiress to the indigenous Guane people who inhabit these lands, and daughter of potter Ana Felisa Alchichire Porras, Bernardita Ortiz knows she is the continuation of a blood legacy. She says that her mother was famous for her pottery, but this did not mean she had an easy life. Neither of them did. They both started working when they were seven years old. From then on, they had to forge their paths between molding clay and raising children.

She vividly remembers how, at dawn, mother and children used to go down a steep rocky slope carrying chorotes (pots) filled with mud on their backs. They had to get to Barichara’s marketplace to sell pots and tejos—flat clay pots used to toast arepas. They never missed Sunday mass either.

Bernardita got married at 17 so she could stop working as much. She then started crafting fique sacks, but soon realized that she did not like this new trade. Thus, she ended up running away to her mother’s house to help her with whatever she needed. Even though she had seen her mother make her tejos a thousand times, it was not until then that she asked her mother to teach her the secrets of clay. Ana Felisa refused at first because she did not want to condemn her daughter to a life of sacrifice. Bernardita’s desire to learn, however, convinced her. She saw the frustration on her daughter’s face when her pots cracked: she did not yet have the patience she would later learn to value so much.

As a result, she taught her to observe and understand the immense heat of the fire that cooks the pots under the sun. She told her that it is important to talk to it so that it aligns with the wind and cooks the pots properly. She enjoys having people visit her home, which is in the village of Guanentá, half an hour away from Barichara. She shows her visitors the magic that is the transformation of matter. It is nice to hear her talk about yellow, white, or purple clays with affection, to hear her describing them as “chewy.” It is pleasant to see how an immense handmade pot is born through “scratching, scraping, and smoothing,” without any pottery wheel. She knows that her mother used to put a stamp of identity on her pots, a mark left by her fingernail, but Bernardita decided not to do it on her pots. Even so, they are unmistakable.