Entre o barro e a mão: técnicas e processos criativos no artesanato de barro em Capela - AL

Abstract

This study aimed at recording, mapping and analyzing the ways of making clay pieces from the Mestre (Master)* João das Alagoas atelier in the city of Capela (AL). The work spaces, the instruments used, the techniques of extraction, modeling, guarding and burning of the pieces, and the creative processes derived from the techniques used were considered in the survey. Relying theoretically on Richard Sennet's concepts of "craft skill" and "smart hand", "imitative imitation" of Marcel Mauss, culture as a metamorphic and self-replicating invention of Roy Wagner and the debate proposed by Tim Ingold that considers materiality of objects in the relationship between hand and tool. It was methodologically structured in the observation, in field diaries, in interviews and, in particular, and especially in the use of photographs inspired by the work of Gregory Bateson and Margareth Mead. Problems were: the techniques used and the relationship between craftsman and work material - clay. Ends by emphasizing how the ways of doing it are vital to understand the dynamics of production, transmission, representation and commercialization that the figurative clay crafts, with status of art, assume in the region and in the culture of the city and the State.