Master Ortélio da Silva still remembers how Loulé was a land of potters and remembers it with enthusiasm. Today it's not like that anymore, but Ortélio seemed happier than ever. The Pottery and Ceramics Workshop, inaugurated last Thursday, May 10, in the Historic Center of Loulé, wants to train new potters so that this profession does not disappear.
This is another bet of the “Loulé Criativo” project, which has already opened, in that city, the Boiler Workshop and House of the Contract, two other services with a history in the county.
First, the City Council bought the building, where the Xavier Pottery was located, and then works were carried out that completely remodeled the space.
There «the idea of creative tourism appeared and, immediately, it was thought that this could be a space to insert in that concept that has been so successful in Loulé», explained Vítor Aleixo, president of the municipality.
At the helm of the pottery workshop will be master Domingos Gonçalves, known as Xavier, who has been working for "more than 40 years". To Sul Informação, the master did not hide the desire that they appear interested in that “art”, as he nicknamed it. “God willing this to bring more people to the pottery. I have a granddaughter who wants to take this, but let's see».
The potter has worked, in the past, in that space that has now been redesigned and will have two distinct zones. In one of them, Domingos Gonçalves “Xavier”, who remained active there until the building fell into disrepair, will once again become a full-time potter, as he dreams of, molding and demonstrating how clay is worked.
In the other, part of the “Loulé Criativo” project, potters and ceramists will be welcomed during incubation periods, allowing for experimentation and its launch and consolidation in the activity.
The space will also be a resource center for a dozen professionals who work in the county, in other words, a showcase that will make it possible to publicize the offer of existing products and services and a place where training courses for future potters will take place.
The entire workshop has a modern air, which did not go unnoticed by Vítor Aleixo. «The potteries, as I knew them, were totally different, but Xavier keeps the culture, the technique with him, and he is an artist capable of teaching the next potters who come here to learn», he said.
Another person who did not hide his happiness at the opening of this pottery was master Ortélio Silva. The former potter reminded the Sul Informação that, in the 60s of the 18th century, there were XNUMX potteries in Loulé, something quite different from today's reality, where there are only two. For this reason, Ortélio did not hesitate to affirm his “great taste” for opening this workshop.
Tourists will also have another point of interest there on a visit to Loulé. This, at least, is Vítor Aleixo's conviction.
«Today tourists are looking for experiences, to know the identity of the places and peoples they visit and there is nothing better than these spaces to discover what makes us different from others», said the mayor. Not least because that is a «both cultural and memory product».
Despite being «difficult to live only from pottery», master Xavier will continue to make this art his profession. And, who knows, in a few years' time he will have the company of apprentices to whom he will teach what it is to be a potter.
“This is in fashion. Let's see», he concluded, to our newspaper.
Photos: Fabiana Saboya | Sul Informação
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