Harbor of Port D’Andratx Live Cam

The versatile use of wood as a raw material becomes obvious in view of the variety with which it is used in Spain and which is responsible for the survival of unique crafts.

Image making, of the religious kind or not, comes first, ie, figures carved out of wood and then painted in many colours, if required. In this sense, Santiago de Compostela (Coruña) and Pozoblanco (Córdoba) are the most interesting production centres.

Another craft with a long tradition in Spain is that of making barrels and vats of oak wood, an activity closely connected with local wine making, since the products are used to store and mature the wine. Consequently, the craft is found widely in the country, especially in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), Jumilla (Murcia), Montilla (Córdoba), Noblejas (Toledo), Tárrega (Lleida), Borja (Zaragoza), Mondoñedo (Lugo) and Monóvar (Alicante). Today smaller casks for domestic use are made because the vats for the wineries and industrial bottling of the wine are made of cement.

All along the coast of Galicia (Bueu, Vigo, Portonovo, Moaña, Foz, Ribadeo, Coruña, etc.) and of Asturias (Luanco, Barres, Oviedo), there are workshops of the so-called shore carpentry, ie, building small wooden boats, despite fierce competition from the large shipyards. Mallorca is the main centre in the Mediterranean Sea.

It is rare to find a province which still has a workshop making carts or other similar items for road transport, but it is easier to come across places where wooden farm tools are still made (yokes, forks, rakes, etc.), especially in Galicia and the Cantabrian region.

In the humid part of Spain clogs (called zuecos, almadreñas) are still commonly used on the farms. They are made of a solid block of wood which is shaped into a shoe by carving and hollowing out the piece of wood.

The provinces where clogs are still produced are Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Navarra. Wooden objects of different kinds (cutlery, plates, bits, mortars, etc.) are made in La Estrada (Pontevedra), San Hilario de Sacalm and Las Planas (Girona) and Manacor (Mallorca). Segorbe (CasteIIón) still produces its traditional walking sticks and Valencia its pipes for smoking.

Pottery

Pottery is the craft which uses clay as long as the object has only received its first, or biscuit, firing in the kiln.

It is well known that there is a great variety of Spanish pottery, depending on the different clays, the techniques, decorative motifs and characteristic forms of every region. In the Canary Islands, for example (at Chipude on La Gomera Island), no lathe is used and the clay is moulded exclusively by hand. Something similar happens in the case of Colmenar de Oreja (Madrid), but that is because of the large size of the earthen vats.

In Moveros and Pereruela (Zamora) and in Villarrobledo (Albacete), the lathe is hand-driven by the craftsman, while the foot-driven one is more generally used everywhere else. Recently the electric lathe has come into use, but that does not at all change the craftman's work at the lathe.

The kilns used for firing tend to be of the type known as "Arab kiln" and are fired with local wood.

The lathe is usually worked by men, while the decoration of the objects is done by women before firing. However, in the workshops where the foot-driven lathe is not used women shape the clay, while the men are in charge of preparing it as well as the kiln for firing.

The pottery centres of special interest in Spain are:

Andalucía: Albox and Sorbas (Almería), Andújar, Bailén and Ubeda (Jaén). Lucena and La Rambla (Córdoba), Cortegana and Aracena (Huelva), Guadix and Purullena (Granada), Lebrija (Sevilla).

Asturias: Llamas de Mouro and Faro.

Aragón: Naval (Huesca).

Islas Baleares: Portol and Inca (Palma de Mallorca).

Islas Canarias: Chipude (Gomera), La Atalaya (Gran Canaria).

Castilla-La Mancha: Cuerva and Ocaña (Toledo). Priego (Cuenca).

Castilla y León: Jiménez de Jámuz (León), Moveros and Pereruela (Zamora), Alba de Tormes (Salamanca), Arrabal del Portillo (Valladolid), Tajueco (Soria).

Extremadura: Fregenal de la Sierra and Salvatierra de los Barros (Badajoz), Arroyo de la Luz (Cáceres).

Galicia: Buño (Coruña). Niñodaguia (Orense).

Madrid: Colmenar de Oreja and Camporreal.

Murcia: Totana.

Rioja: Navarrete (La Rioja).

Comunidad Valenciana: Agost (Alicante). Segorbe (Castellón).

Cataluña: La Bisbal and Quart (Girona). Miravet (Tarragona).

Ceramics

Popular Spanish ceramics are in general also made with the help of a lathe and then tin glazed before the first, or biscuit, firing in the kiln, which turns the object white and opaque. To this as the background, the decoration is added using the motifs and colours of the particular area and different oxides. Then the second firing takes place at a lower temperature for the oxides to crystallize.

The origin of the techniques, colours and patterns or motifs of Spanish ceramics today are largely to be found in the centuries of Muslim rule. The later contact with Italian, French and the European culture in general also left its mark. Especially noteworthy, however, are the techniques known as golden or metallic reflection and cuerda seca (juxtaposed varnish separated by a line of manganese or fat to prevent mixing; a decoration technique of Arab legacy).

Traditionally the Arab kiln was used, but today gas and electricity kilns are more common. The production process has also been mechanized progressively to the point that sometimes the pot is made in a mould and only the final decoration is hand-made. It should also be emphasized that the traditional characteristics of every region have slowly been lost or changed which is why today's production does not conform to the specific features through which they became famous. The production of objects is very varied: crockery, amphorae, jars, dishes, oil containers, chemist's jars, wine tasters, bowls, earthenware bowls, fonts, ewers, vases, etc. The main traditional centres of such popular ceramics are:

Talavera de la Reina and Puente del Arzobispo in Toledo: the decoration is traditionally dominated by blue and green; Italian influence.

Manises (Valencia): the main colours are blue, yellow and olive green, dating from the times of the Moriscos(ie, baptized Moors) in the 15C. The same as in Triana (Seville), metallic reflection on a golden or dark-ochre background is still used.

Toledo, Seville, Granada and Ubeda (Jaén) still use the "cuerda seca" technique (see above).

The colours of Teruel are deep green and purple with Mudéjar decoration similar to the traditional ceramics from Paterna (Valencia).

Muel (Zaragoza) -recovered only a few years ago- basically uses blue.

La Bisbal (Girona) has a much-sought-after production of crockery, the dominating colours being green, yellow and brown.

Granada produces blue and sometimes green ceramics of clearly Muslim origin; profusely decorated with flowers, a Granada tradition.

Andújar (Jaén) uses almost exclusively cobalt blue in the decoration of grotesque jars and traditional whistles.