Today’s A Journey through Aesthetic Realms will be presented in Spanish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Hallo precious viewers! Welcome to A Journey through Aesthetic Realms on Supreme Master Television. Our show today will take you to the friendly land of Paraguay to visit Pottery Ñasaindy, a traditional family pottery shop. Situated in central South America, the Republic of Paraguay is home to 6.3 million citizens. Paraguayans keep many age-old handicraft traditions, the most famous being embroidery, straw hat making, and pottery. Let’s now join our Supreme Master Television correspondent in the city of Itá, for an introduction to the nation’s marvelous pottery heritage.

Today we are in Itá, a Paraguayan city in the Central department, situated 37 kilometers from Asunción. Its name means "stone" in the gentle Guarani language, and is also known as the “capital of pottery.” Mr. Rubén Darío Ovelar operates a family-owned pottery shop in Itá, and is a seasoned potter.

Mr. Rubén, hallo, how are you?

Very well.

How did you start in this kind of craftwork?

For some time back my family had already been carrying out this work and I joined in at 15 years old or so.

I started out of sheer curiosity, although I must admit that my grandparents already knew about this job. I started about 11 years ago, so I went on preparing myself in some places and institutes.

Pottery Ñasaindy was started by Mr. Darío Ovelar’s parents to support the family. The skills associated with this proud tradition are passed down from generation to generation.

We are all very involved in this as you can see, all my brothers have been painters for a while now in this too.

Entering the outdoor exhibit area, one is immediately drawn to the large collection of amazing artwork. From large vessels to small vases; from colorful kettles to simple flowerpots, every piece is unique and natural. Alongside beautiful pots of various shapes and sizes, there is a menagerie of happy animal figures, with different facial expressions and body postures.

Well here we now come to the place where we exhibit all the handmade products we make with all our effort and the beautiful things we produce with our creativity. We have small animal decorations for gardens, planters, and even plants. Looking at the adorable pieces one after another, you may wonder how these works of art are created.

More or less how long does it take you to finish a piece of work?

It would depend on what type of work, what is wanted, what art. If it is a flowerpot for example, it is usually in three days. If it is sunny and we have good weather, in three days everything would be baked and ready and it depends on the quantity also.

Size also depends a lot on that, right?

Yes, it depends a lot.

The mostly manual crafting process starts from blending the clay material.

For the production of pottery, one needs kaolin which is this material, and it is mixed with black clay.

Kaolin is a type of fine clay which is extracted when you dig approximately three to four meters into the ground.

This one is black clay which we use, which we mix with the kaolin. It is an indispensable material which during the baking period inside the kiln, provides greater resistance to the fire.

And it is extracted from approximately one meter into the ground.

Well, here is where the process begins, when we mix the clay in this machine.

Inside here we put all the materials and this machine does the work of mixing it.

The mixing takes approximately 15 minutes, more or less.

We turn the machine off for 15 minutes and we wait for about five to 10 minutes for the accumulated sand to deposit on the bottom and then we proceed to the decantation which takes place in the other basin.

From the machine here, it goes to the step of decantation, where we separate out all the impurities from the clay, and from here, we extract the clay which is already waiting, all mixed and we leave it in this drying area.

Although most impurities are taken out during the process, a thorough kneading by hand is necessary to further ready the clay.

All the impure things it contains, small rocks which were not sifted out over there and we get to working it slowly like this. You have to take all the air out also because you need a lot of balance there.

Here we find a piece of brick which came from the drying shed.

I’m working it and making it finer.

There it is, it is ready.

When we come back, we will see how Rubén Darío Ovelar shapes the clay into pottery. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

He’s giving it a little more refinement so that it can be a thin and light piece. He´s finishing it there as you can see. And after this, it is dried and it´s ready to be baked and to be taken directly to the oven.

Welcome back to A Journey through Aesthetic Realms on Supreme Master Television. Let’s now rejoin the talented Mr. Rubén Darío Ovelar of Pottery Ñasaindy in the city of Itá, Paraguay who is demonstrating for us the process of creating traditional Paraguayan pottery.

To work with the potter’s wheel, there are nine steps to the technique, nine processes, more or less.

Here we start with centering. This is most important (step) to be able to do anything; if you don’t center it, you cannot do anything.

Here it already depends on creativity and one’s imagination - here you can do whatever you wish, whatever comes to mind.

Centering is done for drainage, the inner base. It got a little bit off-center.

There, now I’m centering it again.

As the wheel turns, the clay gradually morphs into the shape of a beautiful pot under the magical touch of Mr. Darío Ovelar.

This is the third part. We keep on pulling it upwards and here we prepare it for the brim. This is a metal sheet, with this you give it the form and the finish. We refine the finish with this and the product comes out completely finished. Nice!

Well, the fabrication process is now finished for this.

And then we proceed to remove the finished object which we do only with our hands, like this, and we put it over here.

The finished objects are first left drying in the shade and then under the sun for one day. Before going to the kiln, they are cropped and polished.

Then we do a finishing, a polishing, for the product to look more refined.

Finishing would be to cut out the remaining parts or the flaws, in this way with a knife or any other metallic object, and then we proceed to the glazing. This way, like this.

In this way, you can see that the product is left more refined.

This is a dry finished product, which would be the last part where we are going to take it into the kiln for the baking.

In front of a brick kiln, we see stacks of polished pottery pieces ready to be baked at a temperature of approximately 800 to 900 degrees Celsius. Mr. Darío Ovelar now explains the baking process.

Well in this part we see that the kiln is already loaded for firing. We proceed to close it and we leave a hole there in the corner, like a peek hole which we use to tell when the product is ready. We cover it up and we proceed to the firing. At the sides of the kiln we have two fire entrances where we put the wood and we start the fire. It’s a slow process so that the material can heat up slowly and that way none will break.

It will be about 14 to 15 hours for the complete firing of the product.

Thorough baking gives the objects a reddish color. After the products are completely cooled, they can be painted as a last step.

Here we have a fired, finished product with the natural color already, and the painting will depend on the taste of each client. Here we have some varieties of already fired objects.

Well, here is my painting team, my brothers and this boy who learned with us too, and here we will proceed to paint the finished material that we showed you before.

As you can see, the painting is very easy, we paint everything outside and afterwards we finish the borders inside.

Okay, it is all painted now.

Here we can see a product with a blend of color which has four layers of color, and this kind of painting takes some time, because you have to wait for it to dry in order to apply the next layer on top of it each time.

After seeing the entire crafting process, the pottery pieces seem closer and dearer to our hearts. We feel a greater appreciation for the effort and creativity that have been put into these seemingly simple objects.

What is your source of inspiration in creating your work?

The truth is you have to be a little imaginative for this. It’s just ideas that sometimes come into your mind or you see some object and you try to do it better if you don’t like it, you give it another shape that you like. That’s it; you have to be a little imaginative for it and have a lot of patience, for sure, a lot of patience.

Do you recommend this activity to other people?

Yes, I recommend it to any person who likes art but mainly, like I said, in order to do this you need to have a lot of patience and a lot of dedication, nothing else, there are no secrets.

I send regards to all the viewers, and invite them to visit our country.

We sincerely thank you Mr. Rubén Darío Ovelar for kindly demonstrating the process of making traditional Paraguayan pottery. Through the efforts of gifted artisans like yourself, the splendid cultural heritage of Paraguay is being carried forward in the 21st century and continues to bring joy to your pure-hearted co-citizens and the world.

For more details on Pottery Ñasaindy, please call

Cheerful viewers, thank you for being with us today on A Journey through Aesthetic Realms on Supreme Master Television. Up next is Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living, after Noteworthy News. May we all be filled with the creativity and inspiration of Heaven.