Alright we're here in Margarites outside
and this beautiful ceramic shop this village is known for the ceramic tradition and it is
a beautiful spot and this is george whose shop this is hello george hello kalispera how are you
fine hi welcome thank you what a beautiful shop you have thank you and this is your family here
yes my wife my daughter hello one of my daughters nice great can you tell me a little bit about your
shop and the pottery tradition and the work yeah the place here in margarites is historical pottery
for maybe aforementioned times maybe from Minoan period up to the present days because of the good
quality of play of the raw material that exists on my on the mountains three kilometers away in this
situation like a rock this material cannot find it ready to buy we have to go and dig it of ourselves
and so you go out into the mountains yes and few more potters for margarites okay we are 22 potters
most of us we do modern pottery but few of us we still try and keep the ancient pottery
alive the characteristic of this clay is to make sir we do pottery that ceramics
are good forever they use without glaze just one firing and we specialize in this pottery
and we do good firing as well for example this clay after when we fired in a modern electric hill
electric oven color would be red like that because clay contains a lot of iron oxide okay same clay
when we fired with a traditional way in a wood fire look at the different color it's like that
because of the oxygen more oxygen red color less oxygen brown color blood it could be black okay
it depends on the amount of oxygen and the speciality of this clay is that we can use
the our ceramics without any glaze like exactly the ancient water you see the big butter here
so these are like these vessels are from ancient times
not main but i just mean the style yes the style and this is 100 years old this is 200
years old and these are for storing water or what no olive oil and wine okay and do
families still use these types of containers or no no no not at the big pots no no but we use all
the other types of pottery we use today and were you born in this village yes so this how this goes
back in generations of your family exactly my father was a potter two and my father learned
pottery from his uncle okay for my grandfather's brother and me i studied pottery in athens for
three years nice i have the shop for 25 years wow so can you take me around the shop and tell
me about some of the pieces yes i want to show you now you see my what my wife and my wife and
my daughters do that we do instead of glaze this clay doesn't need to be glazed but with a pebble
especially with a pebble before the firing we used to burnish the pottery to make them
smooth smooth smooth you see today no no we don't do this technique to make ceramics easier to
to to make ceramics waterproof we do this technique to make ceramics more fine more
nice more delicate and of course to be easier to wash easier to clean especially if it's if
we have a plate a bowl a dish okay if they are smooth like this you can feel it with your finger
how it looks like the rough and the smooth surface here just with the pebble before the firing many
many times on the outside and we do this nice nice surface eh nice that it for each spot is different
and this is totally unpolished and before the firing as you see in the in the pottery
around here we have the similar motive this motif that we do is the typical motive that exists here
for hundreds and hundreds of years ago it's a kind of logo of this place this little motive i
want to show you now how we decorate the pottery like that and this way of decoration comes from
here we have a special brush we're using a piece of ship's wool on a wooden stick
it shapes a piece of ship's wall okay as a color we use opera differently from the mountains
or different uh or another clay from the river white clay from the river and on a dry surface
on a dry pot like that on the outside normally my wife must show you this could you my wife
my wife does the painting so okay she must do it you should do it better than me nice so please
can you explain to me what she's doing i'm putting first the rule in the in the color okay and then
this is a traditional motif of margaritas from the very very old times nice and so how far back
do you think this tradition of pottery goes nobody knows how old it is we learn it from
the grandparents and they learn from the nice and do you also come from this village no no no yeah i
am married with yogurt and i stay here and i learn everything i want to show you how the decoration
comes from the electric and how this decoration comes from the wood when you you call this motif
kind of this icon what is it a branch of a this is a this is an apheretic plant it's an atheretic
it's just a motif it's not a special plant or a special
just just a motive yes okay beautiful so on the left is the electric electric and then they're
right this is what is the wood yes nice same thing red and black cool and i want to show
now some very interesting shapes some very clever ideas like um like the the little honeypot you
know they produce everything for a special use to store the olive oil other pots for the wine
other pots for the water they use specially this is this little pot maybe from 1200 bc
for the honey to store the honey they put inside the honey they cover it with a piece
of cotton with a ceramic lid and around the rim here they put everyday water you know why
to stop the ants the ants that likes very much honey they cannot swim they try to get
a trap yeah there's like a wall like a moat from a castle yeah another clever design is this little
former they use it as a funny but that's a tricky pot they fill it with wine from the from the top
up to the holes here and they give it to someone and the other must find a way how to use it how
to drink out of that without becoming wet there's only one way to drink from this little pot if you
will close one little hole which is the right hole to close it from the right hole you cannot
see it very easily because underneath under the handle why the hole is under the handle
down there because the top and the handle is whole of empty it's like a straw you have to close the
hole keep it straight you never pour it you never and then you suck it anything like that everyone
when he tries to drink he closes all tries like that everyone is full of wine and that's a joke
another favorite design is that this little form from 750 bc you can find exactly
the same in museum if you will press it in the water for a few seconds
because of the pressure but now directly from the bottom if you put your thumb here you can hold
the water you can bring it where you like where you want if you leave your finger like a shower
they use it for religious purpose for baptisms for offerings they use it to as a shower for
the babies for the for the ladies baby for the plants the water in the plants
so simple so clever another clever design is the cup of justice let me show you here
a couple of justices to measure the wine to drink all the same of course people went with when they
see something like that they think that they use it to to squeeze the lemons and the oranges but no
when people when people drinking and eating and they have fun they gave the wine they offer a
normal quantity same quality and like that everyone can use a cup and drinks normally
without problem for example if some when they are drinking wants to drink more if someone be
greedy selfish egoist wants to fool his cap and drink small from the others look what happened
you lose it all all comes out and they say the more you want the less you get it's a trick in
philosophy not to be greedy and you don't lose the extra you lose it all then all comes out
this has happened because you have a little siphon here this is broken to understand how
it works you have a pipe with a cover and if it is too much the liquid from the inside it sucks
all and everything comes out sci-fi this is a little whistle water whistle sounds
like a nightingale we filled it with water and then if we would blow some letters like
this is
to protect the ink in ancient times they put the ink from the top it's full with water now
if you see it's full full with water you see so and then they took it with a
feather with a pen and they write normally that's the inside that's the half section
so if by accident they turn it down ink never spills wow very clever same thing they use it
later for spices for pepper for sugar for salt for cinnamon of course they use it upside down
they fill it with any powder this is salt you can put pepper you can put sugar okay this
is too full now and if we leave it on a table like that nothing happens only when we shake it
up and over the rim inside yes no nothing nothing's like that nothing like that just up and
down so we try to keep this ancient pottery alive nice here in margarites that the potter never stop
we use the same clay and we want to share our knowledge with uh because we do we educate we
do pottery lessons all time seminars all over the world we go and mostly here of course nice
and so are these most most of your customers and the people who are doing you purchasing
these things now are greeks who are using these traditional items in their homes or
mostly tourists who are interested in the budget well you can say okay in summertime that summer
longs from march until november seven and more months normally when the situation is
as well okay because this covey times is you know have very short
we had very short people last year for example uh so the period the period is long the season of
the visitors comes and we mostly we have people from europe europe united states israel
and all over the world australia canada yes nice and do you have a presence online do you
sell your items on we sell from our website great because everything here is unique for
example have a look at the balloons they are all unique they all all happened once yeah so
we have people who wants to take a piece for example like this it says the size about
what size what color we send picture to him yeah and he choose from the picture and we
sell yes all over the world we ship all over the world great and we'll go ahead and i'll put the
the link to your website in the description on the video so this you this town and your shop is
unique not just to crete but all of greece right yes margaritas i think is one of the
maybe the biggest pottery center traditional pottery center in greece we have 18
visiting pottery shops in a little in such a little village in the center of crete amazing
yeah great can you introduce yourself again the name of your shop and where we are my name is
george george dallas my wife is marinaki who work together we will we live here and our name of the
shop is keramion keramion is an ancient greek word that means a ceramic workshop in one word
today we say argesterio kiramikis ceramic workshop we use two different words in modern greek
so we call it caramel caramel and if you google that word caramel dot gr is our website great i'll
make sure to link i'll make sure to link to that thank you so much for sharing the tradition and
your business with us thank you i can make a pot for you if you want yes please great let's do it
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