In Zinapécuaro, a picturesque town in Michoacan, J. Ventura Hernández Benítez remains solidly committed to his
Ventura has won many, many awards throughout his artistic years.
The workshop's rustic brick walls, held up a corrugated metal roof, have his creations which seemed to gestate in the heat.
Homemade plaster molds, pots, vases and pitchers that required weeks of labor - lay about the shop in the hypnotic chaos of a true artisan.
Small ceramic pumpkins sit on the concrete floor in front of a shelf loaded with vases covered with images of skeletons dressed in fiesta garb, geometric patterns of terraces and triangles, stylized dogs, fish and monkeys.
Pots in subtle shades of dark red ocher, greenish umber and bluish gray sit nearby.
