Mexican Pineapples

Mexican Pineapples
San José de Gracia, Michoacán, Mexico

In the mountains of northern Michoacán, in a town small enough that its entire identity is built around one craft, families have been making glazed clay pineapples for generations. The form itself traces back to a potter named Elisa Madrigal Martinez, who moved to San José de Gracia from the nearby town of Carapan and started making punch bowls shaped like pineapples instead of the traditional saucepans the town was known for. Her son Hilario Alejos Madrigal learned the craft from her starting at fifteen, alongside his brothers José María, Emilio and Bulmaro, and went on to become the form's best-known maker, adapting his mother's pineapple motif into the pieces the region is now recognised for internationally.

It starts with mountain clay — harvested locally, dried, ground to powder, mixed with water, and left to rest and ferment for up to three days until it reaches the right elasticity. The hollow base is then formed using bisque moulds and pre-Columbian hand-building techniques, shaped with river stones. After that comes the step that defines the whole object: pastillaje — weeks of applying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individually rolled or pinched clay scales, leaves, and flowers onto the surface, one by one, by hand. Once dry, each piece is dipped in high-gloss metallic glaze — traditionally the signature deep green, though modern artisans now work in yellows, blues, reds and black — then fired twice in wood kilns to achieve the shiny, high gloss finish the piña is known for.

We carry these because they are unmistakably what they are: a piece of Michoacán craft history, made by people for whom this is not a side project but a generational inheritance. Each artisan in San José de Gracia works to their own designs — the lid, the surface pattern, the finish — which means no two pieces are ever quite the same, even within the same colour.

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