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    Birthing a Dancing Catrina

    Español
    October 26, 2025

    by Walter Hodges, text and workshop images

    The original drawing of a catrina, created by commercial artist José Guadalupe Posada around 1910, was intended as a critique and satire against the obsession rich Mexicans had with European fashions in Paris and London.

    In 1947, Diego Rivera introduced La Catrina as a critical element in his famous mural titled Dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Alameda Central, where the fashionable La Catrina is holding the arms of both José Guadalupe Posada on one side and Diego Rivera on the other. Then, Daniel Craig and Hollywood presented her and her male partners to the whole world in the 2015 James Bond movie Spectre.

    The lavishly dressed female skeleton continues to be both a razor-sharp cultural satire and an honored symbolic image in relation to Mexico's Day. Laughing in the face of death, a unification of the connective cycle of life and death, she may not be ancient, but she can twirl a huge decorative Jalisco skirt, and she knows how to dance, and Mexico dances with her.


    A detail from Rivera's large mural, currently in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera in Mexico City.
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    Casa de Cerámica Catrina is a large ceramics production shop in nearby Dolores Hidalgo. Since 2003, they have specialized in large and small clay molded, folk art inspired, ceramic pieces. Most notably, they've become known for their different ceramic interpretations of Catrina and her world-wide family. Their built-to-order catrinas can be six inches or six feet tall.

    I've spent the last couple of months watching and photographing at Casa de Cerámica Catrina. The owners, Geraldo and his son Julian Garcia, along with their company manager Marléne Cabrera Ariztia, warmly welcomed me and my translator Margo Luna. I've looked carefully at pretty much everything they do.


    Flattering Skulls and the Flirtatious Waitress
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    Early on in this process, I noticed an impressive, mid-sized, dancing catrina being created for a client in the US. As I looked backwards and then forward into the process of making this piece, I watched this catrina being birthed initially from a liquid clay mixture poured into ten different plaster mold forms, assembled in pieces, cooked first in a huge kiln at 1,860 degrees Fahrenheit, painted initial pastel colors, and cooked a second time in a kiln at 1,920 degrees to bring out and set the new brilliant colors. A little retouching to mask out the imperfections in the process and the catrina will dance forever.

    All in all I saw seven different talented artists create this one catrina. Each person is an expert in the step they make in the process. Fascinating stuff. They do this same sort of process on somewhere around 400 different folk art designs. All of their designs are combinations of traditional Mexican art and newer creative inspirations from the original owner Geraldo Garcia.

    I've taken hundreds of photographs at Casa de Cerámica Catrina. These in this article show the outline of the process, the detailed work involved in making one specific design, the Dancing Catrina. The process, amazing to watch, is presented below.

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    Juan García Palacios pours the liquid clay mixture into one of the ten plaster mold forms that will make the Dancing Catrina.
     

     
    Juan has opened the molds and is working with the partially dry clay pieces.
     

     
    Juan is forming the body of the catrina. This is detailed work.
     

     
    Once the Dancing Catrina has been assembled with wet clay, Ma. Trinidad García Pérez uses a wet sponge and smooths out the imperfections, so the statue can be placed in the kiln for the first cook.
     

     
    Cristian Huerta Exiga is one of the kiln experts who has placed the damp statue onto the stand that will hold the piece in place when the main body of the kiln is placed around it. Many other pieces will be included on the stand, and all of them will be part of the first cook, which will dry the clay, strengthen it, and prepare it for the painting step.
     

     
    After the first cook in the kiln, the Dancing Catrina, surrounded by many of her sisters, now waits patiently for the next step - the painting process.
     

     
    Once out of the first cook kiln, the piece is ready to be painted. Sara Damián Arredondo is expertly drawing the outline of the design onto the body of the catrina. This takes an amazing amount of skill. There are no computer drawings. No CAD systems. Nothing but experience, memory, artistic sense, and a steady hand produce the final outline.
     

     
    Maria Cruz Venegas Vázquez paints in the final design using specially mixed pastel paints. She does this same process on hundreds of other objects as well. The pastel paints will turn spectacularly bright once the final kiln cook has set the colors in place.
     

     
    Hugo Rodríguez Rodríguez removes the Dancing Catrina from the interior of the kiln where it has had the second cook along with other pieces of art being produced at the same time. At this point, the true colors of the piece have exploded into view.
     

     
    A closeup view of the Dancing Catrina showing the incredible color combinations, the detail of the work, and the flow of the skirt as the catrina dances across the floor.
     

     
    After the second cook, each piece (hundreds of them) are examined by workers. Often, there are slight imperfections or cracks that forms during the stresses of the whole process, so Beatríz Rocha Ledezma is the expert fixer/retoucher who knows each piece and comes in with small brushes or a special glue and a tremendous amount of experience to apply the final retouches to the finished work of art.
     

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    The process is amazing to watch. Seven different expert artisans worked, at different points in the process, on the Dancing Catrina. So no single artist puts their name on the finished piece. But Catrina knows she has been loved, and she is ready to dance, dance, dance.

    They don't have an official street address, but if you go to Google Maps and plug in the words Casa de Cerámica Catrina in Dolores, you'll get right to it. They don't have much of a social media presence. But if you go for a visit, you'll be glad you did. You can also call them at 418-237-7024. Marléne speaks English.

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    Walter Hodges is a retired commercial photographer and writer from the Seattle, Washington area. Walter spent over 50 years on assignment traveling the world as a corporate and industrial photographer before retiring to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 2019. He currently writes and photographs stories about underpublicized aspects of Mexican culture, as well as interesting profiles of average Mexican citizens

    Website: photography, writing, blog
    hodges.walter@gmail.com

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