Barcelona Photoblog: trades
Showing posts with label trades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trades. Show all posts

April 12, 2011

Fish stall at Mercat de la Mercé, Nou Barris, Barcelona

Fish stand at La Merce market, Barcelona, Spain [enlarge]

Who said a female fishmonger had to be rude, shabby and smelly. Well, I guess they smell of fish of course but certainly these girls have a wonderful look. I realize my comments are stupid but I wanted to muse on cliches around professions. I don't know in your country but at least here I remember one: You shout like a fishmongeress, something that of course is not always true. Maybe you can share other cliches you've heard of in your city.

March 30, 2011

Medieval Pottery: Evoking Ancient Crafts

Potter at work

Pottery is an art that goes hand in hand with the history of man and civilization. It is said that the first known pieces were found in Japan between 400 and 10,500 BC (see A history of Pottery). Along the way,  a slow wheel or tournette was substituted by the fast potter's wheel around 2000 BC. Potters between XIII and XV had enough tools and skills to produce house utensils and building materials on a big scale, thus developing social relationships around this market and more specialization. But I am not here to write a treaty on pottery. My mission is to attract your curiosity and pave the way to your own research on possible topics on the web. If this happy potter image in a medieval fair in Vic, triggered your intellectual hunger, then the goal has been attained. In case you want to know what the sign says in the background: Taller de fang amb aigua calenta is Catalan for clay with hot water workshop.

December 10, 2010

Medieval Crafts: Spinning Yarn on a Drop Spindle

Spinning Yarn on a Drop Spindle Medieval Fair, Vic, Catalonia, Spain

Watching spinners and weavers at their craft in medieval times must have been quite amusing I guess. Having the opportunity to enjoy such an old trade nowadays, performed with very similar skills handed down from one generation to the other, in the same scenario, is priceless. As I promised, here is picture taken in Vic during the Medieval Fair celebrated last week. It is not the first time Barcelona Photoblog features medieval crafts so I recommend you check the archives. Maybe you want to learn something today, well, here's a How-to Spin Yarn on a Drop Spindle video. In case you are quite interested, check Technology in the Medieval Age

December 06, 2010

Rabbit and Pumpkins, Medieval Fair, Vic (Osona), Catalonia

Rabbit and Pumpkins [enlarge]

Today I visited the Medieval Fair or Market that is held every year in Vic, capital of Osona. I highly recommend this event to learn about medieval trades or crafts, get in contact with Catalan history and try local food which is an excellent sample of our cuisine. If you are on a diet please refrain from attending this fair. Further ahead I will talk more since this rabbit and pumpkins image is not very illustrative.

September 25, 2008

Medieval Craft Trade Fair: Glass Miniatures

Medieval Craft Trade Fair: Glass Miniatures

During a medieval craft trade fair that was organized in a town called Suria I caught this artisan working the glass to create miniatures by means of a torch. It is hard for me to understand how medieval this craft can be considering the safety glasses he is wearing and the lighter but if they created this fair which is celebrated every year by the way, they should know better. Other trades and crafts were previously posted here: the stonecutter, the basket weaver, the collier, the potter.

January 06, 2008

Collier Making Charcoal - Medieval Occupations at Suria

Collier Making Charcoal - Medieval Occupations at Suria

This collier making charcoal, is a black and white picture rescued from my archives and taken long ago in the annual medieval fair of a town called Suria. The man, a neighbor of this fortress village, was impersonating a coal burner next to this sort of rudimentary pit kiln. Back in medieval times there were lots of occupations which are long forgotten now or that have considerably changed. Read more and check pictures of old trades in my previous posts about Suria: The Potter, The Stonecutter and The Basket Weaver. Today's image looks better if enlarged.

May 14, 2007

Old Trades: The Basket Weaver

Medieval basket weaver


The new week is here so we must all get back to work as we have been doing for centuries. Work wouldn't be the way we know it now, if it weren't for those medieval craftsmen who developed their skill at so many different trades in the Middle Ages. Man was no longer a serf bowing before the landowner but a laborer, a freeman and in doing so he developed his intellect, his culture and came out of the darkness. Here is this basket weaver at the Medieval Fair in SĂşria near Barcelona. I have dealt with this famous market in previous posts. Feel free to explore them using Blogger labels right below.

April 13, 2007

Potter Magic in the Medieval Era: Suria Market

Potter Magic in the Medieval Era: Suria Market


This potter seemed to have a magic wand, everything he touched suddenly acquired weird forms that little by little and against all odds finally became the most unsuspected object. But Mr. Potter here was no magician, he was a modest craftsman disguised in medieval clothes impersonating a medieval potter, one of the many trades so typical in Medieval markets in the outskirts of towns, like the fortress town of Suria to be more precise. If you want to see a stonecutter photographed the same day follow the link. There were more pictures about Suria which you can find searching in Blogger toolbar on top of the page or in my Technorati searchlet. The intense colors are created using Color Lab effect in PhotoKit Color 2.0 - Photoshop Plugin by Pixel Genius.

December 07, 2006

Stonecutter at SĂşria's Medieval Market

Medieval Stonecutter


I felt like black and white today so I selected this stonecutter in the Medieval Fair at SĂşria near Barcelona (see the original color image here). True craftsmen disguised for the occasion showed you the secrets of old medieval trades. There was the basket weaver, the coal burner, the potter, the weaver, the glassblower and a long list of other crafts represented. Stonecutters or stonecarvers were highly appreciated and well paid at the time and their history is linked to the masons lodges of the middle ages. Learn the basics of stone carving art. An amusing reading to learn about medieval crafts, especially stonemasonry is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I couldn't help thinking of Tom Builder when I saw this man.
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