Calabaza de Barro Negro

César Teixeira was born in 1969 in Gondar, a small village in Amarante, where he still lives and works. At 18, he apprenticed under master potter Manuel Teixeira, learning two rare and ancestral techniques he would never let go: the low, horizontal, manual wheel for shaping clay, and the soenga, a fire-pit method of baking clay that echoes ancient pagan rituals and turns clay pieces into darkened works of art.

While César still holds a day job at the local hospital, the dark clay of Gondar remains his lifeblood. He is the last active soenga master in Europe, preserving a craft whose roots in Gondar date back to the 17th century. And you what? He has his workshop in an old, deactivated primary school, the exact same one where he learned to read and write as a little boy.

But César is no longer alone. His son João joined him after returning home from Caldas da Rainha, where he trained as a ceramist in the prestigious ESAD. He has learned the gestures, the patience, the timing of fire and earth.

Together, they work by commission and lead public soengas and workshops, inviting others to shape and burn, fighting to keep Gondar’s ceramic heritage alive.