Capula Catrinas: Where Michoacán's Clay Catrinas Come From and How They Are Made

Capula is a tenencia of Morelia, a community that belongs to the municipality, and its potters were working long before anyone shaped a skeleton out of clay. Researchers María del Pilar Castro Fragoso and colleagues, writing in the journal Espacio y Desarrollo, report archaeological ceramic remains showing that Capula already made earthenware when the Spanish arrived.

Local accounts often credit Vasco de Quiroga with bringing pottery to Capula around 1550. A paper presented at CENIDIAP points out that the archaeological remains show an earlier ceramic tradition. So, the fairest way to put it is that Quiroga influenced or organized local production, building on knowledge the community already had.

From there the craft passed down through families. Anthropologist Victoria Novelo's 1976 INAH study describes Capula pottery as a family-based production system. The town became known for its traditional ware, for punctuated decoration and for capulineado, a dotted style associated with flowers and capulín imagery. The Secretaría de Cultura's record of Capula pottery notes later changes, including higher-temperature kilns and lead-free glazes, which Capula adopted gradually through the 1990s and early 2000s.

The person most often named as the first maker of Capula's clay Catrinas is the sculptor Juan Torres Calderón. The dates differ depending on who is telling the story.

The Morelia Film Festival describes Torres as the sculptor who began the tradition in the 1970s. A 2024 account in Contramuro, citing Michoacán government material, gives 1980, when Torres opened a workshop in Capula and adapted into clay the skeleton figure associated with José Guadalupe Posada and Diego Rivera. Michoacán's official gazette of 2016 also says that Torres taught Catrina-making through workshops and training in 1980.

Capula's own artisans remember it in their own way. Carlos Anaya, a Capula artisan interviewed by Quadratín, places the Catrina's arrival in 1987. The festival, the state and the artisan each remember the start a little differently, and each account is worth hearing on its own. What the accounts agree on is that Torres taught through workshops and passed his techniques to local artisans, who made the Catrina their own.

Each figure starts with the clay itself. Javier Misael Cervantes Espinoza, a Capula artisan interviewed by MiMorelia, explains that workshops combine white, red and black clays to get the right workable plasticity. Artisan Viridiana Espinosa, speaking to UnoTV, describes obtaining the clay, milling it and mixing it with water and other earths before molding begins.

The body comes first. Once it is modeled, the maker adds the clothing, flowers, leaves, earrings and other accessories by hand, one piece at a time. Contramuro describes pastillaje, the technique of adding raised clay details onto the base form. The figure then dries before it goes into the kiln.

Color comes last. Cervantes Espinoza explains that Capula commonly uses cold painting, applied after the clay has been fired or partly fired, to give the figures their many colors. He also describes techniques inherited within families, puntillismo and capulineado, both built from small dots of paint.

All of this takes time. A Catrina about 60 centimeters tall, roughly two feet, can take around a week, Cervantes Espinoza says, depending on how the clay is prepared, the humidity and heat, the drying, the firing and the decoration.

Capula is not one studio but a whole town of them. Cervantes Espinoza told MiMorelia that the community has around 250 workshops, and that Catrinas sell all year long, with demand rising around Noche de Ánimas, the night of the souls in the Día de Muertos season.

The 2024 Capula visitor brochure lists places to see and buy the work, among them the Mercado Artesanal of the Unión Estatal de Artesanos de Michoacán and the Cabaña de los 12 Artesanos on Avenida Vasco de Quiroga. It also names individual workshops and makers who specialize in capulineado, in traditional ware and in high-temperature ceramics. So, the Catrina shares the town with traditional ware and other pottery, and a visit can take in both.

Michoacán has other Día de Muertos traditions of its own. For one of the best known, the candlelit vigil on Lake Pátzcuaro, read about the Night of the Dead on Janitzio, and for how customs change across Mexico, see Day of the Dead by region.

Capula's Catrina fair brings the town's makers together in its main plaza each autumn. The Morelia municipal government's announcement of October 16, 2026, sets the XVI Feria Nacional Artesanal y Cultural de la Catrina de Capula for October 18 to November 3, 2026, open daily from 10:00 to 22:00. Opening day began with a Catrina parade at 11:00, followed by the official inauguration.

The program includes artisan sales, a Catrina contest, traditional cooks, cultural events and invited exhibitors. The municipal announcement counts 210 Capula artisans and 15 invited exhibitors from other parts of Michoacán. The Michoacán state government's announcement of October 18, 2026 reports 260 participating artisans, with 56 people entering 76 pieces in the 2026 contest and 25 winners. The two governments count different parts of the event, so each figure stands on its own.

The fair is younger than the figures. Carlos Anaya says artisans began organizing the fair project in 2011. Plans can change from year to year, so confirm dates and details with the Morelia or Michoacán government before you travel.

The most direct way to buy a Capula Catrina is from the person who made it: at the fair in the main plaza, in the town's workshops or at its artisan markets. Each maker sets their own prices and their own terms for shipping and returns.

A few questions help you choose well and get the piece home in one piece. Ask about its size and the clay and glaze used. Ask whether it is meant for display or for use with food, which matters if you are buying plates or bowls alongside a figure. Ask how it will be packed for shipping, and ask for the maker's name, so the figure on your shelf carries the name of the person who made it.

A few quick answers for anyone who owns one of these figures or hopes to.

The clay figure is one chapter of a longer story. To learn how the skeleton lady began as a print and got her name, read La Catrina, and for the printmaker behind her, José Guadalupe Posada. Other skeleton figures of the season appear in our story on calacas, and if you would rather wear the look than shelve it, see Catrina makeup. Another handmade craft of the season is the sugar skull, and for the celebration as a whole, start with Día de Muertos.

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