Lenca Art Store

How did we get from middle-class suburban family in the Bay Area to the only (that we know of) exclusive Lenca pottery web distributors in the States? Long story. We will spare you the details, but here are the important parts:

We moved to Honduras for a change of pace, an adventure, an opportunity to give our kids the empathy that only comes from seeing extreme poverty, first-hand. We kept hearing about this fantastic pottery, made and sold by indigenous women. So we started to ask friends, shopkeepers, women at the Farmer's Market, and anyone else we could think of, how to get to know these fascinating mountain people who have somehow managed to preserve their cherished traditions, colorful dress, and way of life. One day, we saw three large, absolutely beautiful urns in the yoga studio of a friend who had recently moved to Honduras from the Jersey Shore. That was the turning point: we fell in love with the look and feel of the pottery and started researching how and where it was made.

The view from our favorite cooperative

One of us decided to gas up our trusty Honda Pilot, pick up a close Honduran friend for translation purposes, and take a 2-day long road trip. It stretched into 3, then 5 days, as we drove through the mountainous region in the Western part of the country. We stopped in the dry, dusty heat and asked anyone who would listen where to find the cooperatives where they made this beautiful pottery. Finally, we found what we were looking for.

We found several simple wooden cooperatives, filled to the brim with sagging shelves of Lenca pottery ready to be sold, high in the hills near Santa Rosa de Copan. After getting to know the women who made the pottery, we offered full price for several carefully selected pieces, a practice unheard-of in the region. Then we gently placed our newly-purchased wares in the newspaper-lined boxes that we had brought with us and drove away.

Now, we are gringos once again living in the States. Grandparents, the relative safety of the States, and educational opportunities for our kids brought us back. But our support for the women of the Lenca tribe, and for the sleepy country of Honduras, lives on.

The whole point of this website and business is to support these women. We're not going to bring Lencaartstore.com public anytime soon! So far, we have been able to help the women of the Lenca tribe support themselves. On our most recent buying trip, we noticed that the Global economic slowdown has hurt business there, though not as much as we had suspected. It feels pretty good to us to be able to support this tribe and their art.

As it should to you. Without our customers, we would not have the ability to help these simple, elegant mountain folk. Thank you for your business.