Santa Clara del Cobre

You hear Santa Clara before you see it. Copper has been worked here since before the conquest - the Purepecha smelted and cold-hammered the metal, and the Spanish, under Vasco de Quiroga's craft-specialization plan for the lake villages, concentrated the trade in this town - and today several hundred workshops keep the anvils ringing from morning. Visitors walk in freely: crews of three or four work a heated ingot or disc in rotation, striking in rhythm as the piece is turned, annealing in charcoal forges and hammering again through dozens of cycles until a lump becomes a cazo the width of a table, a vase, a bathroom sink or a decorative platter chased with fish and flowers. The finish comes from acid, fire and polish, in tones from bright rose to near-black. The Museo del Cobre on the plaza displays prize pieces from the national copper fair each August, when the town turns competitive, and shops around the square sell everything from thimble-sized cups to pieces that need a truck. The plaza itself - portales, a copper-clad kiosk - is Michoacan-pretty.

History

The Purépecha settled the Lake Pátzcuaro region from the 12th century, and with the Zapotec they were the only Mesoamerican people to work copper widely, making bells, jewellery and axes and even inlaying gold into copper. The town led copper craft through the colonial period, nearly lost it after economic setbacks, revived it in the 1940s and 1970s, and became a Pueblo Mágico in 2010 (Wikipedia, Santa Clara del Cobre).

The main sights

• The forges - teams hammering heated copper in rhythm.
• The scale range - thimbles to table-wide cazos.
• The copper museum - fair-winning masterworks.
• The plaza - portales, kiosk and shops in copper light.

When to go

Weekday mornings when workshops are loudest; the August Feria Nacional del Cobre brings competitions and the year's showpieces. Craft runs year-round.

Before you go

Prices reflect hours of skilled labour - a good cazo is heavy in both senses. Ask before photographing crews at work. Shipping is arrangeable; carrying is not, above a certain size.

Nearby

Patzcuaro's plazas and lake are twenty minutes north; Lake Zirahuen's blue basin lies just west.