Dona Irinéia

Dona Irinéia is a ceramics artisan. She is part of a remaining group of quilombolas*. She started sculping heads in clay to help with the family income. She became known by participating in exhibitions all over Brazil. Today her work is listed in the popular culture catalogue drafted by MinC, and she is considered as one of the best clay artisans in Alagoas. Since 2005 she is part of the Registry of the Live Heritage of Alagoas.

It is through art that the black population from Muquém, direct descendants from families that inhabited Serra da Barriga, the Quilombo dos Palmares, main point of resistance against slavery in Brazil, tell their story

Irinéia Nunes became a character in the book “The clay girl”, that tells the story of a family that lived by the river Mudaú, in Alagoas, and lived of clay objects collected by the river. In a rainy winter day, the water made the river overflow, carrying everything around it.

Irinéia Nunes tells that she started producing clay pieces 40 years ago, and that her mom used to do clay pans. She said that only as an adult she started doing clay pieces for people that wanted to repay God and saints for promises made.

“People came looking for me asking for me to do parts of the body so they could repay a promise: heads, hands, arms, legs, feet, heart; any part of the body; that was when I started and thank God today my work is a success”, she says.

Living nowadays in a house donated by the Reconstruction Program, Irinéia Nunes explains that the craftmanship maintains her family. She says that the only reason she is not in financial distress is due to the orders she received via Sebrae Alagoas. “Whenever they are receive something, they transfer a bit of money to my account. I already received a prize of R$ 10,000, which was shared with other artisans and allowed me to do construction work in my house”, she tells.

Irinéia Nunes relies on a partnership with her husband, Antônio Nunes, to do her work. In the day of our visit, he was finalising a piece used to put fruits on top of a table. He tells that he started doing the initial work of a piece and she would finalise it. “Today he calls me out when I do something wrong. He straighten a piece when I make a mistake and I straighten his, and that is how we go.”, she says. * A quilombola is an Afro-Brazilian residente of quilombo settlements first established by escaped slaves in Brazil.