A Metepec árbol de la vida is assembled, not designed. Adam and Eve, the serpent, angels, doves and six-petal flowers are each rolled by hand, fired, then painted in enamel so hot it looks wet. Between the figures the sandy red-buff clay body stays bare, which is the whole tell that a human built the thing.

This system works the same way. A clay-coloured ground carries flat colour fields, each one walled in by a black outline, stacked in tiers off a central trunk. Nothing is airbrushed, nothing is perfectly symmetrical, and no margin is left generous. Density is the point.