Mug
Before heading out to work the canal, the first coffee. This axolotl mug is for that moment: it carries Ikal, an axolotl facing forward in a red plaid shirt and denim jacket, a chinampa keeper from Xochimilco and a character from my Animal Kinhood series.
Ambystoma mexicanum
Working the chinampa means caring for the water where the last axolotl lives.
Endemic exclusively to the canals and chinampas of the Xochimilco lake system, in Mexico City, at 2,240 meters of altitude. It inhabits the muddy beds of cold fresh water (between 6 and 20 °C), among aquatic vegetation such as ahuejote and water lily, in low-current zones. Its historic habitat also included the now-extinct lakes of Chalco and Texcoco.
On the mug goes Ikal's portrait: an axolotl with pale pink skin, red feathery gills on either side of his head like a crown, and a wide mouth curved upward. I created him facing forward against a plain background, with the red plaid shirt over the blue denim jacket. The inside of the mug is blue: the red of the gills and the shirt leans on that blue every time you lift it.
Ikal starts around six, with the first mug and the stove lit, before there's light over San Gregorio Atlapulco. He learned the trade through mistakes: once he left a canal open all night and lost the whole harvest; the next day he replanted, and ever since he checks the water level twice before he leaves. This mug is for that quiet moment before all of that starts. I make it myself, Yago Partal, and you can read the whole story of who Ikal is in his biography.
