The writer discusses the collaboration between California artist Sam Hernández and the Moreno León family from Extremadura, Spain, who create tinajas, monumental ceramic storage vessels. While Hernández approached this collaboration with admiration for the elegance of the traditional tinaja, and respect for the Moreno León ceramists, the innovation in superimposing his own images led to a totally new set of sculptures that, though linked to his earlier oeuvre, are markedly different from it. By recontextualizing the tinaja into a contemporary narrative through the overlay of his chosen subject matter, he shifted the collaboration into a new territory, as, at the same time, it honored the labor and persistence of the enduring tinajeros.