The Potters of Mata Ortiz
Transforming a Tradition
Presented June 9 - July 22, 2001

Sponsored by
Robert & Donna Leibensperger and
The Museum Guild

Over the past 25 years an extraordinary percentage of the population of the northern Mexican village of Mata Ortiz -- 300 out of 2,000 -- have become potters. This transformation of a village's livelihood has been inspired by the economic success of a revival of the Casas Grandes ceramics tradition that flourished between 1175 and 1400 A. D.

A pot created by Lydia Quezada Celado

One person in Mata Ortiz, Juan Quezada, is responsible for the initial revitalization of the Casas Grandes style that had become lost to the contemporary culture. Although specialized knowledge of the tradition had been gleaned from archaeological excavations at nearby Paquimé, Quezada based his work on shards and small fragments he found in his own locale, outside of the official site. He single-handedly reinvented the Casas Grandes fabrication technique and extrapolated entire forms and designs with the sole assistance of his own imagination

Bill Gilbert, the exhibition's curator and Associate Professor of ceramics at the University of New Mexico of the University of New Mexico, believes the range of Quezada's innovations is staggering, the single most important innovation being a break with horizontal banding in the design system. Unlike the two-dimensional design that banding encourages in much pueblo pottery, Quezada acknowledges the three-dimensional form of the pot by overlapping designs on an often times diagonal axis, creating an illusion of depth and powerful sense of movement.

The absence of a restrictive guild system in Mata Ortiz, such as the one operating in the North American pueblos, has meant that those with little or no experience could learn freely from Quezada or members of their extended families familiar with his work.

Young aspiring potters have emulated Quezada by first developing a foundation, which once formed, is followed by a strong impetus toward innovation and individual style. Nicolas Ortiz Estrada’s three-dimensional figures of animals are the product of both realism and imagination. While they resemble the prehistoric Casas Grandes style effigy figures, Estradas forms exhibit a highly refined design sensibility. Likewise, Edurado Ortiz Estrada and Hortencia Dominguez Ortega create pottery that is characterized by diverse forms, large scale, and dynamic precision. Their highly polished, metallic black finishes are enhanced with graphite. Such contributions have perpetuated the constant innovation that makes the revival in Mata Ortiz so unique. A complimentary exhibition of photography by Sandra Smith documenting the work of the Mata Ortiz potters entitled, Portraits of Clay, will be presented in the galleries simultaneously.