The name of the village where most of the potters live is Mata Ortiz. It is a few miles from the ruins of a grand commercial center called Paquime.
Mata Ortiz is not an ancient village. It came into
existence with the building of the railroad in the early 1900s. Its economy was
based on the railroad yard and a sawmill. By the 1970s the railroad yard had
moved to Nuevo Casas Grandes and the sawmill had closed. Hard times fell on the
village.
The villagers were scraping out a hard existence as farm laborers until they changed their lives with the discovery of their collective talent as skilled potters.
They have transformed themselves into respected artists. More than half of the adult population are potters, making some of the finest pottery in Mexico.
The designs are striking. Some are reminiscent of the
pottery made by the people who lived in the villages around Paquime (sometimes
called Casas Grandes) in the peak of its habitation from 1210 to 1261 A.D.
Pacquime was a thriving commercial and trading center where goods from the south
and goods from the north were sold and exchanged.
Now, the potters of Mata Ortiz are making beautiful,
light-weight pottery with intricate geometric designs, figures or whimsical
animals in polychrome or polished black ware.
Collectors are beginning to take notice. The
pottery has been shown and sold in prestigious museums such as the Heard Museum
in Phoenix, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Southwest Museum in Los
Angeles, and the Centennial Museum at the University of Texas, El Paso.
Mata Ortiz is a relatively new village. It was founded in
November of 1909 to exploit the lumber from the Sierra Madre mountains. Later,
the railroad had a machine shop there. Around 1959, the shop was moved to Nuevo
Casas Grandes, and the village went into an economic decline. A young man named
Juan Quezada, finding himself surrounded by pottery shards from the prehistoric
culture of the valley, began to experiment with making pots himself. Juan
Quezada was the first potter. He taught himself the technique and then taught
many others in the village. The pots are formed by hand, no wheel is used.
The designs are painted on freehand. All the work of farming and decorating the pots can be destroyed in the firing. The pots are fired outside, using cow manure and wood. The pots can crack or break or burn in the firing process, rendering the pot worthless, and all the effort useless.
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Yolanda A L Quesada
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Tavo Salveria Sold
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Yolanda A L Quesada
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Reynalda Q de Lopez
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Martin Olivas
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Tomasa Mosa
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