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Newsletter
Creating a Pot in Mata Ortiz
Lydia Quezada
Spencer MacCallum |
Using only local clays and mineral colors, Mata Ortiz
pottery is formed and painted entirely by hand without
benefit of the potters wheel or kiln. Designs are not
sketched ahead either on paper or on the pots, but come
directly from the mind as the artist paints.
The Clay:
The clay is collected in the surrounding mountains—red,
grey, orange and the highly prized pure white—and
is dried in the sun. Next it is ground on a stone metate
and mixed with gut (temper), then it is sifted and
winnowed, mixed with water and strained. This process is
repeated until the clay is as fine as silt. After
settling for a few days, it is cured in gypsum troughs
for 2-3 weeks. The next step is to knead the clay until
it has reached the proper consistency.
The Potting:
The pot begins as a clay tortilla which is pushed into
a plaster of Paris mold, similar to the clay molds of
the prehistoric Indians. A clay doughnut is then
attached to the molded tortilla. Using a pinching
process, the clay is pulled up to form the pot. Finally,
the pot is smoothed with a piece of hacksaw blade and a
lip may be formed with a smaller doughnut of clay. The
pot is then left to dry to a leather-hard condition and
is rubbed with vegetable oil and polished with a cloth
or stone (prehistoric technique).
Painting&
Design:
The paintbrushes are made from a few very straight
strands of human hair (1½ to 2" long),
usually from a child, which are tied to the end of a
stick (the brush handle) with thread. The technique is
to lay the long strands covered with paint on the pot
surface and pull it through to create a line. Most of
the paints used are reds from iron oxides and blacks
from manganese. Both minerals occur naturally in various
forms around Mata Ortiz. After the paint has dried, the
pot is polished a final time to set the paint.
The Firing:
Mata Ortiz pots are fired one at a time, although the
blackware pots are sometimes fired two or three
together. The pot is set on some stones and an inverted
metal bucket is placed over it. Next, dry cow chips are
piled over the bucket and set on fire. Since the bucket
is raised off the ground by the stones, air is allowed
to circulate, creating an oxidizing atmosphere. After
about thirty minutes, the fire is scattered and the
glowing hot pot is removed and cooled slowly. |
Spencer
MacCallum
Twenty
years ago, anthropologist Spencer MacCallum discovered
Juan Quezada working in the remote village of Mata Ortiz,
Mexico. He spent the years from 1976 to 1983 studying and
documenting the pottery renaissance in the village. He is
the author of The Art of the Community and numerous
journals. MacCallum studied art history at Princeton
University and social anthropology at the University of
Washington and the University of Chicago. He presently
directs the Heather Foundation.
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Lydia Quezada
de Talavera is the youngest sister of Juan Quezada,
originator of the Mata Ortiz pottery renaissance. Long
considered one of the best potters in the Mata Ortiz
tradition, she did some of the original innovative work
in the black-on-black style of pots and uses a very
difficult continuous line design pattern in her
polychrome pots. According to Lydia, few of the other
artisans use this technique because it requires such
complete concentration.
Rito Talavera,
her husband, has developed his own blackware style which
usually features lizards or snakes in relief around the
rim of his pots. |
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