page_title: Mata Ortiz pottery
section_title: Innovation and marketing
hierarchical_section_title: Mata Ortiz pottery / History of the ceramic / Innovation and marketing
caption_attribution_description: English: Examples of Mata Ortiz pottery from Chihuahua on display at the 2010 FONART exhibition in Mexico City
context_page_description: Mata Ortiz pottery is a recreation of the Mogollon pottery found in and around the archeological site of Casas Grandes in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Named after the modern town of Mata Ortiz, which is near the archeological site, the style was propagated by Juan Quezada Celado. Quezada learned on his own to recreate this ancient pottery and then went on to update it. By the mid 1970s, Quezada was selling his pottery and teaching family and friends to make it and the pottery was able to penetrate the U.S. markets thanks to efforts by Spencer MacCallum and later Walt Parks along with Mexican traders. By the 1990s, the pottery was being shown in museums and other cultural institutions and sold in fine galleries. The success of the pottery, which is sold for its aesthetic rather than its utilitarian value, has brought the town of Mata Ortiz out of poverty, with most of its population earning income from the industry, directly or indirectly.
context_section_description: By the mid 1970s, Mata Ortiz pots by Juan Quezada were selling for several dollars apiece including to traders from El Paso, prompting him to teach the craft to his brothers and sisters.  This includes Mata Ortiz’s most prominent female potter, sister Lydia Quezada Celado de Talavera, who is the first to have gained international prominence.
  They taught it to the next generation and then to friends and neighbors. Following Quezada's lead, other potters moved quickly from copying designs from prehistoric potsherds to creating original motifs. While Quezada was interested in making all pottery from Mata Ortiz have a certain level of quality not all agreed. The Felix Ortiz family was the first to work on simpler pots of lesser quality but would still sell. They also created different designs and formed a new hub of pottery making in the El Porvenir neighborhood which then produced various other potters of various skill levels. In the 1980s, others began to learn pottery without the help of either the Quezada or Ortiz families.  A number of husband-wife teams developed who formed their own signature styles. Quezada's departure from original ancient styles and with a large number of people now working on the pottery, further innovations have occurred. Quezada’s brother Reynaldo is credited with introducing mixed clays, giving a marbled effect. His sister Lydia began to paint bright colors on the popular black-on-black ceramics. Around 1982, Macario Ortiz began to apply graphite to the surface, which after firing becomes a smooth shiny surface. Younger potters learn from their elders but as they gain experience, develop their own individual style, but for young and old, what determines if a style remains is if it sells.
  Mata Ortiz’s main success has been in the United States, especially from the 1980s to the 1990s. The first to do large scale promotion of the pottery in the country was amateur anthropologist Spencer MacCallum, who helped get Quezada his first museum showings. Another important figure in the marketing of the pottery has been Walt Parks, a business consultant, involved since 1984. He brings pots into the United States to sell, arranges exhibitions and classes and even offers free services as translator and financial advisor. Parks considers the pottery as a new art movement. While not the only American to promote the pottery, he has been the most dedicated, publishing a book about it in 1993 called The Miracle of Mata Ortiz and regularly writes and lectures on the subject. One phenomenon that helped Mata Ortiz was the revival of Southwest U.S. pottery styles, which had been occurring about the same time.  Other early major exhibitions of Mata Ortiz ware were at the Heard Museum in Phoenix (1977), the Arizona State Museum (1977), Chaffey College (1979) and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (1979), which allowed the pottery to gain international attention. An exhibit called “Juan Quezada and the New Tradition” traveled to five venues in the United States and brought unprecedented attention to Mata Ortiz and expanded the market for their wares exponentially. However, there were no major exhibitions of the pottery in Mexico until 1999, when one opened at the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City .
  By the 1990s, the success of the pottery was bringing prosperity to the town, with pottery family able to buy trucks, add rooms, bathrooms and kitchens to their houses. During this time about three out of four households tried making the pottery for the economic benefits. During this decade, demand constantly increased for wares, especially from accomplished potters, causing prices to rise, especially as demand developed from Mexico, Asia and Europe. The fame of the pottery began to bring buyers to the town of Mata Ortiz, looking for specific potters. The emphasis on foreign and high end markets has meant an emphasis on quality over quantity, although a demand for cheaper wares also meant niches for lower quality work as well. However, this does not fully explain how a rural community has been able to produce a large number o
caption: Mata Ortiz ceramics at a FONART exhibition in Mexico City
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