Heritage, Volume 12, Number 2, Spring 1994 Page: 24
30 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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John Peterson, Book Review Editor
The Miracle of Mata Ortiz
Walter P. Parks, 1993, The Coulter Press.
Reviewed by R. Ben Brown, Centro INAH
Chihuahua, Palacio Federal, Chihuahua.
During the past few years a "new ceramic
tradition" has sprung up in northern
Chihuahua and become famous for its
high quality design, manufacture, and
decoration. In "The Miracle of Mata Ortiz",
Walter Parks, an accountant by trade
and writer by avocation, provides us with
a very human and personal history of the
development of a large 20th century ceramic
tradition in a small railroad town at
the edge of the Sierra Madre. Parks traces
the history of this development by following
the interaction among the principal
figures such as Juan Quezada, Spencer
MacCullum, Reido Horiguchi, Bobby
Rodriguez, and Tom Fresh, as well as
himself.
Inspired by the prehispanic ceramics
that could be found all across the countryside
of northwestern Chihuahua, Juan
Quezada taught himself how to make and
decorate pots. At the beginning he imitated
what he saw but as his ability and
confidence grew, he began to develop his
personal style. Although his own interest
arose from curiosity, he soon recognized
the economic benefit. He taught a few
members of his family, who in turn taught
others, or were copied, and in a period of
less than 15 years, a moribund village
became a bustling backwater with literally
hundreds of potters. While Parks identified
142 potters in 1990, the 1993 list
reputedly exceeds 300 active potters.
Within the village of Mata Ortiz there
is a great deal of variation that may be
seen as sub-traditions that represent not
only each potter's creativity, but also the
lack of specific ideological canons. The
absence of stylistic constraints or commitment
to specific symbols permits the
use and integration of design elements
that are the products of pure inspirationas well as copies of prehispanic elements
from different cultures. However, the technical
elements of production quality of
the finish, brush strokes, firing- are just as
important as the creative elements, and Parks
gives them their due. Quezada is, and always
has been, a killer for quality. Intuitively
Quezada recognizes that if the Mata Ortiz
potters maintain high standards, it is harder
for the middlemen to bargain one potter
against another. One of the major differences
that separates the Mata Ortiz pottery from
the pottery produced in Guanajuato,
Michoacan, Oaxaco, among other places, is
that the pots in the former are created one at
a time, while those from central Mexico are
the results of production lines - rustic or
not with gas ovens, molds, and all the
associated paraphernalia. The ceramics from
central Mexico are artisanal while those
from Mata Ortiz are art!
Parks -ells the story of how Spencer
MacCullum found some Juan Quezada pots
in a Deming, New Mexico, junk store and
was so intrigued by them that he set them
aside a couple of weeks to locate the unknown
potter. MacCullum came back with his
mother and a friend, and showing photos of
the pots he had collected on the previous
trip, asked if they knew the pottery. Within
the day, MacCullum had arrived at Nuevo
Casas Grandes where somebody suggested
that he visit Juan Quezada in Mata Ortiz.
The next day they met, and as the saying
goes, the rest is history.
They soon established an amicable business
relationship, and MacCullum began to
pay Juan a monthly stipend in exchange for
first refusal. To promote Juan's work, MacCullum
organized a travelling exhibit that
opened in April 1979 at California State
University at Fullerton and went on to
Chaffey College, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
in Albuquerque, The Lowie
Museum at Berkeley and finally closed at the
Heard Museum in Phoenix at the end of
1980. This exhibit was an attention grabber
and while the numerous articles in the local
press generated fervor, the half a dozen or so
articles in specialized national magazines
cemented Juan Quezada's reputation. Thisshow, accompanied by hands-on demonstrations
by Juan Quezada and others, had
struck a chord. The Mata Ortiz pottery
took a prominent place in the southwestern
art market almost overnight.
Parks' chapter on finding, preparing,
forming and firing the clay, and different
forming techniques, provides an introduction
to the technical aspects of pottery
making. Nonetheless, a deeper and more
analytical approach would be a welcome
addition to the literature of the Mata Ortiz
potters.
60 Years of Southwestern
Archaeology: A History of
the Pecos Conference
Richard B. Woodbury, University of New
Mexico Press.
The Pecos Conference has been a formative
annual experience for Southwestern
archaeologists and anthropologists since
its inception in 1927. It was convened by
Southwest scholars whose names are now
legendary: A.V. Kidder, Harriet and C.B.
Cosgrove, Byron Cummings, Edgar Hewett,
Neil M. Judd, Jesse Nusbaum, and Frank
H.H. Roberts, among others. To
cognoscenti of the historiography of the
region, these scholars were the first to
embrace the study of the complex and
wondrous archaeological resources of the
region. They worked in the area when vast
landscapes were unknown and undisturbed
except by Native Americans and the occasional
line hand or miner. There was an
ebullience, a sense of discovery, a sense of
wonder that is difficult to rival today. And,
yes, there was also cultural naivete and
collecting obsessiveness that robbed cultures
of their patrimony and sites of their
wholeness and context.
The Pecos Conference, during its last
60 years, has been a forum for the airing of
new discoveries. More importantly, it has
been the scene of lively controversy over
methodological and theoretical issues. The24 HERITACE * SPRING 1994
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 12, Number 2, Spring 1994, periodical, Spring 1994; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45413/m1/24/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.