Mata Ortiz Pottery popular 3.5 in x 4.5 in

Hand signed by artist.

MATA ORTIZ POTTERY

Handcrafted in the village of Mata Ortiz, Mexico


The making of pottery in the town began in the 1980s, and now about 300 of the 2,000 in the village make a living from making ceramics.


Pottery made using single-coil method, using the gray, yellow, orange, red and white clays from the area just as those in Paquimé did. The paints are made from clay or from popular crushed minerals such as manganese, also mined locally


The work space generally consists of just a table, with simple tools such as a hacksaw blade, a butter knife, broken spoons, sandpaper, a small stone and paintbrushes generally made from clippings of children's hair, sometimes just four or five strands tied on a stick


After painting, the pots are fired on open ground or in pit ovens. Two or three small pots may be fired together, but larger ones are fired individually. They are set on a pile of dried cow dung and wood and if fired on open ground, covered with a large overturned pot called a “saggar.”