Juan Quezada

Juan Quezada Celado was born on May 6, 1940 in Tutuaca Chihuahua, Mexico.  As a young boy herding livestock for his family he found and studied pre-Hispanic pottery of the Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures during his time in the fields[MB2] .

 Casas Grandes pottery flourished between 1175 and 1400 and is related to the larger Ancestral cultures of the American Southwest.  However, much like the other ancestral pueblo systems of that era, environmental changes and mitigating social factors dispersed the tradition and the Casa Grande art form of pottery died out. As a result when Quezada began his quest to discover how Mata Ortiz pottery was created no one in the area made pottery and there were no experts to consult.

In the early 1970s, Quezada began experimenting with ways to duplicate the pots he found and studied, but progress took a several years since he had no ceramics experience. One of his first discoveries was the need to add temper to keep the clay from cracking. Then he discovered that the pots were shaped by a disk of clay at the bottom with the sides built up by the coil method.  He experimented with mineral colors until he figured out to use rust for red, magnesium for black, and white from the clay itself in order to reproduce the exterior painted designs on the pieces. He experimented with many organic fibers for brushes before discovering that brushes of human hair produced the crisp lines of the original pottery. He found local clay sources and slips which he then used in his early experiments.

Initial attempts to sell the pots in his area in Mexico was unsuccessful but he did have better success with several Mexican/ United States border merchants. It was these merchants who brought the pottery to shops on the U.S. side of the border, where they were discovered by Spencer MacCallum, an anthropologist whose immediate interest in the pottery prompted him to track Quezada down and helped him break into the larger U.S. market. Juan Quezada’s new found success in pottery sparked interest in the activity by others in the town of Mata Ortiz and he responded by teaching family and friends. Today there are over 300 families who earn all or part of their income from making pottery. Quezada’s work has been displayed in museums in various countries and in 1999 he was awarded the Premia Nacional de Ciencias y Artes from the country of Mexico.