JUAN QUEZADA BROTHER RARE UNIQUE POTTER Reynaldo Quezada Mata Ortiz Olla Signed

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RETAIL PRICE $750 DLLS NO RESERVE small crack in the inside doesn't show This olla is by Reynaldo Quezada, youngest brother of Juan and Nicholas Quezada. Typical of Reynaldo's museum quality work, this olla will make a fine addition to any Mata Ortiz or Native American art collection or a generous gift to a friend or family member. This piece measures 7.5" high by 10" in diameter. Reynaldo Quezada has been creating fine, innovative pottery for almost 30 years. He is credited with tejido technique where fine indentations are made into the wet clay creating a "braided effect". He is also credited with mixing clays in the mezclado style which creates a marbleized appearance on the finished olla. Mata Ortiz pottery is a recreation of the pre Hispanic pottery found in and around the archeological site of Paquimé in the Mexican state of Chihuahua . It is named after the modern town of Mata Ortiz , which is near the site and where a man named Juan Quezada learned on his own to recreate this ancient pottery, then went on to update it. By the mid 1970s, Quezada was selling his pottery and teaching family and friends to make it when it was able to penetrate the U.S. markets thanks to efforts by Spencer MacCallum and later Walt Parks. 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. Juan Quezada REYNALDOS BROTHER Spencer MacCallum The pre Hispanic pottery tradition had been completely lost, but clay was still abundant in the area. [2] Juan Quezada is credited for the revival and development of pottery making in the area. In the early 1960s, he was a very poor farmer who also collected firewood in the area of the Paquimé archeological site. [7] He found fragments of Paquimé pottery and the even older Mimbres style, characterized by bold black-on-white zoomorphic designs. [2] He also found local clay deposits and began experiments to determine how the ancient pottery was made. [10] Unlike pottery revivals in Arizona and New Mexico, which depended on the help of experts, Quezada revived Paquimé pottery all on his own. [3] For example, he found that vessels of pure clay were too brittle and after studying the edges of the broken old pottery, he discovered the use of sand and other coarse material as a temper. He also discovered that dried cow dung made an excellent, inexpensive firing fuel. [2] By 1971 he had perfected a kind of polychrome pottery. [5] Despite never receiving formal instruction, he succeeded in turning out high-quality vessels. [10] His experiments have gone beyond recreated old style pottery. For example, one of his goals was to find a rich source of white clay, hard to find since it is untainted by other minerals. He finally found it when he look at an anthill and noticed that the ants were bringing up small balls of white clay. This deposit happened to be on Quezada’s property but despite this, he allows other pottery to take advantage of it. [6] However, the main innovations have been with the design and decoration of the pots, rather than the materials or the crafting process. He created new vessel shapes and modified the traditional painted designs to create a more fluid look. He also painted the entire vessel to give the designs a sense of movement. [10] Quezada gave his early pottery to family members and friends as gifts. [6] By the mid 1970s, his wares began to be sold commercially and by the 1980s, he work... read more

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