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Create pottery, discover nature, touch a life

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Contributed by: Vanessa Acosta on 6/10/2007

Visiting Mata Ortiz 10 years ago with my first pottery workshop group was like stepping into a western movie set.

This small village of 2,000 people (at the time of my first visit) sits nestled between the Sierra Madres. I saw small two-room adobe homes, with wooden framed windows painted in aqua-green that accentuated the adobe walls.

One would walk up to the wooden screen framed doors that lead you into families of potters front room and find family members either sanding, painting or creating a pot, ready to sell you their beautiful hand-built pots before they are even completed or fired - enticing you to come back.

This community of potters give you a warm welcome into their small adobe homes which are used as galleries, workspaces, and dwellings. There is still unpaved roads and as you make your way through the village, you can smell the cotton wood used to fire the pots in the yard where chickens, ducks, turkeys, piglets and an occasional horse or donkey share the same yard space.

Locating fine pottery in Mata Ortiz is easy. The potters simply spot a new arrival and they greet you by asking "compran ollas," which means "buying pots"!

The pottery workshops are usually with Juan Quezada and occasionally with Hector and Graciela Gallegos. We begin our trip on a Saturday morning and leave the following Saturday. The pottery workshops are five days.

We begin by climbing into a pick-up and heading out near the hills to mine clay and visit local ruins with a picnic and end with a barbecue while the pots are being fired.

Participants will mine clay, learn to prepare it and make several pots. Novices are welcome. We will also tour the Museo de Culturas Del Norte and other excursions.

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