Jorge Quintana Rodríguez: Master Potter, Entrepreneur

This portfolio of photography represents fifteen years of work by master potter Jorge Quintana Rodríguez. Few potters living in Mata Ortiz today fit my definition of master potter: someone who understands all phases of pottery making from digging the clay, molding the jar, and making the paint to sanding and polishing the vessel, painting it, and firing it using cow dung or bark from a downed cottonwood tree. Jorge Quintana is one of the few potters who knows how to do all of this, and he still makes pots in this manner.

To the buying public, the person who signs the pot across the bottom is the creator of that piece. But painting an intricate design is only one element of pottery making. Several masters of the total process—Jorge Quintana, Juan Quezada, Pilo Mora, and Nicolás Quezada (who passed away in October 2011)—each have expressed concern about the rise of specialization that has occurred since 1999, when multiple individuals began sharing the work of making a pot. Many of the younger potters who can paint wonderful designs do not dig or prepare their own clay. Often they buy their blank jars (sometimes called green ware) from others, and they usually have no idea how to mix the paint they are using to create their designs. In the last twelve years, at least twenty people have acquired gas or electric kilns, and for 100 pesos they will fire a pot for the creator of that vessel.

Jorge Quintana, however, is one of a handful of working potters who prefer completing all steps of the process. Like so many of the first-generation potters, Jorge continually experiments with new processes, always seeking new colors of clay or discovering new mineral combinations for improving his paints. But like everyone in the village, when he is stretched for time he will seek help from a specialist. There doesn't seem to be an easy answer for these legitimate concerns, given that virtually all the potters in the village at one time or another have participated in these labor-saving shortcuts. Increased demand and "lack of time" have aided and abetted the rise of specialization, but every master potter has told me that some specialization is okay if done on an irregular basis. What worries them most is what happens when the younger potters no longer have the knowledge to carry the torch forward. They all ask the same question, "What will happen when the master potters die? Who will remember all of the complicated steps in making a pot?"

Jorge Quintana Rodríguez

At 5'6" Jorge Quintana is compact, with dark eyes that sparkle with true intellect, short salt-and-pepper hair, and a black mustache. He is stocky and strong, but his wide, easy smile reveals a pleasant disposition. His face shows a hint of his Asian ancestry handed down from his great-grandfather Fong Poi, which sometimes caused him to be taunted with the derogatory term "Chino" by childhood playmates. Jorge remembers his hundred-year-old great-grandmother, Gregoria Ibarra Jiménez de Flores, telling him stories about her husband, Fong Poi, when he was a small child. "Fong" in Mandarin Chinese means "flower," or "flor" in Spanish, so when his great-grandfather arrived in Ciudad Juárez in the late nineteenth century, it made perfect sense that he changed his name to José Flores. Some of the better Mata Ortiz potters working today are members of the Quintana, Martínez, Flores, Gallegos, Rodríguez, and Ledezma families descended from this Chinese-Mexican union.

Jorge's grandmother, Antonia Flores Ibarra, the second daughter of José and Gregoria Flores, showed him the basics of making pottery using coils of clay and the paddle-and-anvil technique utilized by Native American potters in both Mexico and the United States. As a young boy of thirteen, he helped Juan Quezada gather clay and minerals to make pots and paint, and in return Juan taught Jorge the basic principles of preparing both products. More importantly, Juan taught Jorge...