MEXICO’S POTTERY FRONTIER

A week spent in a small, remote town in northwest Mexico with limited cell service and few conveniences might not be how most people would spend their holiday, but a group of Utah Tech University students se divertieron mucho in Mata Ortiz, a small town near Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, Mexico, over their winter break.

This Utah Tech Study Abroad group included students from various majors, spanning from art and criminal justice to English and Spanish. As part of Utah Tech’s “active learning. active life.” approach to education, traveling to Mata Ortiz allowed these students to utilize knowledge from their majors while immersing themselves in the culture of northwest Mexico –creating pottery, exploring ancient ruins, and meeting local potters.

“To pursue the career I want and advocate for people in my community, I have to be culturally competent,” Criminal Justice Major Janalyn Christensen said. “By traveling to Mata Ortiz, I was able to experience another culture firsthand, which was a valuable learning experience.”

Mata Ortiz is a town known for its unique pots, with many of the locals creating their own ceramic works of art and selling them from their homes. It is nestled in the Casas Grandes area, which holds a rich history of pottery, dating back hundreds of years to ancient desert cultures and cliff-dwelling peoples.

Utah Tech Associate Professor of Art Shane Christensen helped make this opportunity a reality for students. After presenting the documentary “The Renaissance of Mata Ortiz” to his students about 15 years ago, one interested student went to Mata Ortiz with professor Glen Blakley and met Diego Valles.

Diego, a prominent artist and potter from Mata Ortiz, provided housing and food for the student group as well as acted as a guide throughout the week.

“I called Diego up and said he should come to St. George and do a workshop,” Shane said. Building this relationship with Diego was instrumental in creating this study abroad opportunity for students. After the workshop was completed, Shane went to Mata Ortiz to visit Diego, learn more, and eventually secure the funds to take students on the trip.

The students stayed in Mata Ortiz and went to the nearby town of Santa Rosa to work in Diego's pottery studio every day, where he taught them the traditional methods and steps of creating ceramic works of art in Mata Ortiz. Each student built their own pottery as well as sanded, burnished, and fired previously constructed pots.

On one of the days, the students set out to collect clay by picking and shoveling near rivers on local ranches. Each student took turns selecting different pigments and types of clay to be used later to build pots.

When it came to painting the pots, both Janalyn and Ashlynn Hoffman provided the group with multiple strands of their own hair to use to paint the pots in the traditional way to achieve a very fine, precise pattern.

“The smaller number of students and faculty allowed me to get to know people on the trip better, especially some of the faculty, who I had previously only interacted with formally,” Janalyn said. “I also enjoyed the location. Mata Ortiz was a location I hadn’t known about before this trip. I loved meeting the people who lived there and learning history from their perspective.”

During the week, the students had the opportunity to visit some important historical sites like the abandoned settlement of Paquimé. This settlement, estimated to have been abandoned 100 years before the Spanish arrived, had maze-like adobe structures and features such as running water and ancient macaw breeding facilities.

The group also explored some of the famous caves of the area, such as the historic Cueva de la Olla. These caves still have intact housing structures, pottery fragments, and chunks of ancient metates — a grinding stone similar to a mortar and pestle. While there, the group participated in a small service project and spent time picking up trash and cleaning up the trails leading to these caves.

“I think it’s good for students to have cross-disciplinary experience,” Shane said. “You might be forced to do some things you’re not comfortable with, but it broadens your perspective.”

Stepping outside of comfort zones and applying classroom-taught skills in the real world is a large part of Utah Tech’s “active learning. active life.” approach to education. Students exemplified this mantra during their winter break by creating pots and forming lasting relationships with the local pottery-focused