Roberto and Angela Banuelos

Mata Ortiz

Roberto and Angela Bañuelos are a husband and wife team of potters from the northern Mexico village of Mata Ortiz. She forms, sands and polishes their pots while he applies the designs. She uses black, yellow, red, white and mixed colors of clay that he then paints in multiple layers. He often begins by spattering drops of a particular color across the piece, then adding his interpretations of Mimbres designs: fish, rabbits, lizards, feathers and miscellaneous fantasy creatures.

The couple learned to make pottery in 1988 from Rosa Irene and Gloria Isela Lopez, both Angela's sisters and both in-laws of Reynaldo Quezada. Roberto paints and signs all their pots but without Angela, he'd have far fewer pots to sign...