Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/01/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Phil, It is indeed Mata Ortiz in Chihuahua, Mexico. As you state it is a village that has developed an international reputation for its resurrection and contemporary interpretation of a pottery tradition that had died out about 900 years ago. My wife and I had visited there in 2003 to buy some pottery. At that time I learned that the Mexican government was going to pave the 20-mile dirt road to the village as an economic engine for the region. I had been looking for a personal project and decided to photograph the village as a culture in the process of historical transformation as a result of its place in art history. The paving of the road was completed about three years ago. There have been others who have photographed the potters and pottery so I decided to approach my project with the intent of photographing daily life in the village at a given moment in time and not the potters per se. I've spent about the last five years going there every two to three months (from Pennsylvania) for a week or two or three. People have been very open and accepting. According to friends of mine who are pottery dealers there has been a significant change in the standard of living in the past 25 years as a result of the prosperity resulting from their art. Thanks for looking. Also, for what it's worth, I've been doing the project using all black & white film capture. I decided I want an analog legacy, that there is a historical significance to what I'm doing and that I want the pictures to outlast the limitations of the technology du jour. Carl Phil Swango wrote: Message: 11 Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:58:59 -0700 From: "Phil Swango" <pswango@att.net> Subject: [Leica] Some new pix To: LUG <lug@leica-users.org> Message-ID: <1be504db0801170858n20305354r1c4e243c0731cd2d@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Jan 16, 2008, at 11:53 PM, Carl Socolow wrote: > > I've been slowly processing, scanning and working up some pictures > > done > > this past year from my ongoing project in Mexico. > Nice work, Carl. From the titles it appears to be Mata Ortiz. One of my former folklore professors did some fieldwork down there among the pottery-makers. Mata Ortiz ceramics are widely sold here in Albuquerque too. Could you tell us more about your project. FWIW, the people in your photos look to be more prosperous than they were 20 years ago. -- Phil Swango 307 Aliso Dr SE Albuquerque, NM 87108 505-262-4085