Marana residents Russ and Jan Diers intended to spend their retirement playing golf, but their passion for Mata Ortiz pottery inspired them to start their own business.
Selling pottery made in the Mexican village of Mata Ortiz became their hobby four years ago and their business a year later. Today the Dierses sell the pottery and jewelry at their home, art shows and galleries.
They call their business Mata Ortiz to You.
Jan, 61, and Russ, 65, travel to art shows, bring potters up from Mata Ortiz for shows about two or three times a year, and also sell jewelry that a Taxco, Mexico, silversmith makes out of Mata Ortiz pottery shards.
In the Tucson area, that jewelry can be found at the Western National Parks Association Store, 12880 N. Vistoso Village Drive, Tohono Chul Park, 7366 N. Paseo del Norte; and at Blue Raven Gallery and Gifts, 3054 N. First Ave.
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The Dierses have organized a free talk, pottery demonstration and sale that will take place this weekend at the Heritage Highlands at Dove Mountain development. The speaker will be Spencer MacCallum, who rediscovered Mata Ortiz pottery. Potters Jerardo Tena and Celia Veloz will demonstrate the craft.
"I'll be talking about the beginning years of the Mata Ortiz pottery phenomenon and the legacy of Juan Quezada," MacCallum said, referring to the potter who was at the forefront of the handmade pottery's revival.
During years of experimentation, Quezada used the trial-and-error method to make pots by hand using local materials, as his ancestors had done hundreds of years earlier.
"One extraordinary thing about all of this is that Juan developed his entire ceramic technology experimentally . . . He had no input at all from the outside," MacCallum said. "That's an incredible intellectual feat."
MacCallum's efforts and faith in the quality of Quezada's work changed not only Quezada's life but also revitalized his hometown — Mata Ortiz.
It is home to about 500 potters, MacCallum said.
But it was nearly a ghost town when he, an American anthropologist, discovered Quezada and his work in the 1970s.
MacCallum saw something magical in Quezada's work and brought the pottery to the U.S. market.
Three decades after MacCallum discovered Quezada, changing both men's lives, the Dierses discovered Mata Ortiz pottery for themselves at a shop in Nogales, Sonora.
"My husband and I moved here from Pennsylvania, retired teachers, thinking we were just going to work on our golf game, but we found the Mata Ortiz pottery down in a shop in Nogales and became totally enthralled with the story," Jan Diers said. They moved to Marana in 2002.
Within a couple of weeks of their arrival, they jumped in the car and drove to Mata Ortiz, in the state of Chihuahua, planning to buy three pots to add to the two they already owned.
Instead, they bought 18.
Two months later, they went to the small Mexican town again, bought a bunch more and rented a table at a Heritage Highlands holiday gift show.
Tapping into their experience as educators, they not only sold the pottery but also told the story of its revival.
"It first started out — as so many things do — as kind of your passion and fun, and it evolved," Jan Diers said.
"This is not how we thought retirement was going to be," she said. "But we're thoroughly enjoying ourselves."
If you go
What: Mata Ortiz speaker, demonstration and sale.
Where: Heritage Highlands Clubhouse, 4949 W. Heritage Club Blvd.
When: Saturday and Sunday. Times are as follows:
• Mata Ortiz pottery, jewelry, fine-art photos and note cards for sale; demonstrations by potters Jerardo Tena and Celia Veloz: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
• Talk and slide show by Spencer MacCallum on Juan Quezada and the growth of the Mata Ortiz pottery movement: 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. Sunday.
• Pottery firing: 11:30 a.m. each day.
Admission: Free.
For more information: Call Russ and Jan Diers of Mata Ortiz to You at 744-0639.
