Amerind Online Talk: “Tradition, Innovation, and Technology: Living Legacies of Juan Quezada and the Mata Ortiz Ceramic Community”

Amerind Free Online Talk 

Thursday, September 10, 2026 

12:00 pm (AZ time) 

To register, visit:  https://bit.ly/Amerindonline09102026Hopkins

Join us on Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 12:00 pm (AZ time) for an online talk, “Tradition, Innovation, and Technology: Living Legacies of Juan Quezada and the Mata Ortiz Ceramic Community”, with Maren P. Hopkins and Kelsey E. Hanson  

 Juan Quezada (1940–2022) is celebrated internationally for pioneering the modern pottery tradition of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, through his extraordinary experimentation with local clays, pigments, and firing techniques inspired by the ancient ceramics of Paquimé. In this presentation, we explore Juan’s stories, memories, and observations about the places where he gathered clay. We compare his lifetime of experience with scientific compositional analyses of those clay sources. Together, these perspectives reveal that Juan’s artistry was more than technical skill—it emerged from a deep relationship with the land, shaped by curiosity, exploration, experimentation, and lived experience. 

 Maren Hopkins is an archaeologist and ethnographer with more than 26 years of experience leading cultural resource, ethnographic, and heritage projects throughout the U.S. Southwest and Mexico. She specializes in collaborative, community-based, and place-based research, working closely with knowledge holders and other stakeholders to document history, cultural traditions, and the diverse ways people understand, experience, and sustain meaningful places. Her work integrates archaeology, ethnography, and heritage conservation to advance public history, cultural preservation, land stewardship, and informed natural and cultural resource management. 

Dr. Kelsey Hanson is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Arlington. Integrating interdisciplinary scientific methods with collaborative, community-based approaches to archaeology, her research explores the social roles of technology, materiality, and knowledge in the Greater Southwest and beyond. From compositional studies of pigments and ceramics to analyses of built environments and landscapes, her work examines how materials encode information about relationships to people, places, and knowledge. She draws from these connections in the past to contribute to contemporary efforts in cultural preservation and stewardship among diverse communities today. 

We hope you will join us!

*Unsure if you can watch the talk live? Register using an email and a recording of the talk will be sent later that evening.