Charmayne Samuelson spoke about her book on Spencer MacCallum who discovered master potter Juan Quezada and promoted the Mata Ortiz pottery.
Photos and article by Mary Alice Murphy
At the Silver City Museum Annex, the museum hosted not only Oralia Lopez demonstrating her painting style on her pottery, they also exhibited a large selection of pottery from other Mata Ortiz potters.
Lopez used a single hair cut from a child's head to paint her very detailed pottery. She said a child's hair is more flexible for the delicate strokes she makes.
The featured speaker was Charmayne Samuelson, who interviewed Spencer MacCallum, and wrote a book about how MacCallum met the master Mata Ortiz potter, Juan Quezada, and promoted Quezada and the other potters of Casas Grandes, Mexico, to international status.
Samuelson noted that the book placed second in biography and autobiography in an Indie Book Award contest. She has received other awards for her writing, too.
She presented a short history of MacCallum. In 1928, his father, Ian, as an architect was working in NewYork City and was one of the designers of Grand Central Station. Then the Depression came and his firm went out of business. He, his wife and two sons, one of which was Spencer, moved to West Virginia, where he built houses. In 1942, his dad was conscripted into World War II to investigate ancient historical buildings that were damaged and destroyed during the war.
MacCallum's mother Lucille decided to take Spencer and his brother to Mexico, because she thought after the war that the U.S. and Mexico would become dominant.
What happened was Ian didn't come home, but would remain in Europe.
Spencer, even at a young age, went out to Mayan ruins with archaeologists and "was hooked."
Samuelson said his grandfather, his mother's father, Spencer Heath, for whom he was named, had developed a propeller for planes that became the norm.
After a couple of years of Ian not returning, MacCallum's parents divorced. Spencer developed a stutter, but made it through high school and Princeton, where he received a bachelor's degree in anthropology, then a master's degree at Washington State and back to Princeton for a Ph.D.
Spencer developed a love of going to garage sales and junk stores.
In 1976, he and some friends of his bought a gold mine near Deming, in which Spencer invested $80,000. While in Deming, he checked out Bob's Swap Shop where he found his first Mata Ortiz pot. He thought it was prehistoric. But when he learned otherwise, he went back to Mexico and found Juan Quezada. He offered Juan $300 a month to make more of the beautiful pots.
Samuelson said she and her husband loved to travel, and they went to Mexico and met Juan Quezada and MacCallum. "I said I need to interview you. My first time interviewing him and Juan was in 2005, and along with future interviews turned into this book."
She noted she has a new book coming out called "Poetry of the Clay." She plans a book signing in Mata Ortiz in October with 20 potters.
Samuelson has written 10 books so far, she said.
She then offered her Spencer MacCallum book for purchase and signing.
