Inez Ortiz -Cochiti Potter

Inez Ortiz is the daughter of well known Cochiti potter Seferina Ortiz. Seferina's son, and Inez's brother, is the famed potter Virgil Ortiz.

Pottery that is traditionally Cochiti in all respects has been disappearing for several decades. With the creation of storytellers by Helen Cordero at Cochiti in 1964, and their ensuing popularity, most Cochiti potters turned to the production of these highly marketable forms.

What was largely abandoned was the older Cochiti style which focused on animal and human figures. In the late 1980s, Virgil Ortiz began to recreate the bizarre and unusual human figures that were done at Cochiti in the early 20th century. He has continued to explore this style, taking it to new and even stranger forms. His family, impressed and inspired by his success, started to also pot in the older Cochiti style making human and animal figures using traditional Cochiti slips and firing outdoors.

Inez Ortiz is part of this small rennaissance taking place at Cochiti Pueblo. While most potters there have discontinued the use of the natural slips, due to their unavailability, and have switched to kiln-firing, due to convenience, Inez continues to use traditional slips and firing techniques to create wonderful pottery inspired by the work of her predecessors one hundred years earlier.

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