Gonzalez, Aide

Aide Gonzalez Betancourt was born in May 1985. Her father is Manuel Gonzalez Reyes, her mother Rosa Maria Betancourt. Both her parents make blank pots for other Mata Ortiz potters to paint. Her sister, Lupita, also makes blank pots for others. Because they make lots of blank pots, Aide almost never makes a pot of her own, she just decorates some of theirs. She learned to paint from watching and working with Jorge Quintana.

Aide and Lupita run a grocery store in Mata Ortiz, “Mi Super,” and each works on their pottery in their spare time. Aide does most of her painting while she’s behind the counter in the store. She fires her pieces in her own kiln.

In the early days, Aide used to paint designs derived from Paquimé pot sherds. A few years later she turned to using the cuadrillo pattern mixed more and more with larger Paquimé Revival designs.