Quezada, Lydia

Lydia Quezada de Talavera is the youngest of Juan Quezada Sr‘s siblings. She learned the art of making pottery from Juan while she was still living at home in Mata Ortiz with their parents. She taught her husband, Rito Talavera, to make pots, too, and then taught their children, Moroni and Pabla.

Lydia was producing black-on-black pottery early in her career, then moved to polished and matte black surfaces, then to a three-black design process. Then she moved to making large jars of black and cream polychromes. Lydia is also a master of designs that combine elegance and precision: two-dimensional flat imagery with three-dimensional sculptural imagery.

At the 2020 Concurso Ceramica de Mata Ortiz, Lydia earned a Second Place ribbon for a burnished black graphite piece. She earned the Second Place ribbon at the Concurso in 2019 for a similar burnished black graphite piece. In 2018 she had earned the First Place ribbon in the category.