Saenz, Maria

From the northern Mexico village of Mata Ortiz, Maria Saenz is the mother of Diana Loya and mother-in-law of Alfredo “Freddy” Rodriguez. Freddy learned how to do sgraffito designs from his brother, Manuel Rodriguez. Once he had it down, he taught Diana and she taught her mother.

Maria seems to like applying streaks of different colored slips to her pieces until each piece is completely covered in color (the base clay is an off-white that is exposed in the sgraffito process). Then she fires the piece before incising her design on it. Most of her designs include flowers and branches with birds and/or butterflies.