Ortiz, Ricardo

“I was taught from both the grandparents and my parents that [making pottery] can emotionally get to you. If you’re not strong, don’t bother. Leave it alone. Because there’s so many things that … I mean, you work hard to do the pottery, and maybe at the very end it might not come out like how you expect and that, emotionally, can get to you and hurt your feelings. It’s just like dropping that pot, and that could happen to you easily. So you have to be emotionally strong and emotionally fit.” – from an interview with the School for Advanced Research

Ricardo Ortiz is one of the few remaining potters at San Felipe Pueblo. His heritage is 1/2 San Felipe, 1/2 Santa Ana. He makes jewelry in addition to making pottery. He is the son of Frank Ortiz and Vanencia Montaño Ortiz and grandson of Lorenzo and Candelaria Montaño.

Ricardo has said he first got into working with pottery by painting designs on his mother’s and his grandmother’s pots. They taught him the designs but they didn’t teach him how to work with the clay and make pots on his own. That he learned through a lot of trial and error.

Ricardo earned a First Place award for a hand-built figurative two-spouted water jar at the 2008 Heard Museum Guild Indian Arts Fair and Market.