Spencer MacCallum and the Miracle of Mata Ortiz: A Eulogy
The fact that Spencer MacCallum was the resident security guard at Angels Gate Cultural Center in its early days may not make him a prominent figure in San Pedro, but he is credited for the discovery of a style of pottery in Mata Ortiz, a village in Chihuahua, a state in northern Mexico. The miracle transformed that town into a world-recognized center of creativity.
He was a philosopher, an anthropologist, a visionary and my friend.
— James Preston Allen, Publisher
Spencer Heath MacCallum, born 1931, died Dec. 17, 2020 in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. Spencer is the grandson, heir and namesake of inventor Spencer Heath. It was Spencer MacCallum who carried Heath’s ideas and spirit into the 21st century. To understand the remarkable life of Spencer MacCallum, we must first understand his grandfather.
The Discovery of Juan Quezada
Spencer McCallum is most widely known for leading an economic and cultural transformation in the area surrounding the city of Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, Mexico. This regional renaissance has an unlikely source: hand-made pottery and Spencer’s totally unreasonable commitment to promoting it.
In 1976, Spencer visited a junk shop on the U.S.Mexico border. He spotted some beautifully painted clay pots with no manufacturer marks or names.
“I knew as soon as I saw the pots that whoever made them was someone special — someone who truly knew [himself or herself],” Spencer later recounted. All the junk shop owner knew about the pots is that they were sold by some people from Mexico.
Spencer bought the pots, and by any reasonable standard, this should be the end of the story. Spencer should have gone home, put the pots above his fireplace and enjoyed his retirement.
Instead, he put the unsigned pots in his car, and without any information, drove into Mexico to search
for the artist who made them.
And, even more unreasonably, Spencer actually found him.
Juan Quezada was his name, and in addition to being an artist, he was a farmer in the hills of the remote town of Mata Ortiz. This was the 70s; there were no paved roads. People still used donkeys to get around. Quezada could not read and spoke no English. But he was a first-rate craftsman who derived his novel designs from fragments of indigenous pottery that he found in the hills.
Spencer and Juan Quezada became friends and business partners. Spencer became Quezada’s patron, paying him to continue to experiment and create new works. Meanwhile, Spencer, an anthropologist by training, traveled the United States to bring notoriety to Quezada’s masterpieces.
Today, Mata Ortiz pottery is a recognized artistic style. Single pots can fetch enormous sums at auctions and in fine art galleries around the world. Quezada took on apprentices. An industry was born. Apprentices evolved their own unique spins on the style and made names for themselves. PBS immortalized the whole story in 2005.
Mata Ortiz pottery
A local friend described Spencer’s death as “the end of an era for a whole region in Mexico.” This is no exaggeration. It’s hard to overstate Spencer’s positive impact in the Chihuahua region across the ensuing decades — it’s full of potters, whose work and its tangents provide a livelihood to a majority of the townspeople. But it’s hard to understate just how challenging a transformation it was. The deserts of Chihuahua are beautiful and full of kind and hospitable people, but like so many places unlucky enough to be in the shadow cast by the United States’ war on drugs, living and doing business in Chihuahua is no picnic.
I met Spencer in 2012, when he arranged for a local taxi driver to take me safely from Ciudad Juárez to Casas Grandes. After crossing the border from El Paso, the driver told me to lay on the floor of the car so as not to be seen while he drove through the desolate streets of Juárez at 3 a.m. I’ll never forget the boarded-up shops, the stray dogs, the pale streetlights — the chilly emptiness of a city where you don’t venture out at night.
Spencer faced endless problems with broken infrastructure, corruption, thievery, and narcotraffickers. He began constructing a factory to make artisan jewelry in the area, hoping to repeat the success with pottery. But the factory was seized by sicarios — machine-gun-toting hitmen. Just like that, hundreds of jobs and opportunities for local people vanished into the dry desert winds.
Yet, Spencer went bravely on, although he didn’t make a show of the enormous courage this required; in fact, his presence and manner could make him easy to miss. Slight of stature and unassuming and kind in nature, Spencer spoke so softly he was often hard to hear. While some will presume I am waxing poetic after his death, I can honestly say I never heard Spencer speak ill of anyone. Upon arrival in Casas Grandes, I got out of the taxi and into the passenger seat of an old pickup. Spencer was behind the wheel, and while riding around I became as acquainted with him as the town.
While cruising along the city’s outskirts, Spencer directed my attention to a specific house. His wife, Emmi, explained why. “That’s where the local thief lives,” she said. “He broke into our house and stole some things.”
“And what did you do?” I asked, expecting a swashbuckling tale.
Spencer gave me his report matter-offactly: “I went over, knocked on his door, and asked him to return what he stole.” Pause. “And he did.”
Earlier this year, Spencer was run over by a truck in New Mexico. The thought of him being crushed by — pardon me — some reckless moron behind the wheel is too painful to bear. As seems to have been his habit, Spencer showed remarkable resilience over 2020. But, in the end, it was too much. Though cancer couldn’t claim him — the injuries he suffered at the hands of an inattentive driver did.
Rest in peace, Spencer MacCallum: Cherished friend and mentor; a man imbued with the creative spirit of humankind; a man beyond his time; a man who remade the world for the better. You will be missed.