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Granddaughters of the Clay: A Family Legacy of Pueblo Pottery

Theme: Native American Craft: The Southwest

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Cover: A work-in-progress by Tammy Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo)1. All images © Kitty Leaken, except where noted.

photographed and curated by KITTY LEAKEN
written by ROSEMARY DIAZ

  1. Nampeyo: Hopi Revivalist and Innovator
  2. Maria Martinez: Grande Dame of Pueblo Pottery
  3. Serafina Tafoya: Santa Clara Tradition-Bearer
  4. The Tafoya Legacy: A Tradition Forged in Flame
  5. Avanyu: A Symbol of Water in the Desert
  6. Centuries of Artistic Evolution

As a child, I helped Saya and Gia Kwijo, my grandmother and great-grandmother, gather clay from the cactus-covered hillsides surrounding Santa Clara Pueblo, one of six Tewa villages located in the Rio Grande Valley in Northern New Mexico. Both women were born and spent most of their lives on this land where my ancestors have lived for generations, and where much of my family still lives today. The Pueblo peoples constitute one of the few Native American tribes in the United States that were never forcibly relocated from their traditional lands, which explains our ongoing and unbreakable connection to Kha Po’o Owingeh. (Kha Po’o Owingeh is the endonym for Santa Clara Pueblo; it translates to “Singing Water Village.”)

Saya and Gia Kwijo knew how to look for clues in the landscape that revealed deposits of the rich, mineral-dense earth from which they sculpted their livelihoods: a section of hill that had pulled away from its hold; thick bands of red and copper-colored soil that stretched across the slopes and slants of a long-desiccated riverbank; fine grains of sand glistening under a dry cluster of cholla. They taught me to listen for Clay Lady’s voice emanating from the land itself: “Here I am, my children. I offer you this sacred earth. Accept my gift and use it to make a good life.”

When we had gathered enough raw clay, my grandfather loaded it into the back of his pickup truck to be hauled to Gia Kwijo’s house, where she and Saya placed the hard chunks of earth into a large aluminum tub, covered them with water, and let them dissolve into a soft, viscous mud. They mixed in a fine powder of volcanic ash, also plentiful on the nearby hillsides, by walking on the mud with their bare feet. My uncles were often recruited for this part of the clay-making process—Uncle Billy always played music while he stepped on clay, and claimed that rock n’ roll was best for keeping up a good pace. “Put on some ’Stones,” he would say to one of his many nieces as he prepared for the task. By the time we were teenagers, we knew every word to every track on “Beggars Banquet,” “Let It Bleed,” and “Some Girls.”

Side by side, Saya and Gia Kwijo worked on their pottery, often collaborating on large pieces. I still remember the gentle strength of their hands as they taught me to shape the clay, guiding me with the words ha wah, ha wah (“that’s the way, that’s the way”) as I made small pots and figurines.

The story of the creative arts in the American Southwest stretches back more than 14,0001 years, to when this land’s earliest inhabitants, the antecedents of the Ancestral Puebloans from whom the Tewa originated, first painted and carved pictographs and petroglyphs on rock surfaces throughout the high desert. Over the centuries, more complex forms of self-expression emerged as the Pueblo people expanded their knowledge and use of Earth-given raw materials. They wove reeds and grasses into baskets, and carved tree roots and twisted, weather-worn branches into religious and ritualistic objects. They harvested raw clay from the land and processed it by hand (and foot), then coiled it into a great variety of vessels that they embellished with carved or painted-on designs, stone-burnished, and—finally—transformed by fire into durable works.

While many potters employ various tools–ranging from pieces of wood or stone to electric potter’s wheels–it is possible to make a pot using nothing other than clay and one’s hands. With few exceptions, this is the tradition that is still practiced in Pueblo pottery today, which makes it one of the last crafts to legitimately claim to be handmade.

It is impossible to know whose hands first transformed Mother Earth’s gift of clay into usable wares, laying the foundation for the fine art that Pueblo pottery eventually became. What is known is that in many of the Pueblo clay artists’ families, the craft’s creative lineage can be traced back at least eight generations, comprising some of the Pueblo community’s great matriarchs of clay.

Nampeyo: Hopi Revivalist and Innovator

A woman, believed to be the famed Hopi potter Nampeyo, sits on a rough floor holding a large clay vessel in her lap. She wears traditional clothing and jewelry, and is surrounded by woven blankets and other pieces of pottery in a softly lit indoor space.

Nampeyo (1859-1942) was born in the Hopi-Tewa village of Hano, on First Mesa on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. She is considered one of the great innovators in Pueblo pottery, both for the new shapes she introduced, and for the intricate polychrome designs she painted, which became her signature style. Her work was heavily influenced by the designs on ancient pottery shards found at the Sikyatki archaeological site, a long-abandoned Hopi village on the eastern side of First Mesa. Here, Nampeyo appears to be working on a pot shaped in the Sikyatki style, a Hopi tradition that she is credited with reviving. Photo by H.F. Robinson2

An antique, handmade ceramic pitcher with geometric designs and showing signs of age, sits beside a handwritten note that describes its origin as a Hopi pitcher made by the potter Nampeyo and possibly decorated by one of her daughters.

The handwritten note that was inside this Nampeyo pitcher reads: "Hopi Pitcher 1938. Made by Nampeyo who started the revival of Hopi pottery. Bought from her in Aug. 1938 for 50 cents in her home, in Hano (a Tewa village) at head of road up 1st Mesa, Nampeyo was over 100 years old at that time, and was blind. Her daughter, Nellie or Fannie probably assisted in decorating.”

Several small, round miniature ceramic pots made by Nampeyo and painted in her signature Sikyatki style, featuring intricate geometric and abstract earth-tone designs. The pots are arranged on a white surface, with parts of larger pottery pieces partially visible in the background.

These miniature pots by Nampeyo were likely painted in the traditional Hopi method, using brushes made from yucca fibers or a single piece of yucca spine. If gently cared for, these natural paintbrushes can last an artist a year or more. Nampeyo painted her pots freehand—an impressive artistic skill, considering the mathematical complexity of many of her designs.

Maria Martinez: Grande Dame of Pueblo Pottery

Black-and-white portrait of Pueblo potter Maria Martinez shows an older, Native American woman with short dark hair trimmed neatly around her face. She wears traditional, formal-looking clothing and beadwork jewelry, including an ornate necklace and dangling earrings. Her hands are clasped in front of her and she is looking slightly to the left of the camera, and smiling.

Maria Martinez (1887-1980), one of the most celebrated Native American potters of all time—her work is found in museums and art collections around the world—was the head of a dynasty of potters at San Ildefonso Pueblo, one of the six Tewa pueblos in Northern New Mexico. Photo by Maurice Eby, c. 1968.3

A blackware Maria Martinez ceramic pot shown on a white pedestal in a glass display case at a museum. Several framed paintings, including a Georgia O'Keeffe painting, hang on the walls in the background.

This pot, made by Maria Martinez and her husband Julian Martinez in 1925, holds an honored place in the New Mexico Museum of Art, next to an oil painting by Georgia O’Keeffe.4

A round, black ceramic Maria Martinez black-on-black olla pot with a narrow opening and intricate, matte and glossy geometric and abstract patterns etched around the upper body. The background is plain and light gray.

Maria Martinez’s popularity arose from her revival of an ancient, black-on-black design technique, as shown on this enormous olla pot commissioned for the first Santa Fe Indian Market in 1922. This pot was one of many collaborations she made with her husband, Julian.5

This ceramic polychrome pot made by Maria and Julian Martinez has an inverted bulb shape, and is decorated with geometric and abstract patterns in black and orange on a cream background. The pot is photographed against a black backdrop.

Maria and Julian Martinez also made polychrome pottery, which involves at least three different colors of slip (mineral pigments), with black, buff, red, and white being the most commonly used colors. This vase is painted with stylized kiva steps and abstract cloud and rain designs.6

Hand-drawn map of the Pueblos in the Southwest U.S., circa 1974, shows pottery styles from different communities in New Mexico and Arizona, with illustrated examples marking each location along rivers and major towns. Map includes labels for each Pueblo.

Martinez and my great-grandmother, Christina Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), were contemporaries. Both potters stayed close to tradition with their clay work, yet developed their own respective styles—Martinez was known for her uncarved, painted, black-on-black ware; Naranjo for her deeply carved work in both black-on-black and red. As you can see on this illustrated map of the pueblos, the two matriarchs lived just miles away from each other, on opposite sides of the Rio Grande. Image courtesy of Arizona Highways, May 1974.

MARIA MARTINEZ AND GEORGIA O’KEEFE

“I cannot imagine that Maria and Georgia did not, at the very least, know about each other. Georgia would have had to drive past the turnoff for San Ildefonso Pueblo on her way to and from Abiquiu, at a time when both women were already well-regarded in their work.

Our decision to place their works next to each other in the permanent collection galleries is both aesthetic and anarchistic. We firmly believe in the modernist influences on Maria’s famous pottery, and there is no doubt in my mind that when Georgia began her own journey in clay, she was influenced by the famed potter. [They] were of a generation who saw the rise of the modern age disrupting their timelines, their lifeways, and their traditions. The anarchy (though maybe twist-of-the-knife is more appropriate) is in the curatorial choice to include Martinez in the canon of Southwest modernists—as not simply a craftsperson, or an Indigenous maker, but as fine artist, in the company of other artists whose training reflects Western ideals of aesthetic decision-making.”

Katie Doyle, Associate Curator of Art and Special Projects, New Mexico Museum of Art

The masters of Pueblo pottery include Nampeyo (Hopi-Tewa; 1859-1942); Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo; 1887-1980); Serafina Tafoya2 (Santa Clara Pueblo; 1863-1949), and Serafina’s daughters, Christina Naranjo (1891-1980); and Margaret Tafoya (1904-2001). These potters have, in their turn, produced other great ceramicists, including, respectively, Dextra Quotskuyva and her daughter Hisi Quotskuyva Nampeyo; Popovi Da and his son Tony Da; and members of the Cain, Ebelacker, Roller, and Youngblood families. All of these artists used clay as their canvas to preserve a tradition that has changed little over millennia. They have also stretched the way clay can be used in order to achieve their own creative visions, expanding the parameters of contemporary Indigenous art.

My personal connection to Pueblo pottery, like that of all the women in my family who are featured in this story, began with one of these matriarchs: my great-great-grandmother, Serafina Tafoya. From Serafina came my great-grandmother, Christina Naranjo (Gia Kwijo), and from Christina came my grandmother, Mary Cain (Saya; 1915-2010). These women shaped their lives by carrying the Dream Wheel—a Native American metaphor for the practice of preserving and sharing tribal knowledge through the oral tradition. For their part, my ancestors spun the Dream Wheel at full velocity. Through clay, they created livelihoods, raising families with the money they made selling their exceptional pottery.

Considering the limited economic opportunities available to Native women during their lifetimes, these achievements were beyond measure, inspiring generations of daughters and granddaughters to live an artist’s life. Through example, they gave each of us permission to spin our own Dream Wheel, and the creative inheritance to keep it in motion.

Serafina Tafoya: Santa Clara Tradition-Bearer

A large room with warm, low lighting shows several rows of wooden shelves holding a large collection of Southwestern style pottery, vases, and artifacts. In the foreground, a wooden table holds a collection of pots made by the Pueblo potter Serafina Tafoya. A blurred female figure can be seen in the background on the left, apparently walking toward the camera.

Today, a collection of Serafina Tafoya’s pots is carefully housed in the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research (SAR), in Santa Fe, NM. The pot with the bear paw design appears to be the same one in this archival photograph of Serafina, taken in 1900. Her water jars were made with indented bands around the center, a decorative element based on an ancient design that was originally used to prevent evaporation.7

A black-and-white image of a female figure standing outdoors, tending to three large ceramic pots over a smouldering fire on the ground. Smoke is rising around her and the background appears as a blurred, rocky landscape with what may be part of a building roofline and a fence on the horizon.

My great-great grandmother, Serafina Tafoya (1863-1949), whose Tewa name translates to Autumn Leaf, was a Santa Clara Pueblo matriarch and master potter. She is shown here firing blackware pots at her home, circa 1900. I can’t count how many times I awoke in Santa Clara to the scent of smoke from a pottery firing enveloping the village—a still-comforting sensorial memory so many years later.8

The author of this story, RoseMary Diaz, who is Serafina Tafoya's great-great-granddaughter, leans in to examine a large, black ceramic pot made by her ancestor. The pot is displayed on a light-colored table. The woman is wearing a patterned black-and-white sweater and her dark hair is pulled back; one hand rests expressively below her throat. Behind her are several wooden shelves full of pottery.

While researching this story, I was treated to an up-close look at one of my great-great-grandmother’s water jars at the School for Advanced Research (SAR).9

A family tree diagram showing descendants of Serafina (c. 1863–1949) through Christina Naranjo and Mary Cain, with names and birth years for each generation, organized in a branching hierarchical format.

The author’s branch of the Tafoya family tree, dating back to Serafina Tafoya. (Note: The information shown here was sourced from the 1994 book, “Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery,” by Rick Dillingham, University of New Mexico Press. It has not been updated.)

Saya and Gia Kwijo made their bowls, jars, and vases with the coil method—a technique that has existed since prehistoric times. With their hands, they rolled the moist clay into long strips and pressed them together with a piece of dried gourd, building and shaping the vessels’ walls coil by coil.

When the pots were almost dry, but still soft enough to carve, Saya and Gia Kwijo used store-bought carving tools to incise their work with traditional designs. Some might be of Avanyu, the great plumed serpent; or the sacred bear paw; or lightning, rain, and cloud motifs. Once the pieces were completely dry, they sanded them by hand, then applied a thin clay mud (called a slip) to their surface, and polished each piece to a glass-like finish using a variety of smooth polishing stones. I can still hear those stones clinking against each other as the women searched for the perfect tool—long, thin stones for carved designs; large, flat ones for broad surfaces; an oval shape for the rims. Some of these stones were passed down to them by their mothers and grandmothers, and are still being used today by my mother, aunts, and cousins.

Rising before daybreak, Saya and Gia Kwijo fired their pots just as the sun was dawning over the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the east. Carefully arranging their creations in an old wire crate, then covering the crate with thick slabs of pine bark and thin cedar strips, they set the wood aflame. Once the fire engulfed the crate, they poured dry cow manure over it and let the pots smolder within, deprived of oxygen to achieve the classic, black-on-black finish. Sometimes they fired their work without manure to produce the deep red tones for which Santa Clara Pueblo pottery is also well-known. But whether trying for black or red, firing is the most critical part of the whole pottery-making process—the breath-holding moment of truth, when months of work can be reduced to dust in a matter of minutes.

The age-old firing methods used by my ancestors are still practiced by Pueblo potters today. This past summer, photographer Kitty Leaken and I arrived at the farm of my aunt, Joy Cain, just as Father Sun cast the day’s first light on Truchas Peak, which rises behind Joy’s land. Joy had already built a small fire to temper the ground, and gathered the wood and manure that she would set aflame to transform her just-polished pot into a lustrous, obsidian-colored treasure. Watching her place the lone vessel into the same battered wire crate she has used for many years, then rest the crate on top of half a dozen empty tin cans, I was flooded with memories of Saya and Gia Kwijo. When the firing was finished, Joy removed her pot from the crate and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief: The blessings of the morning were with us; the pot survived its metamorphosis.

The Tafoya Legacy: A Tradition Forged in Flame

A split image: on left, a faded black-and-white portrait of an elderly Native American woman with gray hair who is smiling; a striped woven fabric is draped around her neck. On right, an antique, sepia-toned photograph of two Native American women; the one on the left is taller and holding a baby who is wearing a white dress.

My great-grandmother, Christina Naranjo, was the daughter of Serafina Tafoya, and the mother of Mary Cain. We called her Gia Kwijo, which translates to “Old Mother Woman.” Gia Kwijo loved to laugh, and had the kind of laugh that made others laugh. In the photo on the left, taken in the mid-1970s, she appears much as I remember her—wrapped in a finely woven wool blanket, welcoming the day’s first light with a gentle smile. On the right, a younger Christina holds her baby daughter Mary, my grandmother, circa 1915 or 1916. (The third figure in the photo is likely a relative, but could not be identified.)

A black-and white portrait shows a seated woman with dark, upswept hair wearing an ornate beaded necklace and a traditional Pueblo-style dress. She holds up a sculpted and carved vase she has made. In the foreground are several other black pottery pieces, including vases, bowls, and a small animal figurine, arranged on a table.

My grandmother, Mary Cain, showing her claywork at the opening reception for Rick Dillingham’s book, “Seven Families in Pueblo Pottery,” at the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, in 1974. Mary’s precise carving and masterful polishing set the bar high for the other potters in our family. Her life experiences also spanned an incredible time in history: As a young girl, she traveled with her grandparents by covered wagon from Santa Clara Pueblo to Colorado every summer. Many years later, when she had achieved success as a potter, she flew to Europe on the Concorde.

Two elderly women sit at a table, carefully painting pottery pieces by hand. Various tools and brushes are scattered on the table, and the women appear focused on their detailed work.

Two of Mary’s daughters—my mother, Tina Diaz (at left), and my aunt, Linda Cain—work in unison as they apply slip to their pots. The bonds of sisterhood, spanning countless generations in my family, have long provided the nourishment for the survival of Pueblo pottery.

Two black-and-white photos side by side: In the left frame, two women with long, straight dark hair and heavy tattoos smile as they hold small pottery pieces they are working on together. In the right frame, a different woman stoops slightly, her long black hair falling down her back, as she hands a large, carved vase to a seated young woman, who is looking at it intently.

At left: My cousin, Tammy Garcia (on left), and her eldest daughter, Leah Garcia, work together on the dusty job of sanding their pots. Leah also works at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, which is named after my grandmother Mary Cain, whose Tewa name was Kwan Tsaawa, or Blue Rain.
At right: My cousin, Autumn Borts-Medlock (on right), and her daughter, Rochelle Medlock, unintentionally mirror the pose from Autumn’s work-in-progress, “Water Girls at the Rio de la Olla,” which depicts a woman pouring water between two pots. Autumn has been working on this piece for more than 5 years, and plans to fire it next summer. Rochelle was the model for the figure on her mother’s pot, and, at age 20, she is currently the youngest member of our family’s legacy in clay—eight generations of potters.

An elderly female figure wearing heavy work gloves, boots, and a bright red scarf on her head tends to a tall, blazing wood fire outdoors. She is surrounded by buckets, tools, and various objects on the ground. A rustic adobe building can be partially seen in the background.

My aunt, Joy Cain, a great-granddaughter of Serafina Tafoya, fires a single pot at her remote Northern New Mexico farm in Ojo Sarco, about an hour north of Santa Fe. An early-morning firing takes advantage of low winds and cooler temperatures. Old tin cans and wire crates are repurposed to create a custom-made kiln.

A metal wire crate containing a dark, rounded ceramic pot is propped up by tin cans and engulfed by bright orange flames, burning wooden planks, and embers. Rocks and grass are visible in the top of the frame, as a blurred background.

Unlike commercial clay, which requires long, ultra-high-temperature firings (10 to 12 hours at 1,700 to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit), non-micaceous Pueblo clay is transformed into its final, unvitrified (still porous) product in 1- to 2-hour firings at 1,200 to 1,400 degrees F. Non-micaceous pottery requires additional treatment, such as a coat of resin, before it can be used for cooking or to hold liquid.

An elderly woman in a red headscarf and yellow fleece jacket holds a lustrous black pot carved with a design and partly wrapped in a cloth. She is standing outdoors surrounded by rustic tools, overgrown grass, and a makeshift wooden table. A few planks of unused firewood are scattered about on the ground.

Joy Cain, holding up a pot that she has just fired: “This Avanyu is shooting a lightning bolt from its mouth to bring rain for our crops. I drew her face, her plume, and her body with clouds and symbols of rain, until I got to the tail end. The last thing I do is give her an eye: OK, now you can see.”

Avanyu: A Symbol of Water in the Desert

The Avanyu, or water serpent, is one of the most sacred figures in Pueblo cosmology. She represents clouds, rain, lightning, and bodies of water—a fusion of the terrestrial and the heavenly—and is always a good sign. When you hear her thunder in the distance, you know a storm is coming. The great Avanyu’s rains ensure plentiful fall harvests of corn and squash.

When she worked on pottery, my grandmother, Mary Cain (whom we called Saya), would tell us stories about her life. In one story from her childhood, she was traveling by wagon with her grandparents, Serafina and Geronimo Tafoya, to a grotto near Taos, New Mexico, when one of their wagon wheels broke. It took a week to fix the wheel. On that trip, the Avanyu appeared to them in a lake not far from the grotto, and blessed them with a long life. Grandmother later drew a design of the Avanyu, and gave it to her daughter Joy Cain—my aunt—to use as her own personal version of the water blessing. “It’s very rare, but good luck to see one,” says Joy.

 

 

A rustic wooden shelf displays a collection of Pueblo pottery on the top, and assorted books, teapots, tins, and small figurines on the lower shelf against a light-colored adobe wall.

The pots displayed on this shelf in Joy’s studio were all made by members of our family, including, from left to right: Linda Cain, Mary Cain, Billy Cain, and Christina Naranjo. (Look closely: The Avanyu symbol can be seen on many of these works.)

A stylized painting of a dark blue vase with green leaves and three geometric, colorful flowers, set against a beige background with a green rectangle and circular line. Southwestern patterns decorate the vase and corners.

Tony Da (1940-2008), Maria Martinez’s grandson, learned to make pottery at her side. With her encouragement, he developed his own style, which often included inset turquoise. Da also worked in watercolor, capturing his grandmother’s finely incised pots in paintings such as this one, where the Avanyu, the great plumed serpent, can be seen swimming across the vessel’s surface. The Avanyu and bear-paw prints are recurring images in Pueblo art and pottery and are among the most sacred of the Tewa motifs.

A sepia-toned portrait of elderly woman seated on a chair against a textured wall, holding a ceramic plate with a boldly carved design. A pottery jar rests on a small table nearby, and a heart-shaped wreath hangs on the wall above her.

Mary Cain, my grandmother, taught her children and grandchildren to make pottery, and encouraged each of them to find their own unique approach. This plate, which shows the Avanyu design, now resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe. Photo by Neil Chapman10

A woman wearing glasses and a shawl arranges a collection of intricately decorated pottery on a wooden table in a softly lit room. The pottery varies in size, shape, and color.

Linda Cain, Serafina’s great-granddaughter, admires a collection of pots from our family’s lineage. The Avanyu has been a constant presence in Pueblo pottery for thousands of years, and appears here on works by my great-grandmother Christina Naranjo, grandmother Mary Cain, uncle Douglas Tafoya, and cousins Autumn Borts-Medlock, Tammy Garcia, and Rochelle Medlock. The pot in Linda’s hands was made by Rochelle, her granddaughter.

My family’s love for music is at least partly inherited from my grandfather, William “Bill” Cain, whose Irish and Scots-Irish heritage influenced his vast and varied musical affinities. He listened to everything from old Irish ballads and opera to classic Country and American pioneer tearjerkers, like Burl Ives’ “Songs of the Frontier.”

Bill, who was originally from Louisville, Kentucky, met my grandmother, Mary Tafoya, in Los Alamos, just 17 miles west of her home in Santa Clara Pueblo, when they were both working for the Manhattan Project—a top-secret military program to develop atomic weapons. He was a young serviceman; she was a sworn-to-secrecy laboratory aide. They married and raised seven children together, spending most of their years in Santa Clara—save for a move to Southern California in the 1950s, when economic conditions on the reservation were sparse. Tourism, a key income source for the tribe, had lulled, and the American Indian Movement’s (AIM) founding proclamations, issued in 1968, further discouraged non-Natives from visiting tribal lands.

For these reasons, the first generation of Cain grandchildren—which includes me, and my cousins Autumn Borts-Medlock and Tammy Garcia, both potters who are featured in this story—was born in Los Angeles. When my grandparents moved back to Santa Clara in the early ‘70s so that my grandmother, Mary, could pursue her dream of making pottery with her mother (Christina Naranjo), most of the California-based family, including my mother and my 5-year-old self, soon followed them home.

Centuries of Artistic Evolution

Panoramic images of a museum display featuring Pueblo pottery in glass cases, vintage photographs on the walls, and some rustic wooden objects. The space has polished wood floors and an open, modern layout with spotlights on the ceiling.

Pueblo pottery took center stage in the exhibit, “Honoring Tradition and Innovation, 100 Years of Santa Fe’s Indian Market, 1922-2022” at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, NM (August 2022 through August 2023). Maria Martinez’s work is showcased in the foreground display. Many of the pots in the background, on the left, were made by potters of the Tafoya family.

Maria and Julian Martinez, with their family and some of their works, under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, adjacent to Santa Fe’s historic Plaza, where Pueblo artisans have been selling their wares for more than a hundred years.11

A seated woman with long dark hair, wearing a colorful embroidered headband, black shirt, blue jeans, and beaded jewelry, holds a large, decorative clay pot she has made and carved with a stylized dragonfly design. In the background is a light-colored wall with some texture, like adobe.

To the Tewa people, the dragonfly—shown here on Autumn’s spectacular pot—is a sacred motif, symbolizing healing, prosperity, and a connection to the spiritual realm. The dragonfly is also associated with water, and serves as a messenger, reminding us to embrace change with an open mind.

Grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins: There is a special spirit that abounds when we’re all together—a collective energy that connects us to our ancestors, and the ancient clay legacy that began with them. (Top row, left to right: Autumn Borts-Medlock, Linda Cain, RoseMary Diaz, Tina Diaz, Tammy Garcia. Front row, left to right: Rochelle Medlock, Atlanta Keil, Leah Garcia.)

When I think about my family’s generations-old connection to clay and the entire history of Pueblo arts, my mind travels to the distant past. In my vision, I walk with the ancestors who first set footprints in the warm desert sand; I stand with the Old Ones, who coaxed life from the temperamental lands of the Pueblo people thousands of years ago; I see Serafina’s polishing stones shining in the sunlight, and the first blossoming of my family’s artistic heritage.

The fact that any of the time-honored Native arts of the Americas have survived into the 21st century is remarkable—a feat of Indigenous perseverance and self-determination. In many ways, the survival of our arts has been central to the survival of our culture and lifeways. So when I reflect on my family’s legacy in clay, my thoughts also travel to the future: Who will carry the Dream Wheel forward from here? Who will be the next to step into this ancient art story, to know their place in the world as a granddaughter of the clay?

A pair of elderly hands arranges a few smooth, polished stones on a white blanket, holding a small bowl with more stones in one hand.

Every Pueblo potter has her own precious collection of polishing stones, each with a special purpose in finishing a pot. These stones are often prized family heirlooms, handed down from mother to child, grandmother to granddaughter over generations. When not in use, these cultural treasures are carefully stored, waiting to be passed down yet again to the next heiress of the Pueblo pottery tradition.

A rounded, reddish-brown pottery vase with intricately carved and painted designs in a mix of darker red-orange tones, set against a black backdrop.

“White Boots,” a pot by Tammy Garcia, is carved with Pueblo dancers wearing tablitas (traditional wooden headdresses) and holding boughs of evergreen. The white moccasins indicate the dancers’ affiliation with the Winter People, to whom my family belongs. This piece won Best of Class for Pottery at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1995, and is now in the collection of JoAnn and Bob Balzer.

A collage of pottery bases, each inscribed with the respective artist's signature and the words "Santa Clara Pueblo." Some of the bases also include a date.

FOOTNOTES

1 The oldest petroglyphs on the North American continent were discovered near Winnemucca Lake in western Nevada. Closer to home, the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, located within the Wells Petroglyph Reserve, is just about 30 miles north of Santa Clara Pueblo; some of the rock art there is at least 12,000 years old.

2 Serafina Tafoya’s name is sometimes spelled Sarafina, Sara Fina, or Sera Fina, among other variations.

IMAGE CREDITS

1 Cover image shows Tammy Garcia holding her large pot, which is ready for polishing. This untitled work, now finished, resides in the permanent collection of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, California.

2 (This image is widely considered to be of Nampeyo, but not confirmed.) Hopi potter Nampeyo (Hano Pueblo), Hopi, Arizona, c. 1915. Photo by H.F. Robinson, courtesy Palace of the Governors Archive (NMHM/DCA) 021536.

3 Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo), New Mexico, c. 1968. Photo by Maurice Eby; courtesy Palace of the Governors Archive (NMHM/DCA) 131843.

4 Maria and Julian Martinez, (San Ildefonso Pueblo), New Mexico, Untitled jar, 1925, Matte-on-black ceramic. Georgia O’Keeffe, Dark and Lavender Leaves, 1931, Oil on Canvas. New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM.

5 Maria and Julian Martinez, (San Ildefonso Pueblo), New Mexico, Black on Black Olla, 1922. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Laboratory of Anthropology #31959/12.

6 Maria and Julian Martinez, (San Ildefonso Pueblo), New Mexico, Polychrome Pottery Jar, 1922. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Laboratory of Anthropology #18783/12.

7 Pottery left to right: SAR.1984-4-17, SAR.1984-4-9, SAR.1984-4-14, SAR.1981-1-5, IAF.2674. Courtesy of the Indian Arts Research Center, School for Advanced Research (SAR).

8 Public domain image, courtesy of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

9 Serafina Tafoya (Santa Clara Pueblo), New Mexico, Jar, c. 1922, clay, 11 x 10 ½ in. Courtesy of the Indian Arts Research Center, School for Advanced Research (SAR), cat. no. SAR.1984-4-14.

10 Photograph by Neil Chapman, from “Santa Clara Portraits: A Proud Tradition” (Avanyu Passage West by Southwest, 1999.)

11 San Ildefonso potters Julian and Maria Martinez and family on the portal of the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico, c. 1929. Photo courtesy Palace of the Governors Archive(NMHM/DCA) 164605.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The contributors, along with the Craftsmanship editorial team, would like to thank the people and organizations who generously shared their time, energy, and expertise to make this story possible:

The Cain sisters: Tina Diaz, Joy Cain, and Linda Cain; the Cain granddaughters: Autumn Borts-Medlock and Tammy Garcia; the Cain great-granddaughters: Atlanta Keil, Leah Garcia, and Rochelle Medlock.

Emerald, Joe, and Cindy Tanner, Tanner’s Indian Arts, Gallup, New Mexico.

Catie Carl, Photo Archivist, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Katie C. Doyle, Associate Curator of Art and Special Projects, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Cathy Notarnicola, Acting Head Curator, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Katharine Barry, Registrar; Laura Elliff Cruz, Head of Collections; Paloma López, Education Manager; and Alexis Lucero, Assistant Collections Manager, School for Advanced Research (SAR), Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Elisa Phelps, Head of Curatorial Affairs; Lisa Mendoza, Curator of Collections, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) / Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

JoAnn and Bob Balzer, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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