Forms of Exchange

Art of Native Peoples from the Edward J. Guarino Collection

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Cylindrical Jar by Susan Folwell

Susan Folwell (b.1970), Santa Clara

Cylindrical jar with carved and painted Northwest Coast style designs, acrylic and wood stain on native clay, 2005

"As I climb over the mesas and through the wash looking for clay, I realize that there have been many before me who have taken the same steps and have made the same search — and have seen the same beauty. I know that some of this clay may even contain the dust of my ancestors, so how respectful I must be. And I think, perhaps I too might become part of a vessel, some day! What a thought."

Al Qöyawayma, Hopi

Pottery

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Pottery making began in the Southwest about 200 C.E. During the height of pre-contact civilization around 1100 C.E., the ancestors of the Pueblo people (so named after the Spanish word for village) produced fine wares that displayed bold, black-and-white geometric designs. By the fifteenth century, the Hopi village of Sikyatki created an iconography of stylized birds' wings and swirling arabesques. Later Pueblo potters admired and imitated these ancient traditions, especially after the pottery revival in the early twentieth century. This revival helped Pueblo people bring prestige and much-needed financial support into their communities during a time of disruptive modernization. Potters from the Acoma, Hopi, San Ildefonso, and Santa Clara Pueblos were instrumental in establishing their work as a fine art, both by reinvigorating contact with long-standing pottery-making traditions and through unprecedented innovations.

Most Pueblo pottery is made today as it was in ancient times. Potters gather local clays with a reverential attitude. They mix the clay with temper (sand or ground pottery shards) and form the vessels with hand-molded coils that are scraped smooth, dried, sanded, slipped (covered with a solution of extremely fine clay), polished, painted with vegetable or mineral substances garnered from the desert, and then fired outdoors under a pile of sheep or cow dung. Typically, each Pueblo community makes pots that display variations in local clays, methods of firing and other techniques, and the persistence of ancestral or borrowed design traditions. For example, the mellow, golden quality of Hopi pots comes from the iron-rich clays of the region, and their iconography often derives from Sikyatki models. The "smudged" black wares of San Ildefonso and Santa Clara result from smothering the fuel during the firing process. The avanyu, or plumed serpent — often displayed on the pots from these Pueblos — is a twentieth-century introduction inspired by ancient murals found in the area. In fact, rediscoveries and innovations — such as the black-on-black style invented by Maria and Julian Martinez — are part of the rich, ever-evolving traditions that define Pueblo pottery. This art has allowed Native makers to straddle two worlds successfully — gaining benefits from mainstream society while maintaining their roots in indigenous culture.

The Navajo, or Diné, entered the Southwest around 1400 C.E. Navajo pots are constructed and fired using techniques similar to those of Pueblo makers but are typically undecorated except for a small fillet or braid at the rim. After firing, the potter applies pitch pine resin to the surface. Since the 1980s, innovators such as Alice Cling have taken Navajo pottery in new directions.