Native American Women Potters
It has been exciting to look at all of the artistic creations by Native American women. Indigenous female artists have produced beadwork, basketry, pottery, sculpting, quilting, patchwork, dolls, clothing, and many other forms of art work.
It takes great skill to make beautiful pots. Maria Montoya Martinez’s pottery has been instrumental in preserving the heritage of the Pueblo people. What is so awe-inspiring is that she did not use modern methods like potting wheels and brick kilns. Digging a hole in the ground for firing, fashioning the clay entirely from hand without a potter’s wheel, and replicating the ancient black color are very impressive. She lived simply as a Pueblo woman, not wanting any aggrandizement for her internationally famous pottery. Please be sure and watch the video. It is inspiring and heartwarming.
Maria Montoya Martinez (Tewa, 1887 – July 20, 1980)
Maria was born in San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. She attended Saint Catherine’s Indian School. Pottery-making, primarily a female undertaking in the Tewa people, fascinated her at a young age. It was an important means of support for the indigenous people. She and her sisters became potters.
While she was growing up things were changing in the making of pottery. Enamelware and tin took the place of traditional pottery for use in the home. But Maria wanted to keep the clay pottery tradition alive so she and her family began to make pots just for their beauty. She learned to make pottery from her Aunt Nicolasa and her grandmother. By 1900, when she was thirteen, she was already famous in her pueblo for her skill. She learned the ancient tradition of hand-coiling pots to make them smooth and round. (You can see her do this in the video. See the link below.) Maria could make the thinnest pots in the least amount of time and they were perfectly round.
Around 1908 broken pieces of polished black-on-black pottery were unearthed by an archaeological expedition. The pieces were an ancient style done by the Pueblo peoples. The archaeologist, Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett identified the shards as having been used for decoration during the Neolithic period. (7000-1700 B.C.) The Neolithic Age began after the Stone Age. People were not just depending on hunting and gathering to sustain life. They began to craft things just for beauty as they did the pottery.
Sometime during the late eighteenth century, the black-on-black pottery became extinct. Dr. Hewett began to search for someone who could recreate the pottery. He discovered Maria and she was willing to work with him to craft the beautiful pots. They went through a lengthy trial and error period before they got the process perfect.
Maria and Julian
A few years later, Maria and her husband Julian pioneered the design that she is now famous for. They applied a matte-black design over the polished black to imitate the shards that were dug up at an archaeological site. In 1910 Maria and Julian experimented with the clay from different areas and using different firing techniques.[1]
They used volcanic ash found in New Mexico and beeweed (an insect-attracting plant eaten for medicinal properties) to create the chalky texture. Dr. Hewett was impressed and he brought people to look at the pottery who purchased it. It became popular so Maria and her husband began to experiment with other colors and forms. Maria would make the pots and Julian would decorate them. He used typical Pueblo designs – zigzags or kiva (their home) steps, roadrunner tracks, birds, feathers, rain, clouds, and mountains. Some of Maria’s pots were put in a museum.
Maria was humble and did not see any value attached to her name. Her oldest works were not signed. She was encouraged to begin to sign them in several different ways so that collectors could approximate the times of her pots. She often signed the pots of others to help them with their sales. Helping her community was of primary importance to Maria. You will see in the video how humble she was, only wanting to be known as a wife and mother and friend in her community. When asked why she made so many black pots she replied, “Well, black goes with everything.”
Throughout her career she worked with many family members including her husband Julian, sisters, her son Adam and his wife Santana, and her son Popovi Da. Popovi was born in 1922 as Antonio Jose Martinez but changed his name in 1948 to Popovi Da meaning Red Fox. He was a fine painter and helped Maria with her work. He helped his mother to market her work. Here are some examples of her pottery.
Maria’s methods were passed on when a workshop was founded in 1973 with help from the National Endowment for the Arts. Students were trained to make pots in the traditional way.
Below is a link to a great video made about Maria. One of the best biographical videos I’ve ever seen. You will enjoy it. You can watch Maria make pottery. She makes it look easy, but of course it’s not. She makes them by hand not using a potter’s wheel. She preserves this tradition of pottery-making that is thousands of years old. Notice the primitive method of forming, decorating and firing the pots.[2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bzSKNBKG0M&t=1556s
[1] For more details and lots of great pictures go to: https://smarthistory.org/puebloan-maria-martinez-black-on-black-ceramic-vessel/. “Puebloan: Maria Martinez, Black-on-black ceramic vessel” Dr. Suzanne Newman Fricke.
[2] “Maria Martinez: The Potter of San Ildefonso” Produced by Nora Eccles Treadwell in 1952. The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art was founded in 1984 and holds hundreds of Maria’s pots.
