In the American Southwest, only capricious criteria separate "antiquities" from the thriving traditions of contemporary Indian art. Unlike in other areas of the world where sociopolitical and technological changes have caused a disconnection between the art of ancestral generations and that which is being created today, southwestern artistic traditions that emerged a thousand years ago continue to evolve. Yet due to a number of factors, including the introduction of manufactured goods and the development of tourism, Pueblo pottery is an fine art form that was very nearly lost a hundred years ago. Today, thanks in function to the foresight of a small grouping of scientists and art collectors and a few outstanding potters, Pueblo-Indian pottery is a thriving tradition that supports artists and families throughout the Native communities of New Mexico and Arizona.

Fig. i: Location map of San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico. Courtesy of Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Atomic number 26, New United mexican states.

The story of the credence of Pueblo pottery equally "art" is inextricably tied to potter Maria Martinez (ca. 1887–1980). Martinez, and the various family members with whom she worked, produced pots that are highly acclaimed in the academic and collecting environments, with some examples bringing upwards of $500,000. Collectors appreciate not only the beauty of the work but also its place in the continuum of an aboriginal tradition. Through an test of the historical context in which Maria Martinez developed equally an artist, a greater understanding is gained of the myriad forces that accept shaped Pueblo pottery making and continue to help constitute innovations inside the tradition.

Maria Montoya (Martinez) was born circa 1887 into the Tewa-speaking pueblo of San Ildefonso in northern New Mexico (Fig.1). As a young girl, she learned the fine art of pottery making in typical Pueblo-Indian style—by watching and doing—from ii of the greatest potters of the time, her aunt, Nicolasa Peña, and Martina Montoya. These women taught her the skills required of a potter, but she learned the social dimensions of Pueblo art from her community.

Traditional Pueblo pottery making has always been a community attempt and was often a major part of social interaction between family unit members. As a result, most artists specialized in certain steps in the procedure, such every bit pottery building, polishing, painting, or firing. The end consequence was a pueblo product and not an private 1. During her career, Maria nearly always collaborated with others. Before she married, she worked with her sisters, then with her husband, Julian. When he died in 1943, she worked with her daughter-in-constabulary Santana Roybal, and ultimately with her son Popovi Da.

Fig 2: Maria Martinez making pottery, ca. 1941. Courtesy of Museum of New Mexico photo athenaeum (neg. no. 44191); photography past Wyatt Davis.

Pueblo Indians take been in the American Southwest for millennia and accept a pottery-making tradition that dates back at least thirteen hundred years. Throughout most of this time, ii different types of pottery were made—a commonsensical grayware and a paintedware. Grayware vessels were used for cooking and food storage, while painted vessels were used as serving bowls, for water storage, and for ceremonies. Although functionally dissimilar, both types were fabricated using the same edifice techniques. Long, snakelike coils of clay were made and stacked until the desired vessel height was reached (Fig. two). The vessel was so smoothed and thinned by scraping the moist dirt into the desired shape. After the clay was thoroughly dry, the vessel would be fired in an open pit with wood used as fuel (moo-cow dung is oftentimes used today). These pottery-building techniques have inverse fiddling throughout the centuries, except when raw materials were not as readily bachelor.

By the mid-fourteenth century every bit the Pueblo people moved east from the original homelands in western New Mexico to their electric current locations along the Rio Grande, the white clays close to their prehistoric villages at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde were unavailable and red clays were substituted. The deviation in dirt color resulted in a black-on-carmine pottery instead of the familiar black-on-white. While continuity was of import for Pueblo self-identity, information technology was non and so inflexible every bit to stifle change.

Blackness-on-red pottery was the most common type produced at San Ildefonso when Maria was learning the craft, although its use was waning. The railroad arrived in Santa Iron in 1880, making manufactured appurtenances widely available and inaugurating New Mexico as a destination for tourists. Prior to that time, Hispanic and Pueblo people of the eye and northern Rio Grande Valley depended upon Pueblo ceramics for most of their household cooking and storage needs. By the tardily 1800s, pottery was being replaced in Pueblo communities by manufactured metal and ceramic wares. The bulk of pottery existence produced at the pueblos was intended for auction to the burgeoning curio marketplace, which favored exotic items and small pieces that were easy to ship.

Fig. 3: Black-on-black ceramic plate by Maria Martinez and Popovi Da, 1943 (cat. 49249/12). D. xiii-4/5" (35 cm) Courtesy of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Iron, New Mexico; photography by Blair Clark.

These changes produced a aperture of pottery-making techniques that did not go unnoticed. A segment of Santa Fe'due south cultural leaders took it upon themselves to help preserve what they believed was a dying art. They did this in two major ways. In 1922 they established a fund for the city's Museum of New Mexico to purchase fine pieces of Pueblo pottery. With this fund, the museum's founder, Edgar Lee Hewett, and others purchased pottery they considered to be of exceptional quality. They were willing to pay a pregnant premium over the regular cost if the work met their standards, thus encouraging potters to make fewer, but improve pieces. In the aforementioned yr they also started the Indian Fair, now famous every bit Santa Fe's "Indian Market," in which prizes were awarded for the all-time Indian art. The prizes provided farther incentive for potters to create well-made works of art. Before long subsequently the establishment of the Indian Off-white, Maria Martinez, who was already well known to the museum'south staff, gained recognition beyond Santa Fe as an innovative artist. She began experimenting with pottery in the early on 1910s, when most San Ildefonso Pueblo potters were still making the traditional blackness-on-cherry-red ceramic wares. Maria had made similar vessels, just she and her husband Julian had developed new techniques of creating pottery with ii blacks, which impacted pottery making throughout northern New Mexico'south pueblos. By smothering the firing pit at the end of the firing procedure, the menstruation of air was stifled, thereby resulting in a chemic process that turned the pottery black rather than the traditional brilliant red. Where in the traditional way the vessels were polished to a ruby finish after firing and decorated with a matte-black blueprint, Maria'due south black vessels were polished and and then decorated with a matte-blackness paint, resulting in the blackness-on-black pots for which she is most well known (Fig. iii). Although still working inside the realm of traditional Pueblo pottery making, she pushed the level of the aesthetic to a new height, one that helped launch her long career. Maria's pottery included traditional San Ildefonso Pueblo designs but besides recognizable motifs from other Puebloan cultures, such as the prehistoric Mimbres plume designs seen in Figure three. Changing fire temperatures, the applications of different colored paints and slips, refiring pots, and signing her piece of work—unusual in the communal culture of her people—were just some of the innovations that kept Maria's work fresh and the collectors returning for more (Fig. iv). The legacy of Maria Martinez extends far beyond the world of art. By helping to create a demand for well-made pottery, she enabled others in her community to brand a living. At the time of her nascence, just xxx families lived within the pueblo of San Ildefonso. Today, artists and galleries thrive there and at other nearby Pueblo communities where many of Maria and Julian's techniques and designs have been adopted. As a outcome of her technical mastery, creativity, and innovations, Pueblo pottery continues to develop equally a living tradition within American Indian art.

Fig. iv: Cream-on-red ceramic jar by Maria Martinez and Popovi Da, ca. 1925 (true cat. 53227/12). H. 7-1/ii" (19 cm), D. 8-2/5" (21 cm); Black-on-black ceramic jar by Maria and Julian Martinez, ca. 1930 (cat. 18888/12). H. 18-i/2" (47 cm), D. 20-1/2" (52 cm); Polychrome ceramic jar by Maria and Julian Martinez, ca. 1919 (cat. 18798/12). H. eleven" (28 cm), D. 8-2/5" (21 cm). Courtesy of Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Atomic number 26, New Mexico; photography by Blair Clark.

Many of the themes outlined here are presented in the exhibit Touched by Burn down: The Art, Life and Legacy of Maria Martinez at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Atomic number 26, running through January 12, 2003. The exhibit features classic examples of Maria'due south pottery in conjunction with archival photographs, supplemented with video interview commentary by gimmicky potters and Maria scholars. Associated programs include lectures and artist demonstrations. Generous supporters of this exhibit at the time of printing include Medicine Man Gallery, Barbara Gonzales, Janis and Dennis Lyon, Jane and Bill Buchsbaum, and Doris and Arnold Roland.

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Douglas Patinka is an educator for the Museum of Indian Arts and Civilisation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. John A. Torres is the Curator of Archaeology for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Atomic number 26, New Mexico. He worked for the Navajo Nation equally a tribal archaeologist for vii years, and collaborated on the exhibit Touched by Burn: The Fine art, Life and Legacy of Maria Martinez.

Suggested Reading:
Peterson, Susan. The Living Traditions of Maria Martinez . Harper and Row Publishers, 1977.

Spivey, Richard 50. Maria . Northland Press, 1979.

Dillingham, Rick. Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery . University of New Mexico Printing, 1994.