Original Painting of a Diné (Navajo) Yeibichai by Pablita Velarde [SOLD]

Pablita was only three years old when her mother died. It was not long after that that she and her baby sister were blinded by a mysterious illness. Their father, an amateur medicine man, used potions to cure them. There remained some sight impairment in Pablita for the remainder of her life, although she regained a large part—enough for her to eventually fulfill her ambition to become a painter.

Pablita attended the Santa Fe Indian School and studied under the tutelage of Dorothy Dunn, art teacher and founder of The Studio at the school. Pablita was an excellent art student and an excellent artist, but she was so shy that she had no intension of pursuing art as a career until she met Tonita Peña who boarded a few nights at the Indian School while she worked on a commission in Santa Fe.

Tonita Peña was the first female pueblo Indian accepted as an artist by the male-dominated field at the time. Meeting Tonita was the impetus Pablita needed to convince her that she too could become an artist and pursue painting as a career.

Although Pablita worked with tempera, watercolor, and casein, she is best known for the earth paintings, similar to sand paintings, she did.

“To prepare for earth paintings, she first collected and ground stones into natural pigments. (She purchased a few stones that could not be found in the central New Mexico area.) After grinding and regrinding them on her metate with her mano, she sifted the pigments into jars for storage.” (Nelson, 1978).

Pablita would draw her designs on masonite panels that were treated with a coat of pumice. She then used her ground-up minerals as paint to fill in the areas she had drawn. To mix her paints, she combined the pigment with water and glue, and then painted with paintbrushes. She would paint each color up to seven layers to gain the consistency she desired. She then would outline the images, once again as many as seven or so times, to insure they were strong black.

This image of a Navajo Yei figure is very dynamic and an accurate portrayal. The dancer fills the full size of the board, almost as if he were stretching to expand in size. The paints are consistent in thickness as a result of Pablita’s patience in painting each color over and over until she had a nice thick finish.

Reference: Pablita Velarde by Mary Carroll Nelson, in American Indian Art Magazine, Spring 1978.