Black on Black Feather Design Soup Bowl [SOLD]

Following the death of Julian in 1943, Maria’s daughter-in-law, Santana, pitched in to assist Maria by painting designs on the plainware, a job that Julian had been doing for 20 or so years.  Santana continued working with Maria for about 12 more years, at which time Popovi Da stepped in to assist his mom and perform the duties that his dad had done. The pottery completed during those years are signed Marie & Santana.  

This bowl, which I jokingly called a soup bowl, was from the earlier years that Maria and Santana collaborated.  It is painted in the eagle feather design that Julian created. To shed light on the soup bowl designation, I share my inspiration in the following paragraphs:

In the early 1940s, when the government took over the boys school at Los Alamos and converted it into a research facility for developing an atomic bomb, it had an effect on one specific individual: Miss Edith Warner, who had served meals from her home, known as the house at Otowi Bridge.  Otowi—the “place where the water makes noise”— was no longer easily accessible for her former guests.

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist in charge of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, proposed that she prepare three small dinners each week, for no more than 10 people.  He would see that 10 people showed up for the meals. Families from Los Alamos began showing up for dinner on a regular basis.

After cooking all day, Mrs. Warner presided, wearing a simple shirtwaist dress and Indian moccasins.  Everyone sat at one long, hand-carved wooden table set in the center of a dining room with whitewashed adobe walls and low-slung, hand-hewn beams.  Miss Warner, aged fifty-one, served her “hungry scientists” generous portions of home-cooked food. They ate by candlelight off traditional Indian black ceramic plates and bowls, hand-coiled by the local potter, Maria Martinez.  Miss Warner charged her guests $2 per head.  Reference: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Perhaps the shape of this bowl was the shape of one used by Miss Warner to serve the Los Alamos scientists!

Provenance: this Black on Black Feather Design Soup Bowl is from a family in Albuquerque.

Recommended Reading:  The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez by Richard L. Spivey (1937 - 2011)

Photo Source: our item # C3512.29 - Adobe Gallery.