Cochiti Pueblo Mother Turtle Pottery Figurine by Tim Cordero [SOLD]

This Cochiti Pueblo pottery figurine by Tim Cordero, grandson of Helen Cordero, is known as Mother Turtle. It is a smiling turtle with a child clutching on the back of the shell and three more children seated on a blanket on its shell. Helen Cordero was the originator of this style figurine and had modelled it after a Cochiti Pueblo legend that states in time of disaster, Mother Turtle will come to the pueblo and rescue the children.

Pueblo potters have always drawn from the venerable traditions of the past, aware of pueblo rules governing those traditions, yet able to create and innovate to their own satisfaction. In doing so, those artists were drawing on history and yet expressing their own artistic talent and creativity.

This was certainly true for Cochiti Pueblo potter Helen Cordero (1915-1994). She taught her children and grandchildren how to make pottery figurines and explained the meanings behind each figurine style.

Tim Cordero is the son of the late Jimmy Cordero of Cochiti Pueblo and his Hopi wife Lenora Holmes. Tim started making pottery between 1979 and 1980, at the age of 16 or 17, while living at Cochiti Pueblo with his grandmother, Helen Cordero.  Following Helen Cordero’s death in 1994, Tim no longer visited Cochiti Pueblo and therefore no longer made storyteller figurines. Even when Helen was alive, he only visited in summers so his production during those few summers was rather limited. I do not believe there are many of his figurines in existence.

Condition: this Cochiti Pueblo Mother Turtle Pottery Figurine by Tim Cordero is in original condition

Provenance: from the collection of an Albuquerque resident

Recommended Reading:  The Pueblo Storyteller by Barbara Babcock