Juanita Johnson, Acoma Pueblo Potter

Juanita Johnson was identified in the 1910 federal census as a pottery maker from Acoma Pueblo.

A photograph of Juanita Johnson, taken in 1933, shows her with several pieces of pottery that she almost certainly made. Prominent in the center of the photograph is a large jar with an incurved rim, sometimes called a seed jar. A jar in the SAR collection with a similar incurved rim and painted with an overall design of interlocking hachured and solid spirals imitating an ancient Tularosa spiral design is inscribed "first prize JJ". The potter who made that jar was Juanita Johnson.

Juanita (Wathcanpino or Santiago) Johnson's maiden name is uncertain; it was either Wachinpino or Santiago. Juanita Johnson (b. ca. 1883/1891) was married to Frank Johnson. Their children included Mary, Perfecta, Louis, and Santana. They were living with her mother, Dolores Santiago, who was identified as a widow (which suggests that Juanita's maiden name may have been Santiago). In the 1937 and 1939 pueblo censuses, she was identified as Juanita (Watchanpino) Johnson.

From: The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo by Dwight P. Lanmon and Francis H. Harlow, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 2013. There is a 1935 photograph of Juanita Johnson published in The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, by Harlow and Lanmon, on page 446.