In the late 1970s, Woodrow Wilson Crumbo (1912-1989) Woody Crumbo would pack up his silkscreen prints and etchings and sell them from the back of his van.  He was very friendly and would chat with anyone who stopped by his van.  That visitor inevitably left the conversation with one or more prints in his hand.

Crumbo made wooden boxes to hold collections of prints and would sell from those boxes.  He would label each box with a notation of the contents.  This box is labeled "30 original etchings by Woody Crumbo."  In this box were 30 individual etchings, each one numbered 137/200.  It is quite likely that an individual purchased the entire collection of etchings and the box.  Now there are 4 etchings missing from the box, however, the remaining 26 are available. 

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The Pueblo Indian artists who were the first to take brush to paper, establishing the easel-art tradition in Native America, are the focus of the current exhibition Paintings by Early Students of the Santa Fe Indian School at Adobe Gallery. "We've always given Dorothy Dunn credit for bringing in art at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932," said the gallery's Alexander E. Anthony Jr., "but before that, as early as 1900, the teacher at the San Ildefonso Day School, Esther Hoyt, encouraged her kids to paint whatever they wanted to paint. That was against government policy. The government was very strongly trying to downplay the paganism of the Indians and to get rid of their religion and voodoo kind of dancing."

The one-room school run by Hoyt had 18 students from San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1902, and three years later, enrollment climbed to 31. The little artists included Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal), who was four years old in 1903; Tonita Peña, who was ten; and Tse Ye Mu (Romando Vigil), who was four in 1905. Among Hoyt's other students who kept at what they learned and became famed painters as adults were Alfredo Montoya, Santana Roybal, and Abel Sanchez. "These young artists from San Ildefonso got a jump-start on all the other pueblos, and it became the beginning of the Native American easel-painting movement," Anthony told Pasatiempo in a recent interview at his gallery, which he said will be forty years old in 2017. Anthony opened his gallery on Albuquerque's Old Town plaza and moved it to Santa Fe in 2001.

"Teacher Elizabeth Richards, who replaced Esther Hoyt, not only allowed her students to paint as they wished, but encouraged them to do so, and provided art supplies to them," said Anthony. Later in the next decade, Elizabeth DeHuff, who was the wife of the Santa Fe Indian School superintendent, hosted students of grade-school age at her house, which was against government regulations, and gave them paints and paper - and her husband was reprimanded. Among DeHuff's regular visitors were Fred Kabotie and Otis Polelonema from Hopi and Velino Herrera from Zia Pueblo. "The students from San Ildefonso have been known as the ‘self-taught' artists who brought Indian easel painting to the attention of the nation's art patrons," Anthony said. "It was not until the 1920s that they were able to sell their artworks."

In his 1997 book, Pueblo Indian Painting: Tradition and Modernism in New Mexico, 1900-1930 (School of American Research Press), J.J. Brody writes that the problem hinged on how to classify these paintings. "Useful objects, or at least those that had an appearance of usefulness, were at the heart of the Indian curio market. It was important that an Indian object, even if called ‘art,' look utilitarian and ‘authentic' enough to convince both the casual tourist and the serious collector that it represented a genuine experience with a real person from an exotic society. Paintings and other objects that did not fit those expectations presented special marketing problems."

No paintings from the earliest days at San Ildefonso are known to exist, Anthony said, "but fortunately a number of these artists, such as Julian Martinez and Miguel Martinez, continued on at the Santa Fe Indian School, so we have work that was done later. But we are emphasizing that the young people from San Ildefonso were the people who started the whole thing rolling."

The first woman who became a well-known painter was Tonita Vigil Peña. "She bucked the system because painting was considered the men's art form, and pottery was the women's, and you didn't mix. But Tonita persevered, and she was finally accepted by the men as an equal." The second significant woman painter, Anthony said, was Pablita Velarde of Santa Clara Pueblo. "Her dad didn't think she should paint, but when she ran into Tonita at the Indian School, Tonita said, ‘Do what you want to do,' and she did."
Velarde honed her craft in Dorothy Dunn's art department at the Santa Fe Indian School. Dunn, who was born in Kansas and educated at the Art Institute of Chicago, first encountered Native American art at Chicago's Field Museum in 1925. Seven years later, she obtained permission to initiate an art program at the Santa Fe Indian School. In what was called the Studio School, Dunn "strove to create an atmosphere of genuine creative expression, encouraging her students to celebrate their unique cultural heritage and cultivate their natural talents," Anthony said.

Stylistically, the early casein and tempera paintings made under Hoyt, Richards, and DeHuff relied on uncomplicated portrayals of the people who participated in the tribe's ritual dances. "The San lldefonso paintings are almost always simple, linear compositions organized parallel to the picture plane," Brody writes. The young artists usually presented the dancers in profile and exhibiting limited interactions with one another. "The Indian school artists, on the other hand, used many different dance subjects in realistic, active, and interactive postures" and included panoramic and vanishing-point perspectives.

"The early ones have no ground plane, no trees, nothing but the dancers," Anthony said. "That was the ‘flat painting' style that was even encouraged by Dorothy Dunn: Just paint the dancers. Don't do the European style of putting them in the landscape." This curricular choice, zeroing in on the documentation and celebration of Pueblo mythology and ceremony, was a commendable departure from what were too often racist Indian-school policies, but it has been criticized by some Native American artists as lacking in originality. In any case, the success and resulting influence of Dunn's students suggest that her training was eminently effective; her other alumni included the Navajo painter Quincy Tahoma and two more groundbreaking artists, Pop Chalee (Taos Pueblo/Swiss) and Eva Mirabal (Taos).

Dunn was only at the Santa Fe Indian School for five years. Her successor, Gerónima Montoya, told The New Mexican in 2010 that Dunn was "a wonderful person, and a wonderful teacher. She was very understanding about Indian people." Montoya was a native of Ohkay Owingeh who graduated from Santa Fe Indian School in 1935 as valedictorian. She was first hired as Dunn's assistant and then directed the school's art program from 1937 to 1961. Indian arts education in Santa Fe saw a substantial shift in 1962, when the Santa Fe Indian School campus (temporarily) closed and the Institute of American Indian Arts was founded on the site. "That's when the whole idea changed," Anthony said, "with Allan Houser, Fritz Scholder, Otellie Loloma, and others saying, ‘Don't do what you've always seen. Be yourself.' "

The exhibition at Adobe Gallery has a relatively narrow focus, but there is great variety in the paintings shown, even by single artists. There are two paired images - the sweet Navajo Boy and Girl with Fawns and the colorful, dazzling Pair of Paintings of Navajo Feather Dancers by the renowned Navajo painter Harrison Begay, another student who pursued an artistic career after his departure from Dunn's Studio School.

Some of the pioneering artists had, during their lifetimes, long gaps between the years when they painted. "Tse Ye Mu ended up leaving San Ildefonso and became an illustrator for Walt Disney for a couple of decades, then came back to the pueblo late in life," Anthony said. "Another of the early ones from San Ildefonso was [José] Encarnacion Peña. He was a farmer and cattle man who painted when he was young and came back to it after he retired from that work. He and his wife used to bring his paintings in the first year I had the gallery, which I started in 1977. He died in 1978."

Some of the early artists contrast the realism of the human dancer figures with stylized (geometrical, symmetrical) clouds, rainbows, and other forms. Two examples, both by J.D. Roybal, are Corn Dance Procession at San Ildefonso and a painting of twin avanyu (water serpent) figures entwined on a rainbow arch over three deer. Abstracted geometrical backgrounds appear in Pablita Velarde's whimsical Mineral Earth Painting of a Koosa Clown and her detailed, almost portrait-like Pueblo Eagle Dancer and Tewa Pueblo Ram Dancer.

A standout feature in the earliest paintings is the faithful depiction of ceremonial regalia. These artists did not have the idea, or the audacity, to introduce fanciful variations. "No, they didn't," Anthony said. "Works by Tonita Peña and others are considered to be great ethnographic documents of the early days." 

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Source: www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo

Written by: Paul Weideman (Pasatiempo)

When the book Nacimientos was first published in 1979, there were only 15 pueblo potters included, of which there were only five from Cochiti Pueblo. Mary Martin was not in the group of five listed which indicates that she was not making nacimientos in 1979.  According to research by Guy and Doris Monthan, when planning to write a book on Native nacimientos, "the first Indian-made Nativities appeared in the late 1950s.  Into the early 1960s, the craft was engaged in by only three or four artisans on an occasional basis.  It accelerated in the late 1960s and swelled to the proportions of a movement in the late 1970s." 

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Cochiti Pueblo potter Louis Naranjo was the creator of the bear storyteller figurine.  He said he was hunting one day and saw a mother bear watching her two cubs playing nearby.  That gave him the idea for the figurines. 

This black bear female is spread out on the ground with her front legs up under her chin.  Her cub, resting on her back, has its legs up under its chin too.

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Guadalupe Ortiz was the husband of Seferina and the father of Virgil and his siblings.  He passed away in 2015. He had been an active potter since only 1998 so there is not a large quantity of his pottery available.  His interest was in making frogs and other pottery figurines and occasionally bowls and jars.  He also was a maker of drums, rattles and wood carvings.  He was an award winner at the 1998 Santa Fe Indian Market and at the New Mexico State Fair the same year.

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This charming Mother Turtle figurine was created by Cochiti potter Buffy Cordero, granddaughter of the famed Helen Cordero.  Helen Cordero was the creator of the Mother Turtle figurine which this represents.  She said that there was a legend at Cochiti Pueblo that refers to a turtle rescuing the children in time of peril or flood and transporting them to safety.

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Rita Lewis, the daughter of famous potter Ascencion Banada, married Ivan Lewis, son of famous potter Lucy Lewis. Together they started making pottery bowls and animal figurines around 1971, and storyteller figurines around 1973.

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It is well known that Helen Cordero made what has now been named the Storyteller figurine in 1964.  Her definition of a storyteller was that it was in honor of her grandfather, a well-known storyteller at Cochiti Pueblo, so it was always a male figurine in Helen's eyes.

Before Helen Cordero's first storyteller, female figurines were made by potters at Cochiti and they have been named Singing Mothers.  In the book The Pueblo Storyteller by Barbara Babcock, there is a Singing Mother figurine which Babcock says pre-dates 1930.  She further states that "The shape of her head and ears and her 'coffee bean' eyes are remarkably similar to figures made by Felipa Trujillo in the 1960s and 1970s."  If this is indeed one made by Felipa Trujillo before 1930, she must be one of the earliest Cochiti potters to do so.

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This seated male storyteller holds two young boys on his lap.  The Cochti Pueblo potter is Carol M. Pecos but I have not yet determined who she is and what family she is from.  She obviously is an accomplished potter as this figurine was beautifully constructed and painted. The adult's hair is sculpted around his face and his eyes are inset.  It is quite a stunning figurine.

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Cochiti Pueblo potter Juanita Inez Ortiz learned pottery making from her mother, Seferina, and her grandmother, Laurencita Herrera. It is traditional for pueblo potters to teach their children the art of pottery making starting at an early age. Inez's siblings, all of whom are potters, are Virgil, Joyce, and Janice. Inez was the mother of Lisa Holt. Unlike her brother, Virgil, Inez remained with traditional designs and shapes, much like her mother.

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The Salakomana is the female version and the Salakotaka is the male version of the Hopi Pueblo pair of katsinas. The Salakomana is distinguishable by her white face and white moccasins. The two always appear as a pair. The basic intent of the Salako Ceremony is, of course, to bring the clouds from which will come the rain.

This carving is from cottonwood root and is a single-piece carving except for the addition of the three-piece tablita and the piece of wood on the forehead from which feathers protrude. Multi-colored embroidery thread falls from a bundle of feathers on the back of the mask. The feathers on the front and around the hem are carved into the wood and highlighted with black paint. The painted design on the neck and hem of the manta reproduce the embroidered design on a woman's manta.

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The Hopi Salako Ceremony is held infrequently and is therefore one of the least known of the Hopi Pueblo ceremonies. According to Barton Wright, the last known one on Third Mesa was held in 1912, and the last one on Second Mesa was held in 1972. I attended the ceremony at the village of Shungopavi on Second Mesa around 1985, but I do not recall the exact year. It was held following another ceremony and I was about ready to leave the plaza when this ceremony started. It was a most impressive ceremony.

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   Joe Hilario Herrera was born at Cochiti Pueblo, the son of Tonita Peña, who was originally from San Ildefonso, but moved to Cochiti after the death of her mother.  She was raised by an aunt and uncle.  Although she lived at Cochiti all of her adult life, she is still known as a San Ildefonso artist.  Her son, Joe, however is recognized as a Cochiti Pueblo artist.  Joe grew up watching his famous mother paint on an almost daily basis.  His early art education was home schooled.

Herrera attended the Santa Fe Indian School and continued on to achieve a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Arts in Education, both from the University of New Mexico.  He continued his education in Puerto Rico, studying briefly under Raymond Jonson.

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Although the Koyemshi (Mudheads) are childlike, or witless in their behavior, they are regarded as the "sages of the ancients, oracles who speak with the voices of idiots mixing wisdom and nonsense in every utterance. They are considered the fathers of the Zuni people and no other group is more sacrosanct or dangerous than the Koyemshi.  To deny them anything, even in one's heart or mind, is to court disaster."  They are major participants in the Zuni Shalako ceremony and are the first to appear for the event, arriving eight days before the ceremony. Wright, 1985  

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For those who like small vessels, this is a must! This is one of the nicest small San Juan Pueblo polished black ollas on the market. Its shape is faithfully reproduced from a large jar down to this size, a size frequently called a Child's Water Jar.   It is the traditional San Juan style with a polished black upper body and polished gray underbody, which has been made for centuries. In these jars, the red slip is wiped over the upper 2/3rd of the vessel body and the lower 1/3rd left without slip.  Both upper and lower portions are then stone polished.  When reduction fired, the red changes to black and the tan underbody changes to gray.  A very fine fluted or wavy rim serves as the vessel's only deviation from a plain surface.  The interior of the neck is matte finish.  It probably dates to circa 1900-1930 period. 

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The Hopi live in a desert and rely solely on rain for their crops and animals.  It is to the Katsinas that the Hopi plea for rain.  In exchange for rain from the Katsinas, the Hopi present them with pahos (prayer feathers).  They do not ask for anything from the katsinas without giving something in return.

Although the Hemis Katsina may appear in any Katsina dance, they are best known for their participation in the Niman Ceremony, a ceremony where a large number of Hemis and Hemismana are the only katsinas represented.  The Hemis Katsina is most frequently selected for the Niman because he is a beautiful impersonation and his songs are popular with the Hopi.

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Several of the early San Ildefonso Pueblo artists often painted wildlife and barnyard animals. Skunks seem to have been a favorite. It is a matter of conjecture as to whether Julian Martinez or Awa Tsireh is responsible for the advent of the skunk in Pueblo painting, but Julian used this highly decorative animal most delightfully in many compositions, thereby establishing it as a fully respectable subject in Pueblo art. The mythological Avanyu (water serpent) is another image favored by San Ildefonso and Santa Clara artists.  Julian used it many times on black pottery.

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Lu Ann Tafoya, a daughter of Margaret Tafoya, certainly inherited the talent to produce beautifully sculpted jars with outrageously burnished surfaces. She has made jars almost three feet tall, a feat not easily accomplished.  This globular-shaped jar has a beautiful deep red slip that was burnished to a high luster.  There are four bear paw designs around the circumference.

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Santo Domingo artisans are adept at working with materials such as shell, turquoise, jet and others in fashioning jewelry whereas Navajo artisans work more with silver.  This pair of earrings consists predominately of squares of beautiful blue turquoise mounted in mosaic style on a flat shell backing.  The earrings are equipped for pierced ears.

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These Southwest Indian Jewelry earrings from Santo Domingo are comprised of rectangular cut stones arranged in a herringbone pattern over shell backing.  They are equipped for pierced ears.  There is no artist name.  The arrangement of the colors of the stones provides for a beautiful palette. 

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