Dan Namingha is from the Hopi-Tewa village at First Mesa.  He is a member of the famous Nampeyo family.  His mother is Dextra Nampeyo and his grandmother was Rachel Namingha Nampeyo. He was born in 1950 and attended High School at Keams Canyon, Arizona, the University of Kansas and then the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe where he came under the influence of Otellie Loloma who encouraged him to experiment with his art.  He began his art career painting in realistic style and then, around 1972, began to paint in a more abstract manner. Teachers at IAIA, such as Otellie Loloma, Allan Houser, and Fritz Scholder, encouraged the students to expand their horizons and paint creatively, which many did.

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This large storage jar was purchased by the current owner directly from the potter about 15 years ago and the artist told him at that time that it was used in the kiva for holding water but he would sell it since he made it and owned it.

According to Gregory Schaaf, in the referenced book below, "Vidal Aguilar makes some of the largest polychrome ollas at Santo Domingo in the Aguilar family tradition.  His pottery is hand coiled and polished.  His black paint is a mineral pigment used centuries ago, rather than the typically used Guaco or Mountain Bee plant. His red & white paints are natural clay.  He fires his pottery in a pit."

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Felipita Aguilar Garcia was the inspiration behind a quiet revolution in pottery designs at Santo Domingo (now Kewa) Pueblo between 1905 and 1914. She, and her sister, Asunción Aguilar Caté, developed a new style of pottery design. Felipita favored the strong black with thin cream lines and Asunción favored the black and red with thin cream lines.

Several potters have occasionally designed jars similar to Felipita's. Monica Silva and Robert Tenorio of Kewa Pueblo and Lisa Holt of Cochiti with Harlan Reano of Kewa have produced similar pieces.

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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. Her grandmother, Sara Fina Tafoya, was a masterful potter, as was her mother, Margaret Tafoya, who, in turn, passed on this artistic gene to nine children and numerous grandchildren.

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Polished red candlesticks seem to be rarer than polished black ones, perhaps because blackware was so popular in the mid-20^th century when most Southwest Indian Pottery candlesticks were being made.  This one from Santa Clara Pueblo is tall and graceful and decorated simply with white-outlined red triangles.  It shows evidence of prior use.

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Sara Fina Tafoya (circa 1863-1950) Autumn Leaf was from Santa Clara Pueblo and she made large utilitarian vessels and small items as well. Most were undecorated polished black or red pottery, and some had scalloped rims and impressed designs including bear paws and melon shapes.

Her work today must be attributed to her hand by comparing them to pieces in collections which are known to have been made by her. Because of the high quality of her pottery, it is not too difficult to single out her work. 

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This vessel is larger than traditional water jars and is more in line with the vessel shape of a storage jar, so that is the designation we have assigned to it. It exhibits the classic traits of Santo Domingo Polychrome. We are assigning a date of circa 1900-1920 to the jar based on the stone-polished red band below the design field and the same on the interior of the neck.

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There have always been strict guidelines at Zuni Pueblo regarding pottery decoration, yet each potter has also always had some degree of freedom. The things that seem to be traditional and inflexible are the manner in which the main body decoration and that of the neck are separated. According to Zuni informants to Ruth Bunzel in 1924 and 1925, it is imperative that the first bit of decoration that goes on any Zuni jar be the black framing line or pair of framing lines that separate the neck from the main body. It is also imperative that this line or pair of lines not be connected. Today we refer to this as a ceremonial break. The informants were explicit in these statements. Another noticeable aspect on Zuni jars is that there is no correlation between the design of the neck and that of the body of the vessel, except that a certain harmony is preserved between the two.

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Blue Corn was born in San Ildefonso Pueblo around 1921 and was encouraged by her grandmother, at an early age, to "forget school and become a potter." She did attend school at the pueblo and later at the Santa Fe Indian School, however. At age 20, she married Santiago Calabaza, a Kewa Pueblo (Santo Domingo) silversmith. During the 1940s, she worked at Los Alamos as a housecleaner for J. Robert Oppenheimer. Shortly after World War II, she took up pottery making and found her calling.

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There is a large Moquino family at Santa Clara Pueblo but I have not yet found to which family Lee Moquino belongs.  He has been making pottery for some time as this one was purchased about 2005.  Not many potters at Santa Clara Pueblo make micaceous pottery as that is more often made at the more northern pueblos.

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In the 1960s and 1970s, Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo worked with her mother, Rachel Namingha, and painted on her pottery the traditional Sikyatki designs made famous by the Nampeyo family. She continued this for a number of years, yet she never repeated the same design, ever, according to her.  Later she developed her own unique style of design which she continued using throughout her career.

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If you don't know Adobe Gallery has a you tube channel. We have videos of artist that visit the gallery, special items that we thought need to be seen more fully, and what happening around the gallery. Click the logo and check it out.

An exhibit of Navajo rugs from Crystal Trading Post in northern New Mexico that date from the 1920s to the 1940s opens at the gallery on Friday evening, June 3rd with a reception from 5 to 7 pm.

Crystal Trading Post gained its reputation at the end of the 19th century when trader J. B. Moore purchased the post and set about to be a career Navajo trader. Because the weather in the Chuska Mountains, where the post was located, was severe in the wintertime, few visitors ever showed up so Moore decided to create a mail order business with Navajo arts and crafts.

To make his mail order business work, Moore created a full-color mail order catalog in 1903 featuring Navajo rugs, jewelry, and miscellaneous objects. It apparently was successful, so in 1911, he published his second catalog. The combination of the two catalogs featured 31 Navajo rugs from which a client could order by mail and Moore would select the appropriate Navajo weaver to make the rug according to the size, quality, and price specified by the client. He also advertised jewelry, tableware, baskets and other art objects which also could be ordered.

In 1987, the publishing division of Adobe Gallery put together the old J. B. Moore mail order catalogs and published them as a new publication. As a natural follow-up to that, the gallery staff decided to search for a rug from each of the 31 illustrations in the catalog. It took several years, but when the collection was completed, a client purchased the entire group.

The rugs in this exhibit are not from the catalog examples, but from the 1920s to the 1940s, the period after Moore left the post and moved to California. Some of the same general design elements were retained by the weavers and new ones were introduced. Change came slowly to the weavers so many of the Moore designs can be seen in the textiles in this exhibit. It was not until the 1960s when the last vestiges of Moore's influence on Navajo weaving ended.

The exhibit will continue until August 6th.

Questions may be referred to the gallery at 505.955.0550 or by email: info@adobegallery.com.  Previews of all rugs may be seen online: https://www.adobegallery.com/shows/current

José Rey Toledo, from Jemez Pueblo, was a very well educated person. He had attended the Albuquerque Indian School in the 1930s, then went to the University of New Mexico from which he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and continued on to obtain a Masters of Arts at UNM by 1955. After graduating from UNM, he served as head of the art department at the Santa Fe Indian School. He obtained a Masters of Public Health degree from the University of California Berkley in 1972.

He is listed as having been an art instructor, education health specialist, administrator of Indian health programs, actor, educator, lecturer, muralist and painter. It is this last category-painter-that is of interest to us.

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This is a superb 20th century jar from Acoma Pueblo, dating to 1930s or 1940s. Although the design is a two-color-black on white-the jar technically is classed as Polychrome because the orange underbody adds the third color.  The base coat consists of a rag-wiped white slip and there is a red neck interior and black rim top. This olla is typified to these dates by the high shoulder, short neck, and absence of flexure at the transition from under- to mid-body.

Acoma Pueblo clay, as well as that from most pueblos, requires a tempering agent to be mixed with the clay in preparation for forming pottery.  Acoma potters gather broken pottery fragments from the grounds of the pueblo and grind them up to a powdery substance and that is then added to the clay as a temper agent.  The result of doing this is a continuation of the life of a previous pot into the life of a new pot, resulting in an unbroken chain of continuity in the life of Acoma pottery.

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Virgil Thomas became an active silversmith in 1972 and continued until his early death in 1986.  His specialty was the traditional Hopi silver overlay technique promoted by the Hopi Arts & Crafts Co-op Guild which was formed in 1947, after World War II, when returning Hopi servicemen were trained at a silversmithing school founded under the G.I. bill.

The late Paul Saufkie, Sr. was the technical instructor and the late Fred Kabotie, noted Hopi artist and designer, taught design. Although many techniques of silver work were used, the overlay style gradually emerged as the dominate style. This simple, unique, elegant jewelry is now considered essentially the Hopi style of jewelry.

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This necklace is comprised of natural shaped turquoise cabs drilled and strung, some stone-to-stone and some separated by silver beads. According to The Maisel Company records, the turquoise is Persian. The necklace dates to around 1960.

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The Deer Katsina is one of the very popular Plaza Dance participants. Usually when he appears, a Wolf or Mountain Lion Katsina, as a side dancer, accompanies him. The Deer Katsina has power over rain, and, when he dances, it is a prayer for increase of deer.

This Katsina was carved by Silas Roy, Sr. (1948- ).  Silas is of the Coyote Clan and has been actively carving Katsina dolls since 1963. He is from Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation, living alternately at the villages of Moencopi and Hotevilla. He has won many awards from the Heard Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, Scottsdale Nationals, and Tanner Indian Arts show.

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It is believed that the Navan Katsina originated at the Village of Moencopi on Third Mesa sometime after 1900. He is a very colorful Katsina with his velvet shirt and colorful ribbons. He represents the blooming of plant life and the beauty of life, as illustrated by the flowers on his head. His songs are prayers for rain to sustain life. Secakuku 1995

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Click the picture to see it in motion.

This belt appears to be from the 1950s and is not stamped with the name of the maker.  It contains 12 individual conchas plus a buckle.  Each concha has a green oval and domed turquoise cab at its apex and each concha is profusely stamped with traditional Navajo designs.  The unusual aspect of the belt is that each concha is scalloped around its edges.

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