The earliest signed pottery by Maria Martinez was signed simply Marie.  It was pottery made by Maria and painted by Julian.  It did not have Julian's name on the jar because, in the 1920s, pottery making was considered woman's work.  It was several years before it was rationalized that painting pottery, as was being done by the men, was not the same as making pottery, so by 1925, Maria started adding Julian's name with hers on their joint ventures.  Pottery with the name Marie, was made mostly between 1920 and 1924.

Read more about this jar here.

It has been well published that the matriarch Nampeyo of Hano began having eyesight problems around 1920 and her sight continued to deteriorate until she passed away in 1942.  Nampeyo, of Hopi Pueblo, was so experienced by the 1920s at making pottery, she was able to continue forming and finishing pottery vessels even with diminished sight.  What she could no longer accomplish was painting designs on her pottery.

Read more about this historic pottery here.

One wonders why there was so little study of the early 20^th century pottery of the pueblos when there was so much available.  Most likely the answer is two-fold.  Anthropologists were most interested in what could be excavated from buried sites and not what was available in the pueblo kitchen of the time.  Secondly, the Museum of New Mexico director, Edgar L. Hewett, was more interested in exploring the past rather than the current in the 1920s.

Some of the most amazing pottery was that seen in pueblo households in the late 1800s to early 1900s.  Representatives of the Smithsonian and other museums did collect from the pueblo home but they were seeing everything as ethnographic material and not as we view it today as art.  There was no attempt by these early collectors to describe and classify as art what they gathered, but only classified it as ethnographic material.

Read more about this historic pottery here.

Zuni artisans learned jewelry making from the Navajos in the late 19^th century. They made jewelry for their own use up until about the 1930s when they began making it for the tourist trade. Zuni work is characterized by the creation of design by cutting and shaping of stones.

Read more about these earrings here.

This is an amazing historic small jar from Zia Pueblo.  It is the traditional shape of a Zia storage jar, but in smaller scale.  The leaf designs are red with black outlining.  There are four panels of design, each divided by dual vertical lines.  There is a pair of framing lines at the rim and another pair at the base of the design.  The jar has a slight indented base, red underbody, red inside the rim and a black rim.

Read more about this historic jar here.

This Jemez Pueblo Black-on-white jar has two handles near the rim of the jar.  The decoration extends down to the midpoint of the vessel and up to the beginning of the neck.  It is likely that the jar dates to late 17^th century.  It is possible that it was used as a field canteen.

Read more about this historic pottery here.

Western Apache basket makers did not succumb to making non-functional basket shapes such as flat plaques, wastebaskets, straight-sided and footed vases and gadgets such as match holders, purses, and figures of animals, plants and humans as some of the other tribes did.

Read more about this basket here.

The two Tewa pueblos of Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh are neighbors and it is to be expected that influence in Southwest Indian Pottery production and design would overflow from one to the other.  That is quite likely the event responsible for this black jar.

The top half of the jar had red slip applied and then stone polished.  The lower half of the jar was stone polished without addition of slip.  This process is normally associated with Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.

Read more about this historic pottery here.

The Spaniards bred two kinds of sheep, the churro and merino.  Churro sheep were well adapted to sparse countryside and the merino was the finest sheep in the world, so fine it was reserved for the royal family and the nobility and its export from Spain was punishable by death.  Based on this, it is obvious that the Spaniards brought churro sheep to the American Southwest and left the merino sheep for royalty.  They adapted well to the southwest which had a climate similar to Spain.

Churro sheep produced fine, long-stapled wool which was well suited to the Navajo hand-spindle. The Navajo acquired their churro sheep by raids on Spanish rancheros and Pueblo Indian farms.  They lost all their sheep during their forced relocation and containment at Bosque Redondo in the 1860s.  After Bosque Redondo, the government allotted $30,000 to re-stock sheep for the Navajo as they returned to their homeland. The replacement sheep were churro as well.

Read more about this Navajo rug here.

"Ahöl Mana occurs only on Second Mesa at the time of the Soyal.  She is a standard Kachina Mana except that she comes with Ahöla which by context makes her Ahöl Mana.  She accompanies Ahöla on his rounds to the various kivas and ceremonial houses.  In her hands she holds a tray with various kinds of seeds from the fields of the Kachina Chief." Wright 1973

Read more about this Katsina doll here.

Sadie Tsipa, according to the Social Security Death Index (a government publication) was born on July 1, 1915 and passed away on March 12, 2010.  She lived 94 years, 8 months, and 11 days according to the report.  I am not familiar with her as a potter, however, it is quite likely that she was no longer active in the late 1970s when I opened the gallery and started purchasing from potters.

Read more about this pottery here.

To make sandcast jewelry, there are numerous steps. First, a design is carved into a mold.  Then the artist pours molten silver into the mold. It is then taken out and finished by hand. The mold is only good for a single object, so each is one of a kind.

Read more about this bracelet here.

When the railroad came to New Mexico in the 1880s, it brought with it tourists eager to purchase souvenirs to remind them of their adventure west. By the early 20^th century, Fred Harvey had built a chain of hotels along the railroad catering to the tourist trade.  This small pill box would have been found in a Fred Harvey gift shop. It is beautifully hand stamped and has well-crafted hinges and a tight clasp.

Read more about this pill box here.

This bracelet consists of five domed and stamped silver strips separated at the top and anchored at the ends with a silver bar.  The two outer strips are slightly higher at the center than the three inner ones, acting as guards.

Read more about this Navajo bracelet here.

Santo Domingo (now Kewa) Pueblo pottery exhibits a strong and bold design concept.  The black guaco paint, when painted on the cream slip, appears almost transparent, but fires to a beautiful black.  The guaco does not perform well on other slips but finishes beautifully on this particular Kewa Pueblo native slip.  The Southwest Indian Pottery dough bowl probably dates to the 1930s decade.

Read more about this historic pottery here.

Zuni Pueblo pottery from the 1760 to 1860 period has been named Kiapkwa Polychrome.  Traits of Kiapkwa Polychrome are black rim tops and red slip on the underbody.  A decade later (1870), changes began to be noticed.  The red underbodies began to be painted over by black pigment.  It took several decades for the transition to be complete.  The red bottoms disappeared completely by 1895.  Other changes occurred on jars but less noticeably on bowls.

Read more about this historic bowl here.

Chuck and Jan Rosenak, authors and collectors of Navajo folk art, give credit to Navajo trader Jack Beasley of Farmington, New Mexico, for bringing attention nationwide to the crafts of the Navajo.  Jack had operated a trading post in the 1970s and then he and his wife opened a gallery in Farmington, New Mexico, in 1989.  Quite familiar with the arts of the Navajo from his trading post days, Beasley featured it in the gallery and concentrated on the folk art style of which by then he was quite familiar.  Beasley was partly responsible for igniting the fire in the Rosenaks for folk art of the Navajo.

Read more about this folk art here.

Authors and collectors Chuck and Jan Rosenak are largely responsible for bringing to attention the craft now known as Navajo folk art.  They credit Navajo trader Jack Beasley from Farmington, New Mexico, for bringing the makers of this wonderful creative art form to their attention.  When beginning their search for folk art artist on the Navajo reservation, the Rosenaks defined folk art as "work by untrained, self-taught artists that is nonutilitarian, highly personal, even idiosyncratic.  The craft may be derived from communal traditions, but something personal must be added to qualify it as art.  In other words, the craft may be learned, but the art is self-taught."

Read more about this folk art here.

The traditional perception of Navajo folk art is weavings and silver and turquoise jewelry, but the contemporary artists of the Navajo Nation produce wood carvings, sun-dried mud toys, fired pottery, pictorial weavings and cardboard cutout figurines.  It is the latter category that is of interest to us here.

Mamie Deschillie, an older Navajo woman, born in 1920, created a new folk art style in the 1980s that has made her one of the "superstars" of Navajo folk art.

Read more about this folk art here.

   Navajo Folk Art was discovered and brought to the attention of folk art collectors in the 1970s by Chuck and Jan Rosenak.  It is not that they created it or caused it to happen.  They were on a nation-wide search for folk art from the east to the west and north to the south.  Most of the folk art they discovered came out of immigrant-generated craft traditions from the old world.

Read more about this fold art here.