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Art of the Americas to World War I
Course: Art of the Americas to World War I > Unit 5
Lesson 4: Southwest- Pueblo architecture and its relationship to place
- Pottery and tourism: Pueblo culture and the lure of the Southwest
- Puebloan: Maria Martinez, Black-on-black ceramic vessel
- Julian Martinez, Buffalo Dancers
- Acoma polychrome water jar
- Nampeyo, Polacca polychrome water jar
- White Ogre Tihu (Katsina Figure)
- Navajo Belt
- Awa Tsireh’s Pottery Makers
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Pottery and tourism: Pueblo culture and the lure of the Southwest
Nampeyo, a Tewa-Hopi artist, created unique pottery designs inspired by ancient shards found in an abandoned village, Sikyatki. Her innovative Sikyatki Revival Style gained popularity among collectors and tourists, leading to her residency at the Grand Canyon's Hopi House. Despite challenges, Nampeyo's artistry bridged traditional and modern aesthetics. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- what is so special about this piece of pottery compared to all the others?(3 votes)
- The reason for this is because this tribe's pottery were highly regarded and traded to others.
Hope that helps!(1 vote)
- why are the colors used to paint pottery traditionally black, orange, and white? (these are the colors I have seen on ALL of the pottery in this video.)(2 votes)
- The pigments were likely earth-based, from nearby the places where the pots were made. Perhaps that's the way they "fired" (if, indeed, the pots were fired).(3 votes)
- Is this a lesson in irony? The forces that contributed to destroying Native American society are now foaming at the mouth to acquire a piece of that society's pottery. This is not a criticism of the artist or her work: it is beautiful and she deserves to be recognized. But it seems that the underlying motivation of the relatively new concept called America was to commodify every single facet of life and turn a profit, even if that meant destroying a part of that thing along the way. Unfortunately, there are parallels in today's society. I suppose this is a part of human nature we will not escape from any time soon.(3 votes)
- By "forces" I assume that you are referring to development and tourism and even forcefully taking land. Includes selfish profit driven intrusions into native lands. Indefensible. I do not think these forces are the same as the person who appreciated (or appreciates) the art and makes a purchase.(1 vote)
- Do we know how they made the "pigment"? (I am guessing it is a glaze of some sort?)(2 votes)
- Pigment is a fancy name for "the colors that are in paint". Different paint colors are made from different things found in nature. These include stones, clays and plant extracts. Have you ever noticed the names of colors like "umber" and "sienna", and connected these with different regions of Italy (Umbria and Sienna). That likely has something to do with particular types of clay found in those areas.(1 vote)
- if only i could do pottery like her then i'll have a bright future. too bad she isn't around now she would've been loved for her pottery(1 vote)
- Isn't it sad that for many artists, they are "worth more" after they have died than they were while living?(2 votes)
- how long do you think and hard would it be since they were always moving?(1 vote)
- Unfired pots break easily. They are not very hard. But Pueblo culture, though nomadic, was semi-settled much of the time, certainly for long enough to make, dry and fire pots. The Pueblos were not "always moving".(1 vote)
Video transcript
(gentle piano music) - [David] We're in the National Museum of the American Indian, part
of the Smithsonian Institution but in New York City. Looking at a small piece of
ceramic by a very well known Tewa-Hopi Native American
artist named Nampeyo. - [Steven] Her story really begins with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. That's when the Pueblos
of the Rio Grande Valley kicked the Spanish out,
but then they returned and as a result several
refugees from that valley several Tewa people fled and
sought refuge among the Hopi. - [David] And the Hopi embraced them, they offered them that refuge. - [Steven] The village of
Hano, where Nampeyo grew up was the Tewa village there at first Mesa. - [David] And first Mesa is
one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in what
is now the United States. This is a community that is
approximately 1000 years old. - [Steven] Nampeyo had
a maternal grandmother, who taught her the
skills of pottery making. - [David] But that grandmother
was actually Hopi, not Tewa. - [Steven] And here lies a
little bit of complication, but also I think the
motivation for her genius. Her village, Hano, the Tewa village, manufactured a kind of plain ware which was often cookware and
highly regarded and traded, but she was trained in
the traditional Hopi ware. At that time was called
Polacca Polychrome. She excelled at it, a
trading post opened close by to the Mesa run by a
guy named Thomas Keams. He sold it, and became high demand, but there was some push back from Walpi saying, "Well these are our
pottery designs, not yours." They were uncomfortable with
her capitalizing on that. Every family had their own
designs, had their own rights to make pottery, and collect
clay from certain places, so there were protocols about this, but that encouraged
Nampeyo to look elsewhere and expand her horizons. Also close by to first Mesa
was an abandoned village. No one had lived there
for hundreds of years called Sikyatki. There she found shards of pottery painted in an old style that
no one remembered anymore. So she began to incorporate
those designs into her pottery and made something very new. Today it's known as Sikyaki Revival Style. - [David] Her skill as a
potter, and as a painter Drew notice not only of
the increasing number of collectors from Chicago
and more eastern cities, that were able to now reach the
south-west with greater ease thanks to for example
the Santa Fe Railroad. - [Steven] The south-west
becomes a tourist destination. The United States was
extremely interested, people in that states, in
exploring the continent's past and the situation with American Indians and this beginning of the 20th century. - [David] And part of the
interest for easterners was seeking authentic American experience. Something that was not
based on European tradition. - [Steven] A critic in New York who wrote for the New York Daily Sun in the 1920s wrote about American Indian art saying "As Europe has it's ancient
Rome, and ancient Egypt "as the foundation of it's art history, "so we have our American Indians." - [David] But there's a big difference because the ancient Romans,
and the ancient Greeks were long dead, but here, Native American communities were continuous. - [Steven] This was the dilemma that the Native American world was facing with the United States all along. Being cast as living
fossils of savage culture, a primitive culture. They were not primitive at all, and in fact Nampeyo
had a very modern sense of how she might fit into
the American aesthetic at that time by creating these were innovative designs and marking them in very
interesting and unique ways. - [David] And she was really successful. What I'm seeing is thin, delectate vessel with wide shoulders,
this very narrow base, that is not perfectly symmetrical. It was clearly not made on a wheel. And then it's painted with this extraordinarily complex design. I can't even imagine
trying to apply that design onto this complex surface. - [Steven] It's all
handmade, in the sense that you'd really have to
begin with the collecting of the clay, and the reason why it has that distinctive
yellowish-brown-orange color is because the quality of
the clay around first Mesa. She would have to process
that clay, roll it out, build it up by hand with
coils to create the shape, and then polish it to a high sheen to get that smooth surface, and then apply the pigment with a brush in that very meticulous way to create all those hatchings and cross-hatchings and evenness between them. This particular design
is her own invention, and one that she passed along to her daughter Fannie Nampeyo. By this point in 1930s
she's working very closely with her daughter, because
her eyesight is failing. - [David] You can see a kind
of abstracted series of forms that resemble the wings of a bird, and if you look towards
the bottom of the vessel and also at it's neck, we
see in a redder color waves. - [Steven] She referred to
it if your remember today as this migration pattern. It suggested to her
waves and wings of birds and it relates to the
Hopi migration stories, the traditional stories of
coming up out of the earth and then getting onto the
surface of this terrestrial earth and finding their homes
where they are today on the three Mesas of the Hopi nation. - [David] She was invited
to live, later in her life, at the Grand Canyon at a
place called Hopi House. - [Steven] In fact you can
visit Hopi House today. It's at the El Tovar Hotel, right on the south rim
of the Grand Canyon. The hotel was created by
the Fred Harvey Company which created a series of hotels, and they were actually
provisionaries for the railroad. So they were heavily invested in tourism, so they featured a number
of artists at Hopi House Nampeyo was probably the most famous, but during the summer they
would install her there with her family, and you
could watch her make pottery. She would bring clay from Hopi, and then you could buy
not only her pottery, but Navajo rugs, pottery
by other important artists, and experience something
of the rich art traditions of the south-west at that time. - [David] So there is a kind
of stress between the art that she's producing, and
the way in which that art is still framed by a kind of
anthropological understanding. - [Steven] In this encounter
between American Indians and this larger settler nation, the exchange of objects, particularly in the marketplace, became one way of managing relationships. Pottery, this traditional
art form in the south-west appealed very much to Americans
of the late 19th century early 20th century, because their interest in authentic materials and handmade crafts and the whole arts and crafts movement. - [David] Well this is a handmade object. This is a completely
unique object in the world. By the late 19th century
we were living in a culture where things were mass produced. - [Steven] So, Nampeyo and
other artists of her generation were very astute in understanding
that aesthetic interest of Americans, and creating
objects to meet that market. (upbeat piano music)