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Q&A with potter Jody Naranjo
Posted: Jun 13, 2008 in Things to do, Culture
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VENUE INFO
Jody Naranjo is back for her sixth Indian Market and Festival at the Eiteljorg Museum, and this time the potter arrived early.
Naranjo, 2007's Best of Show winner for "Pueblo Girl Goes to the City," began giving demonstrations of her techniques to Eiteljorg visitors last week. She'll also do so at 2 p.m. on both days of the market, June 21 and 22.
Naranjo lives in the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, the home of the native Tewa tribe to which she belongs. She comes from a long line of famous potters, with about 30 people in her family currently engaged in making pottery.
Naranjo, who is exclusively represented by Ken Lingad and Legends Santa Fe, learned the traditional clay pottery techniques of her tribe at a young age, and supplemented her background with training from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
She has won numerous awards for her art, and has three daughters, ages 5, 12 and 18.
What are people most surprised to learn about your pottery?
People look at the pottery and they just assume it's done on a wheel and kiln-fired, and it's engraved. But we're doing something that goes back generation to generation. We dig our own clays, we use a coil method and we fire with wood and manure.
We also polish with polishing stones, which are kind of like a riverbed stone. That's what makes the shiny surface. I also do a technique called sgrafitto after it's fired. I sketch onto the surface with a knife. That gives it kind of a relief effect.
How does the coil method work?
It's rolling out snakes of clay. You roll out long tubes of clay and add each one on. You start with a little round bowl and add each coil on like a snake one at a time. It gets bigger and bigger. The bigger pieces go up to maybe 20 coils, 30 coils. Sort of like an adobe building or! brick wall.
What it's like coming from a family famous for its pottery?
It's a little intimidating, but it also kind of makes you want to really be your own and perfect your techniques. So you push yourself a lot harder. And also there's a lot of (interaction) -- we rub off of each other. We get together and see what the other ones are doing, then go home and start working right away.
Was there ever part of you, maybe as a teenager, that didn't want to do pottery?
No, this is all I've ever wanted to do since I was a small child playing in clay. By the time I was 14 or 15, I was doing it full time. Now I'm 39, so I've been doing it quite a while. My kids, on the other hand, I think I pushed it a little too much on them. They're the ones that are saying, "No, I don't ever want to see clay again."
Well, maybe that will change.
I hope so!
Tell me about Santa Clara Pueblo.
There are about 2,000 people, and 500 of them are potters. So pottery is the main thing that people do in the pueblo. There are eight pueblos in the area that do pottery, and ours is known for the polished black pottery. And it goes generation to generation; everyone makes pottery. Right before one of the big markets, everybody's outside firing pottery. There's smoke in the air and the smell of manure burning, so you know when art markets and shows are getting close.
Did you ever think of leaving Santa Clara Pueblo to do your art?
Well, I've gone to art school in Santa Fe. You learn new things and new techniques, but you don't want to get away from what is traditional. You want to pass it down and you don't want to stretch away from it. So you tend to stick with what is there.
Is it just mostly the women who do pottery, or do all members of your family do it?
It's mostly women, but probably because most of my family is women. I have two uncles who are sculptors. A couple of my male cousins are potters. But generally it's women who do pottery.
You include a lot of imagery of women in your sgrafitto.
Yeah, I do. I call them my pueblo girls. They are women that are traditionally dressed, and they're holding pottery. Each pot is a different piece. It could be a traditional wedding vase, or it could be a very contemporary piece with fish on it. I like to really play with the same woman over and over, but always holding different pieces of pottery.
Is it true you use the same polishing stones passed down to you by your grandmother Rose?
Yes, we pass them down from generation to generation. They were her grandmother's, so I don't know how far back they go, maybe 100 years. You can see the palm prints on them.
Sgrafitto is a fairly new technique for your family. How does it work?
I use an X-Acto knife. When it's fired, that's when I start my images. What I do is I just basically get the knife and look at the pot. It looks like an empty canvas to me. I start on one end and put different images on each piece. None of them are the same. I generally don't sketch anything out, just see what fits well and moves with the pot. I look to do women holding hands or spirals or men on horses riding around the pot, churches in the background, pueblos in the background, snow coming down from the mountains, fish on the bottom representing streams. Just a lot of different images you would see in New Mexico.
I noticed in a lot of the pieces there's a playful aspect to it, particularly your inclusion of animals on the pots and as companion sculptures.
Oh, I love doing those animals! I've been doing the animals for years. Basically, they're the same symbols or designs that are on the pots. I try to make them into a three-dimension form. I just do the coil method, basically the same methods. They kind of look like cartoon characters. Sometimes I do them as sets with the pot and the character on the pot in the three-dimensional form next to it. My kids get a kick out of it. They kind of look like something out of Wallace & Gromit. My 5-year-old sits and watches me make these animals, so for Christmas I gave her one. She had been standing at one of my shows telling people, "Don't buy that! My mom said if she doesn't sell it, it's mine!"
Indian Market and Festival
What: The Eiteljorg Museum's annual event featuring jewelry, pottery, paintings, beadwork and carvings by American Indian artists, as well as entertainment.
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 21 and 22.
Where: Military Park, New York and West streets.
Tickets: $8 in advance at the Eiteljorg Museum and Central Indiana Marsh supermarkets, $10 at the gate. Free for children ages 17 and younger. Admission into the Eiteljorg is free with ticket to Indian Market.
Info: (317) 636-9378 or www.eiteljorg.org.
