Pueblo Pottery

Steve began photographing Pueblo potters and their work for Talking with the Clay, published in 1987.  He returned to the Pueblo villages in New Mexico and Arizona, from Taos to Hopi, for a 20th anniversary edition of his book.  This new edition introduces two decades of change and brings the book into the twenty-first century.

The stories in Talking with the Clay—in words and photographs—now span seven generations.

The matriarch of Taos Pueblo pottery, Virginia Romero, died at 103 in 1998. I photographed her in 1985, when she told me she hadn't lost a pot in firing since she began making Pueblo pottery in 1919.
The sun-warmed adobe walls of Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. I lived between Santa Fe and Taos for five years, and I love the spirit of this place.
Roxanne's Swentzell's sculpture of a Santa Clara potter coiling her own leg: "Making Herself."
Roxanne Swentzell's large bronze "Window to the Past" sits outside her Tower Gallery at the Poeh Center, Pojoaque.
Mary Cain's granddaughter, Tammy Garcia, has pushed Santa Clara pottery to new levels of sophistication and precision.
Hubert Candelario learned to make micaceous pottery in San Felipe, a pueblo that had never made its own pottery.
Rebecca Lucario's Acoma seed jars with Mimbres-style animal designs.
Helen Shupla's Santa Clara melon bowls grace the cover of the original edition of my Pueblo pottery book, "Talking with the Clay."
Mary Cain with a finished Santa Clara jar and unpainted wedding vase.
Max Early firing his Laguna pots on a hot summer day.
Kathleen Wall captures the humor of Pueblo people in her figures of sacred clowns; Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico.
Caroline Carpio, Isleta, with her clay sculpture, "Keeper of Hope."
Detail from a carved Hopi pot by Wallace Youvella.
The late Hopi potter Jacob Koopee perfectly combined a contemporary sense of design with a deep knowledge of tradition.
A potter like Jake Koopee could work in his studio on top of the Hopi Mesas and be steeped in ceremonial life—while fielding calls from Santa Fe or New York galleries on his cell phone.
The late pottery matriarch Eudora Montoya kept pottery alive virtually singlehandedly for decades at Santa Ana Pueblo.
Hopi Pueblo potter Garret Maho adds sheep manure—precious and rare these days—to the outdoor fire for his pots.
Harlan Reano (Santo Domingo) and Lisa Holt (Cochiti) with their prize-winning circus figure.
Carved Taos pots on Berenice Suazo-Naranjo's kitchen counter wait their turn to be sanded.
Wilfrid Garcia sculpted this kiva on the neck of his stunning Acoma Pueblo pot.
The great Acoma Pueblo potter, Rebecca Lucario, makes everything from this large many-colored water jar to intricately fine-lined miniatures.
Three generations of Acoma Pueblo potters: Marie Juanico (right), her daughter, Delores Aragon (left), and her granddaughter, Grace Aragon.
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