So You Want to Buy Some Pueblo Pottery...

I was back in New Mexico for a few days around New Years to load up all of our stuff that was still in storage in Santa Fe. Shortly after my arrival, my brother, a connoisseur of book stores, took me to a great one on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. I like finding inexpensive vintage books and magazines on Native American culture, and this place had plenty!

I was excited to find a beautiful magazine from 1961 called "Indian Life". It was published by the "Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Association", which produces the yearly Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Exposition in Gallup, NM. I guess the magazine served as sort of an informative guide to the Ceremonial and souvenir of the event. It is printed in full, blazing color, and has amazing photos and some fun articles. I didn't have an opportunity to read the whole thing until a few weeks ago, and was delighted to discover a big article about pottery inside! Given the theme of my most recent blog posts, I figured it would be fun to share it.

It was written in a different time, remember, so you'll have to excuse certain outdated, wince-inducing turns of phrase (the "unsophisticated Indian potter"? yikes!) Oh, and next time you are shopping for a piece of pottery high on the mesa at Acoma, you probably shouldn't "wet your finger and run it along the paint" --trust me, that "paint" isn't going to run, though you may have to if the potter catches you subjecting her art to your dripping finger!

Clicking the images below takes you to the Picasa album, where you can use the magnifying glass icon to make them bigger!

(all images above courtesy Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Association.)

"The pottery bug is virulent and there is no known cure" the article proclaims; and rightly so, I'm sure, though my current budget certainly keeps the bug quite in check. If only a fine piece of pottery could be had today at the prices of 1961!

I really enjoyed sharing my experience at Felipe's studio with you all. For the advanced potter wishing to try their hand at micaceous pottery, Felipe does sell and ship his micaceous clay in 25 pound bags for $50.00 plus $10.00 shipping. I didn't realize that until after my visit. The morning before our moving day, I felt compelled to rush back out to La Madera to buy a bag. When I pulled up the smell of cooking bacon greeted me; breakfast at Owl Peak was in full swing!

The clay is supplied with dried squares of clay to be re-hydrated and used as slip; it is an extra sparkly clay dug from a pit that has a higher proportion of mica.

Not only is Felipe a renowned potter, sought-after medicine man and all around nice guy, it turns out he also opens up his home as a Bed and Breakfast! That morning the table was crowded with visitors: a young man who directs commercials in Los Angeles, a writer, a purveyor of high-end lumber, another local potter, etc... all happy to have found themselves together, enjoying good coffee (from micaceous pottery mugs!) and good food under the roof of one very talented and generous "master of ceremonies", Felipe Ortega!

As I departed, this time for good, with my bag of precious clay, a retired couple was ambling up towards the studio, excited to procure a fine piece of micaceous pottery from the source. As he did with me, Felipe greeted them warmly and ushered them in out of the cold morning air, and just as it was for me, I know that day will be a highlight of their stay in Northern New Mexico!

Mica Mines and the Pottery that Glitters Like Gold, Part Three: Firing Felipe's Pots!

When famed Jicarilla Apache medicine man and potter Felipe Ortega agreed to have me out to his studio in La Madera, New Mexico, to watch and photograph him as he created one of his coveted micaceous clay pots, I never dreamed the experience would be such a complete one. I barely kept up as he formed a bean pot before my very eyes; the pace slowed as I was welcomed into Felipe's circle of family and friends to enjoy a hearty lunch, then it was back out to the studio, where, before I knew it, Felipe was readying the fire that would transform a batch of recently shaped vessels into durable pieces of cookware that were destined for collections and stovetops around the world.

I hope that by now you will have been enticed to read Felipe's excellent article "The Art and Practice of Jicarilla Apache Micaceous Pottery Manufacturing," which explains each step in the production of a traditional micaceous vessel. If you compare each step with the photos in my previous post, you should have an excellent understanding of the process, and you will probably also notice that in my documentation I missed some crucial steps in the process: sanding, application of slip, and polishing. Those steps were not scheduled for the day of my visit, so I am delighted to be able to refer you to videos that Brian Grossnickle, a former apprentice of Felipe's and an accomplished potter himself, has produced that illustrate sanding, applying slip, and polishing micaceous pottery.

Felipe had several pots that were polished and ready to go in the fire that afternoon; it turns out that he planned to deliver those very pots to his gallery in Santa Fe that evening! Firing micaceous pottery is not the long, drawn-out process I thought it might be; though some potters may consider the clay finicky and prescribe ideal conditions under which the pottery must be fired, Felipe fires his pieces whenever he finds convenient, and he rarely loses a piece in the process.

He began by clearing a space on his outdoor hearth and starting a fire with branches and brush that burned quick and hot. This fire rendered a nice bed of hot coals over which to stack the pots, but first Felipe set down a metal grate, perhaps an old oven rack or two, so that the pots wouldn't sit directly on the coals:

He stepped away for a moment and returned with some well-dried cow patties that he would place amongst the pots; these would burn in such a way as to leave unique black "fire clouds" on the fired pottery:

Then the pots were arranged on the metal grate:

The cow patties were tucked strategically in amongst the pots:

I've taken several pottery classes, and I recall always having to be careful not to allow pieces that were being loaded into the kiln to touch each other; the glaze vitrifies under the heat, causing any parts that touched to stick ruinously together. Felipe's pieces, shiny though their surfaces may be, are not glazed -- the shine results from the meticulous sanding and manual polishing of the already glittery, mica-flecked surface -- thus Felipe's pots may be stacked closely, right against each other, with no danger of sticking.

Now it's time to build the "kiln" around the stack of pots. Felipe selected from a great pile of thick, curved slabs of Ponderosa Pine bark several pieces and quickly positioned them among, and then around, the pots, forming a sort of wigwam:

Satisfied with the structure, Felipe suddenly hopped right over it and emerged from the billowing clouds of smoke with an armload of dry branches, which he placed on top:

The branches were alight almost immediately, and the pine bark began to roar and hiss as the temperature in the pile soared:

Moving aside a charred piece of bark to peer into the pile, Felipe watched for the moment that his pots began to glow red:

It doesn't take long! Maybe 20 minutes or so, before the heat of the fire had caused the pots to glow bright red, indicating that their transformation was complete!

No lengthy, controlled "cool down" time is required as it is with most pottery; the mica imparts in this clay the ability to withhold extremes in temperature without breaking, making micaceous pottery ideal to cook in. Felipe began to pluck his pots from the still-flaming pile and transferred them to a piece of corrugated metal to cool:

Not a single pot broken!

The areas where the dried cow patty came in contact with the pottery resulted in beautiful, shadowy fire clouds, each as unique as a fingerprint. Felipe had also inverted one shallow bowl over another with a patty in between. Burning in that enclosed space, the patty was consumed in a low oxygen environment, causing just the inner surfaces of the bowls to be blackened by the "reduction" firing. Felipe examines the effect, and likes it:

Before long the pots were cool to the touch, and as I gathered up my things, Felipe wiped any remaining soot off of each pot and wrapped it in newspaper.

Those pots were bound for the gallery at Cafe Pasqual's, the famed Santa Fe restaurant, that very evening. Given the effort that goes into creating each one, from the digging and processing of the clay that is dug from the same pits his ancestors have dug from for centuries, through the many steps of creation, and to the final transformation through firing, Felipe's pots are a bargain. His pricing is straightforward: $100 per quart, literally measured by scooping quarts of dried pinto beans into the finished vessel.

I simply couldn't leave that day without something tangible to remind me of my visit, and was thankful that Felipe had a coffee mug, half price because it had suffered a minor cosmetic mishap in firing (it does happen on occasion), just for me. I treasure it, but don't think that means I put it on my bookshelf to gaze upon; I drink my coffee out of it. Every morning. And I love it. Thanks Felipe!

Mining New Mexico: A Turquoise Trilogy in Old Cerrillos, Part One!

Friends, I hope you can forgive my extended absence from the old FinderMaker forum; my existence has been rather untethered of late, and crafting doesn't come easily when one's materials and tools are boxed up and buried in a storage unit. It dawned on me recently that, although I may not be able to work on my own projects as readily as I had become accustomed to doing, it may be gratifying in the meantime to focus some attention on folks who truly embody the FinderMaker spirit of "finding things and making them into other, better things!"


And so I find myself now, for an indeterminate amount of time, in old Santa Fe, New Mexico. The nights are chilly, and smoke from burning piñon logs that warm the cozy adobe casitas drifts from chimneys and perfumes the air. In the picturesque downtown Plaza, visitors from around the globe embrace the attitude of the Old West and amble about in cowboy hats and boots; they'll make a point of strolling along a deep stretch of covered sidewalk in front of the Palace of the Governors, where Native peoples from the surrounding pueblos spread out their handicrafts on colorful blankets. You'll be hard pressed to board the plane back home without a beautiful souvenir of your stay in the "city different": perhaps a delicate pot from Acoma, or a bold Navajo bracelet accented with turquoise nuggets? It is this latter material that has captivated my attention of late; indeed, I fear I have come down with an acute case of turquoise fever!




Now, I've always heeded the old adage "Feed a cold, starve a fever," but this is one fever that may be fed with gusto, whether in the shops of Santa Fe, or a bit further afield, in the hills of nearby Cerrillos. Hoping a vigorous desert ramble might cool my fever, I headed for the hills. Driving south out of Santa Fe, I exited I-25 and merged onto NM 14, the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, which passes through a number of small, historic mining towns and scenic areas as it winds south towards Albuquerque. Be sure to keep an eye out on your right for a cluster of low but unmistakeable hills; within these hills are numerous abandoned mines, a few active ones, and Mount Chalchihuitl, the site of the most extensively worked prehistoric turquoise mine in North America!




Not far past those hills is an exit for the town of Cerrillos; hold on to your hats when you make that turn because pardner, you are about to enter the true Old West! The town itself consists of but a few dusty roads and a main street with a row of storefronts that look as though they could be the set for a Western movie; in fact, several have been filmed there. Friendly locals and old timers share a drink and swap yarns outside of Mary's Bar, prominent signs will point the way to the Casa Grande Trading Post (more about that later!), and the local dogs will trot along beside your automobile as you make your way towards the Cerrillos Hills State Park. The beginning of the park is marked by an information and pay station, where a mere five dollars secures your access to the area. Here I could go to great lengths to explain the history of mining in the area, how the park was created, and so forth, but there is an excellent website dedicated to addressing these and many other related topics, and so I will direct you to the Cerrillos Hills State Park site, where the embers of your interest in the subjects of mining and turquoise may be stoked to a veritable conflagration!




Rocky but well-defined trails wind through the hills and reveal evidence of the late 1800s mining rush: gouges and vertical shafts in the earth piled all around with the excavated waste rock.




Many of the shafts are deep enough to have warranted safety precautions: attractive observation decks allow visitors to get a bird's eye view, while sturdy steel mesh covers the opening, preventing anyone from accidentally (or otherwise) going overboard!






Historical information is posted at each of the significant mine sites:






See a whole bunch of historic photos of early mining operations in the hills here.

When is a stump more than just a stump?




When it reveals a story about the area's past! When miners flocked to the Cerrillos hills mining district in the late 1800s to find their fortunes, they needed firewood and timber to brace mine shafts; the juniper and piñon trees that dot the hillsides filled that need, and today you can still see many of the stumps of those trees with axe cuts and saw marks where wood was harvested over a hundred years ago! The park has several unobtrusive signs pointing out those interesting things that the casual hiker might otherwise miss.

Rambling my way towards the back of the park, I crested a hill and beheld one mammoth of a hill off in the distance:




That is what the miners called "Grand Central Mountain" on account of its stature and location in the mining district. Although the Cerrillos Hills State Park encompasses a large tract of the original district, Grand Central Mountain itself, which lies just outside of the park's northern boundry, was the site of several mining operations; out beyond Grand Central Mountain are more hills, and even more old mine sites!




By the end of my day exploring the park, I'm afraid my turquoise fever had advanced considerably. I spent the evening poring over the park's website, eager to find out as much as possible about the area's history and the locations of the mines. Many of the mine claims within the park were struck in pursuit of silver, gold, lead, copper, iron, and coal; little gold was actually discovered, but mine operators often exaggerated its existence to investors back East in order to secure funding to expand operations. Many of the historic turquoise sites are actually located in the hills out beyond the park boundaries. Curious to find out the ownership status of the land beyond the park, I pulled up a detailed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) map, and was surprised by what I found:




While a good portion of area around the old turquoise mines is privately owned, the areas overlaid in transparent yellow (above) are actually public (BLM) land, and that includes much of good old Grand Central Mountain! Now I'd be lying if I said that part of my intended cure for Turquoise fever didn't include finding a few bits of that lovely stone out in the field, but significant effort went into preserving the land and remaining sites within the Cerrillos Hills State Park; removing anything from the park undermines those preservation efforts, so "rockhounding" anywhere within the park must be strictly avoided. Likewise with straying off the trails... it damages the ecosystem and can alter the appearance of the area. I stayed up half the night plotting how I might access the BLM land without going through the park or overtly trespassing on private property, and determined that I might do so by following a dry creekbed that runs well outside of the park boundaries and ends up within the BLM land surrounding Grand Central Mountain. I decided that my goal for the following day would be to hike entirely around the mountain, avoiding the few privately owned sectors, while hopefully encountering some interesting scenery (and maybe a few bits of that mythical blue stone!) along the way. My path is highlighted with red dots in the map above.

Did I make it into the backcountry? Did I fall into a mineshaft? Did I even find a mineshaft??? I hope you will stick around for part two of the Turquoise Trilogy!

Medicine Bags!

I recently acquired two super soft, buttery buckskin hides and have been having a grand time sewing medicine bags! I do sew them on a machine, but since every piece of each bag is cut by hand from the hide, they end up taking a good bit of time to make from start to finish. I have 15 so far; these are meant to be worn around the neck, and I have been assembling a nice cache of beads, metal cones, horsehair and the like to add to each bag along with a strip of intricate beadwork that will be stitched directly onto the face of each bag!

Eventually these will go into my FinderMaker shop, along with mushroom shelves and all sorts of other curious objects and handmade treasures! I believe I will have to put this project on hold very soon though, as I am preparing for a big move at the end of August. We are trying to decide between New York City (we lived there before, in Manhattan, but would be in Brooklyn this time around) or Santa Fe (a new adventure, though I did spend some of my childhood in Albuquerque). The seemingly unavoidable threat of bedbugs is making the NY area seem like a rather frightening option, but Santa Fe is quite distant, and I am tiring of stressful cross-country moves. Those concerns aside, both places have much to offer, and I am looking forward to the changes that are in store! I would certainly welcome any opinions or insight on either option from my dear beloved readers!