Signature design
Jemez potter respects tradition while continuing to evolve
Acornstalk vines its way up a drinking glass in Glendora Fragua’s Albuquerque living room. A dragonfly flits around the surfaces of a clay pot. Another skims across the side of her shoe.
The Jemez Pueblo potter is a symphony in design, whether it be the fish swimming around a wine glass rim or the cornstalks serving as her signature hallmark.
Fragua is one of nearly 150 artists showing their work at Santa Fe’s La Fonda on the Plaza on Saturday and Sunday.
Sponsored by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the show offers a range of artwork, including jewelry, pottery and ornaments. SWAIA will host a toy drive with the Santa Fe Indian Center and visitors are encouraged to bring new, unwrapped gifts for native children in need.
Fragua learned potting the traditional pueblo way from her mother, Juanita. Born in St. Louis, Glendora grew up in San Francisco. The family moved back to the pueblo when she was starting high school.
“It was culture shock,” she said, adding that she knew nothing of the Towa language at the time. “When they would talk to us, I would stand there and look at them. The nights were dark because there were no street lights.”
Her mother told her if she wanted to make extra money, she had to work in the family’s pottery shop. Juanita painted the outlines of her designs onto the clay; Glendora filled in the colors.
Then her oldest brother, the famous sculptor Clifford Fragua, came home for a weekend from Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts. He arrived with a geometrically designed pot that intrigued his sister.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “It was the way he cut out the designs. It was so clean and precise.”
That precision led her to try incising, she said, opening a plastic box of X-Acto knives.
Today her work features that precision carving in traditional earth-toned pigments from Jemez or more contemporary acrylic paints.
The raw clay resembles a chunky oatmeal.
First Fragua soaks it in water to dissolve it. Then she strains it until it turns to a flour-like powder. She molds the clay like bread dough, using the coil method to build up the pottery walls. When it dries, she adds three layers of slip.
The polishing is the hard part, she says, adding she goes through three grades of sandpaper before she’s finished. She has to be fast to avoid scraping the surface. Then she fires her pots in either a kiln or a pit.
Making pottery is laden with cultural experience, Fragua said. The pueblo uses pottery in ceremonies, often cradling cornmeal for prayers.
Fragua’s mind constantly tumbles with fresh ideas. The idea of decorating glassware came about two years ago. She began painting her favorite designs on store-bought wine glasses and tumblers. She once created clay shadow boxes for a Los Angeles collector who was afraid an earthquake would
break her pottery. She even adds her “doodles” to the black gift bags holding her sold work.
Acclaimed potter and friend Jody Naranjo calls Fragua’s work a melding of the traditional and contemporary.
“I think it really shows who she is,” Naranjo said. “It’s very elegant and beautiful. She looks like her work — it’s feminine. The scalloped edges are really beautiful.”
Lately Fragua has been thinking about fashion, trying out her designs on handbags and shoes.
“I like the tradition, but I like to go outside the box,” she said. “I like to evolve.”
Galleries can’t keep her glassware on their shelves. She recently struck a deal with Santa Ana Casino to sell them at their wedding market.
Fragua rises at 4:30 a.m., takes a catnap at 1 p.m., then works until 8 or 9 p.m.
“My mind’s always rattling with things,” she said.
Fragua has won first- and second-place ribbons at the Santa Fe Indian Market and a best of show award at the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market for a collaborative piece with fellow potter Naranjo in 2016.