ARTIST’S TOUCH
Museum presents online Native pottery demonstration
The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe is presenting a virtual learning event with potter Karen Abeita.
It will take place at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10. Registration is free, and information can be found by visiting newmexicoculture.org and searching for “latest press releases.”
According to museum Director Della Warrior,
Abeita was immersed in pottery from an early age, and her grandmother, Mamie Nahoodyce, and several of Abeita’s aunts were wellknown and respected potters.
“Her childhood friend, Fawn Navasie, showed her how to mold large pots, to fire clay using sheep manure, and to respect the clay and always pray,” Warrior says. “All of Abeita’s pottery is hand-coiled, using only a piece of a gourd and her two hands as tools, and is painted using a yucca brush and mustard seed paint.”
Warrior says Abeita’s designs are usually duplicates of prehistoric pottery, mainly from the ancestral Hopi site of Sikyátki.
“I spend hours and hours walking through the ruins looking at the shards and copying them into my sketchbook,” Abeita says. “Once I get pages filled with designs, I will then begin what I call a ‘shard pot.’ It will consist of several hundred designs, never the same size or shape. It is very timeconsuming, usually taking me about three weeks of painting from sunup to sundown.”
Abeita is a past recipient of the Helen Naha Memorial Award for Best of Hopi Pots from the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the association’s fellowship, and several blue and red ribbons for her work.
She has also won numerous awards at the Heard Museum in Phoenix and the Haskell Indian Art Market in Lawrence, Kansas.
She has been participating in the Santa Fe Indian Market for nearly 20 years.
The event is part of MIAC’s “Pottery Demonstration” series, which has been on hiatus since February 2020.
Information on coming demonstrations and other programs is available on the MIAC Facebook page.