Dragons and Dinosaurs
Jennifer Tafoya at King Galleries
SCOTTSDALE, AZ
In his landmark book Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery, Rick Dillingham (1952-1994) quotes the young Jennifer Tafoya, daughter of Emily and the late Ray Tafoya of Santa Clara Pueblo.
She says, “I’ve been working with clay since I was about 6. I was making bowls and little polished clay balls with simple designs that were scratched in. I do turtles and lizards and bears once in a while. They are red and black. I think I’ll go off in other directions. I’m still learning how to handle the clay. I’m doing my own making, sanding and polishing, and my dad’s teaching me how to fire.”
Firmly based in the traditions of Santa Clara and the artistry of her parents, she has gone off in other directions, incorporating Asian designs with traditional Pueblo designs in her sgraffito as well as contemporary Japanese anime and manga figures. “Asian dragons and the Pueblo water serpent represent the same thing,” she says. She tried the anime and manga characters to see if they would work, and they did.
At her exhibition EX.OT.IK opening at King Galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona, on February 9 there will also be dinosaurs. “I’ve always been a huge fan of dinosaurs,” she says. “I didn’t have a bunch of dolls, I had dinosaurs. If my mother would give me a Barbie doll, I’d give it to my sister. I think working with animals that lived millions of years ago is fascinating and it’s fun learning how they lived.”
Tafoya’s T-rex sculpture is one example of her dinosaur sculptures. She gathers the clay from traditional sites, prepares it, builds her forms and fires the pieces outdoors with pine, cedar and horse manure. She then uses a sketch pencil to draw a design onto the fired surface without any preliminary drawing. If it doesn’t work, she can erase the lines and start again. Finally, she cuts the designs into the form and applies colors from natural clays and stones.
“Sometimes I’ll be commissioned to do a certain
shape in a pot, and it will take me five to eight tries to get it right. Applying the color can also be trial and error, trying to find the right material to stick to the clay.”
In her square box Bee Box she incorporates cactus and cactus flowers with the shapes of honeycomb and bees. When asked if she is commenting on the endangerment of bees, she replied that she liked the forms. “It’s what I observe in nature when I take my dog for a walk. It’s not a statement,” she says. “I like to have people figure the pieces out for themselves. I do have my story and other people have their own stories. I find that fascinating.”
The gallery notes, “Jennifer is not afraid to take risks to create anything her mind can imagine.”