Through the Looking Glass
AN UPCOMING EXHIBITION AT THE HARWOOD MUSEUM OF ART HIGHLIGHTS THE ARTWORK OF CONTEMPORARY SANTA CLARA PUEBLO POTTER SUSAN FOLWELL.
An upcoming exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art highlights the artwork of contemporary Santa Clara Pueblo potter Susan Folwell.
The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, will celebrate her achievements in the exhibition, Susan Folwell: Through the Looking Glass, July 5 through September 29 in the museum’s Studio 238 gallery. The museum notes, “Her work speaks to the contemporary confluence of Indian identity. While Folwell uses traditional clay and firing techniques, her unique contributions are in her designs and forms. She creates compositions with symbols from many Indian cultures. For the Studio 238 exhibit, Folwell’s works will be installed in the Dorothy & Jack Brandenburg Gallery, home to the Harwood’s collection of Taos Society of Artists. A new conversation of these classic works with Folwell’s contemporary works will be on display, with the gallery being rehung for this special summer exhibition.”
Folwell incorporates elements from the painters of the Taos Society of Artists into her pottery. Her Sleeping Model,
Susan Folwell comes from a long line of famed potters at Santa Clara Pueblo. She helped her mother, Jody Folwell, when she was young but chose to study design and photography at the Center of Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Not finding the freedom she wanted, she returned to clay. Working from the Santa Clara tradition, she joined her mother and her sister Polly Rose Folwell in bringing the tradition into the 21 st century with her innovative technique.
for instance, incorporates a painting by Victor Higgins.
The Harwood’s curator of exhibitions, J. Matthew Thomas, notes, “We are excited to feature Susan’s works alongside the museum’s Taos Society of Artists masterpieces. It feels necessary in 2019 to revisit these works in a new light. The juxtaposition of Susan’s works next to key works from the collection draws attention to the stories being told in the paintings and on the pottery, thus better understanding who is doing the storytelling.”
Folwell recalls, “As a child, I helped my mom. Honestly, it was a chore.” Her mother gave her a ball of clay which she wanted to make into a snake. It turned into a long tube that her mother told her needed to have more character. Jody formed the tube into an S shape and pinched the nose. The distraught young potter “cried for like an hour” because she “thought it was now a worm.” But, “in the end, I was thrilled because it sold for $2. I was hooked after that.”
Knowing the clay “definitely has a mind, a soul of its own”, her experience and skill allows her to continue with her innovative forms. Her Bringers of Rain incorporates a painting on the flat surface of a clay puddle. Surrounding the puddle are blue water drops and one three-dimensional representation of a rain drop landing in the water.
The girl who sold her first piece for $2 has since exhibited her work at the National Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Art and Design in New York City and the Philadelphia Museum of Art among others. It can be found in the collections of the Heard Museum, Denver Art Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and elsewhere.