Full of joy
Kathleen Wall presents new works and koshare figures at Pottery of the Southwest.
SANTA FE, NM
Kathleen Wall remembers that at the age of 8 she was usually playing outside at Jemez Pueblo. One day she paid more attention to her mother preparing clay for her pottery on the dining room table. “I was more attentive at that time and it was a nurturing time for me. I remember the smell of the clay. All of our materials are so humble. Learning about clay and pottery was also humble and nurturing. My mother and my aunts never sat me down to teach me anything. I learned through observation and from their nurturing.”
In 2016, Kathleen was the Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native Artist Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. This year, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) named her as the 2020 recipient of the Native Treasures Living Treasures award that “honors Native American artists who have made outstanding artistic contributions to the field of indigenous arts and culture.” Observation and nurturing worked well.
“As I got older I kept the image in my mind of my mother working in the dining room that day. When I was in my 20s I walked into a little shop in Durango, Colorado, and saw what I was sure was the wedding vase my mother had made at the time of my early memory. I bought it on layaway and when I brought it home, I compared it to
some old photos. It was the same pot!”
“When I was 15,” she recalls, “I used to take my storyteller figures to curio shops and sell them for a few dollars. When I was able to drive I would look for Native American shops in the Tucson and Phoenix phone books. When I was 16 I was in the Pueblo Grande Indian Market and sold a nativity scene for around $45. I was amazed. I’ve gone every year ever since.
“My mom and my aunts taught me to make storytellers, so the form comes easily to me,” she explains. She evolved from making storyteller figures to her distinctive, joyous Koshare figures, each of which has a broad and open smile. “When I’m at my booth, sometimes, people come walking toward my space with giant smiles on their faces. They relate. They connect.
“I have an image in my head and when it’s time for creating, I’ve dreamt, thought and obsessed about it. Sometimes it takes on its own shape. My personal relationship with my artwork starts with the intent of creating a full-circle cultural experience. I embrace the heritage of the people around me and absorb the knowledge that they have to offer. It begins with an emotional response, then a thought, which then becomes my finished piece, expressed through my eyes and hands. That very personal experience is passed on to others.
“I feel as though I’m fulfilling my grandmother’s legacy,” she says, “passing on the knowledge of Pueblo pottery. The beauty of Native culture in and around my life gives me inspiration to create art.”
Her latest work will be shown at Pottery of the Southwest in Santa Fe, opening August 13.