Friday, May 28, 2010

The Charm of Acoma Pottery

I usually turn a blind eye to pottery as I just glide by inhibited by tunnel vision, but ready to fixate on prize-worthy Native American jewelry. Last weekend was different, I was attracted to the pottery matrons of Acoma Pueblo who were showing their pottery shard necklaces at the Native Treasure Art show in Santa Fe. I bought several of the necklaces but in the process of exchange they charmed me into what I now fear will be a new life of unquenchable lust for Acoma pottery created from local Earthen clay by the very same primitive and unaltered methods of their ancestors. The great photographic artist Edward Curtis must have felt moved in a similar way in his travels to visit the Acoma women. I wish I could express the same in masterful picture as he did more than a century ago.

At the Old Well of Acoma

Northwestern University Library, Edward S. Curtis's 'The North American Indian': the Photographic Images, 2001.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html