The Art of Making Santa Clara Pottery
As Told to The Santa Fe Store by Potter Marvin Moquino
There are remote clay pits around the Santa Clara Pueblo where the best
clay for making pottery is found. The weather is a big factor as it can
only be accessed during dry hot spells; even with four-wheel drive the
clay is impossible to access after a rain or snow. Back at home Marvin
spreads the clay out on a table to dry completely. The dry clay is placed
into large tubs of hot water and after two or three days the clay has
reached its right consistency. At this point it feels squishy enough to
be worked through a screen to remove everything but the fine clay.
Over in another Pueblo Marvin digs up a fine light sand. When he gets
this home he cleans out all of the debris and rocks then pulverizes the
sand and finally he sifts it until it has the consistency of flour. He
mixes this flour-like sand with his fine clay until they are totally infused
with each other and the color and texture is uniform throughout.
The smaller pots are made with the pinching technique.
Starting at the bottom and working their way up to the top they pinch
and pull the clay
to the desired shape. Their pottery walls are an even thickness, size
and smooth. Coiling long ‘ropes’ of rolled out clay creates
the larger pots. Starting from the bottom the clay ropes are wound around
and around with each coil being pinched, pulled and smoothed into place.
After the clay has dried they sand the outer surface
then they use a polishing stone along with polishing slip to achieve
the glass-like mirror
finish. Marvin gathers the clay he uses as his polishing slip from another
Pueblo far away from Santa Clara. This particular clay gives his redware
that perfect deep red color. If he finds the pot isn’t as smooth
as he would like he begins the process again by sanding the surface and
starting over.
The firing process is the last step in the deep carved
pieces, but the etching will be done after the pottery has been fired.
To create blackware
pottery, Marvin and Delores gather horse manure from locals. They use
the dried horse manure as fuel to smoke the clay black.
To find out more
about Marvin Moquino click here About
the Artist. To see Marvin and Delores Moquino's pottery type Moquino
into the search engine at the top of the page.
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