Maria Martinez- author

Pottery bowl- title

Made with clay and slip and made in the 1950s

It was a medium sized jet black bowl that was sand blasted, but there is a serpent design on the bowl that is not sanded blasted over so it is smooth in these areas.  It is made out of a special type of clay that is mixed with volcanic ashes.  The thing that makes the clay special is that it is clay that can only be found on her reservation, and the process of mixing the clay and ashes is very tedious and labors.  

The pot was made in the 1950s by Maria Martinez in San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is a small town north west of New Mexico.  The art of making the bowl was derived from her original culture of making bowls, which she learned as a child, and she also incorporated ancient pottery styles into her bowl making.  Also as a bowl it was made to be both a piece of art and to be useful to the people that owned it.   Even though the pots were made at an earlier time, they belonged to a more historic era because they used designs and styles of pottery from a more historic time. 

Ever since I was little I have always been interested in ancient cultures mostly the Greek and the Romans.  At first when I saw this pot I had little to no interest in it, but after I took a closer look I saw that there was a serpent design on it.  This greatly interested me, and after a little research I figured out that the serpent was called avanyu.  Additionally I don’t really like modern art because I feel like there is no use to it except being eye candy, because of this I only like art that has a use to it or tells the story of some historic civilization.

This piece of art is making the claim that pottery making isn’t a dying art.  I think this because when Maria was starting to pick up pottery it is said that young girls weren’t required to learn how to do it.  But after she started to make her signature pots more and more people wanted to learn the art from her. 

After visiting the art museum I can honestly say that I am not an art fanatic.  Even though it was cool to look at all the different pieces of art, I don’t really get interested by art and I don’t really know how to appreciate the different kinds of arts.  I might visit the museum one more time but I don’t think that I would go out of my way to visit the museum.  Even though I probably wouldn’t go back to the museum I defiantly enjoyed going there, and am happy I went at least once.