Label Text:
Pueblo pottery is often a collaborative process. Maria Martínez and her husband, Julián Martínez (also called Pocano, which translates to “Coming of the Spirits”), worked in tandem. While she formed the pots, he painted the shiny burnished surface with clay slips that resulted in the contrasting glossy and matte finishes. Martínez began his artistic career as a painter and often used imagery found on Ancestral Puebloan ceramics. This watercolor depicts an Avanyu (water serpent) encircling what may be the sun. Avanyus appear on many of the couple’s vessels.

-Aaron Miller, Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (Sept. 2016)

Tags:
indigenous people; Native American

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+2016.12.5

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.