This webpage will evolve.

In the first part, I will want to talk about my pottery and present some of my "masters" and talk about some of the things that I learned from them.

In addition, there are lessons learned from my own journey in life that have contributed to how I live my life, my experiences in life and living, and how I express that in my art. When I speak of art, I speak of "art" in its larger context -- creative expression, whether in ceremony, storytelling, dance, song, music poetry, as well as the visual arts -- I also consider the raising of children, cooking, and growing of gardens as art forms -- creative expressions -- giving life.

Clay Mother:

In the beginning...I won't go there!, but all storytelling begins that way.

I married a Santa Clara Pueblo woman in the early 1980's and switched from a life of bureacracy (working for the Indian Health Service as a hospital adminstrator) to going back to school to work on my PhD at the University of New Mexico. I wanted to study Psychology, but ended up in Sociology. I really did not know how to do any art form and I found the academic world frustrating -- It seemed far removed from life itself.

My Gia (Tewa word for mother), Rose Naranjo, became a mentor for me in the arts as well as in life. She was the matriarch of the family and mother to nine children. Each were well-educated and artists -- all were hardworking people. I really had not considered learning how to work with clay, but tried to help Gia when she went to dig clay, or gathered firewood or manure for the firing process.

Gia told me that the clay was Clay Mother, "she would provide for us". I was told to leave an offering and pray before we began to dig and to give thanks. When she would be making her pottery, she would sing songs in Tewa -- "You must think happy thoughts in order to create beautiful pots". It was difficult to learn technique from her as she was like the "old cook" and would throw things together and somehow everything would turn out beautiful and graceful.

I was helping her at her booth at the Santa Fe Indian Market one year and someone had scratched one of her pots. She handed it to me and said, "Carve me a design on it". I had no idea what to do! I carved a simple Mimbres pottery design of a mountain sheep and put the pot back out for sale. It sold right away and she handed me another. So began my life as a potter.

Apprenticeship on the Plaza: