[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 27 (Monday, March 5, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S1816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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           COMMEMORATING MARIA MARGARITA ``MARGARET'' TAFOYA

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to join the 
community of Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico in mourning the loss of 
Maria Margarita ``Margaret'' Tafoya. New Mexico is comprised of 
imaginative people of many cultures who express their cultural values 
artistically and creatively. The people of New Mexico will miss the 
guidance of the ``matriarch of Santa Clara potters.''
  Respected and renowned throughout the pottery community, Margaret 
inspired others to take up pottery. She crafted many pots and other 
forms in the tradition of Santa Clara polished blackware and redware. 
Her art is the fine workmanship of highly skilled hands.
  For her quality work, Margaret received numerous awards. The National 
Academy of Western Art at the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage 
Center in Oklahoma City awarded her the Lifetime Contribution Award. 
She was the only American Indian to receive this award. In 1984, the 
National Endowment for the Arts awarded her the National Heritage 
Fellowship Award. In addition, her works have been displayed on the 
Mall in Washington, D.C. at the Folklife Festival sponsored by the 
Smithsonian Institute. However, Margaret did not work for recognition, 
she worked to improve the quality of life for her family and children.
  Her loss leaves a void for her family and the art community. Mr. 
President, I share the grief of the community of Santa Clara Pueblo and 
my heartfelt condolences go out to her family.
  I ask that an article in today's New York Times be printed in the 
Record.
  The article follows.

Margaret Tafoya, Pueblo Potter Whose Work Found a Global Audience, Dies 
                                 at 96

                          (By Douglas Martin)

       Margaret Tafoya, whose nimble, ingenious hands turned the 
     chocolate-colored clay of her New Mexico pueblo into black-
     on-black and red-on-red pottery of such profound and graceful 
     beauty that it acquired a global reputation, died on Feb. 25 
     at her home in Santa Clara Pueblo near Santa Fe. She was 96.
       Her name in Tewa, the language of seven Southwestern 
     pueblos, six in New Mexico and one in Arizona, was Corn 
     blossom. She was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters, 
     who are more numerous and produce more pottery than those of 
     any other pueblo.
       Her work, know for exceptionally large vessels, is 
     exhibited in public and private collections around the world. 
     She was named folk artist of the year by the National 
     Endowment for the Arts in 1984.
       The art form she practiced has long been dominated by 
     women, and Corn Blossom was the last of a group of women who 
     attained fame through their mastery of it. Gone are Blue Corn 
     and Maria Martinez of the San Ildefonso Pueblo, Christina 
     Naranjo of Santa Clara and Grace Chapella, a Hopi.
       Today Indian arts command astronomic prices and space on 
     museum shelves in faraway cities, but fewer and fewer Pueblo 
     Indians can speak or ever understand Tewa. Mrs. Tafoya, 
     though, was rooted in the old ways.
       She spurned inventions like the potters' wheel. She kept 
     chickens, milked her own cows, churned her own butter and 
     rejected natural gas heat in favor of the traditional beehive 
     fireplace.
       After a brief fling with an Apache, she married a young man 
     from the home pueblo, a distant relative with the same last 
     name.
       According to the Web site of the National Museum of 
     American History (www.americanhistory.si.edu), Santa Clarans 
     use the same word for clay and for people: nung.
       Mrs. Tafoya always prayed to Mother Clay before working. 
     ``You can't go to Mother Clay without the cornmeal and ask 
     her permission to touch her,'' the museum Web site quotes 
     Mrs. Tafoya as saying. ``Talk to Mother Clay.''
       Though she was one of the last to make pots with handles 
     and criticized others for adding semiprecious gems to 
     pottery, she also liked to experiment.
       She used different colors of slips, or thinned clays 
     applied to the outside of her vessels, and her later forms 
     were thinner, lighter and more graceful. Her shiny finishes 
     became ever more polished. She even adapted Greek and Roman 
     forms to classic Santa Clara shapes.
       Mrs. Tafoya clearly loved her art, but it was also how she 
     supported her 10 children who survived their first year; 2 
     others did not. As she said, ``I have dressed my children 
     with clay.''
       Maria Margarita Tafoya was born in her pueblo on Aug. 13, 
     1904. Her mother, Sara Fina Gutierrez Tafoya, or Autumn Leaf, 
     was ``undoubtedly the outstanding Tewa potter of her time,'' 
     Mary Ellen and Laurence Blair wrote in ``Margaret Tafoya: A 
     Tewa Potter's Heritage and Legacy'' (Schiffer, 1986).
       Her father, Geronimo, or White Flower, was mainly concerned 
     with raising food for the family, but he was also the main 
     marketer of his wife's pottery. He would load up his burros 
     and make sales trips of up to 500 miles.
       Five of the couple's eight children became excellent 
     potters, driven and inspired by their perfectionist mother. 
     Margaret's rigidly traditional approach was suggested by her 
     insistence on using corn cobs, rather than sandpaper, for 
     polishing. 

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