Johnny Cruz
San Ildefonso
A great-grandson of Maria Martinez, Johnny Cruz Jr. was born to Viola and Johnny Cruz Sr. on September 1, 1975. A daughter of Adam and Santana Martinez, Viola produced some pottery but her artistic efforts were more in the direction of textiles and painting. When we asked Johnny were he learned his craft he quickly responded "My grandmother Santana and grandfather Adam, and my brother and his wife, Marvin and Frances Martinez."
A regular participant in several annual Native American Arts shows like the Santa Fe Indian Market, Heard Museum Guild and Arizona State Museum Show, Johnny has earned ribbons from the Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival (Oklahoma City, OK: First Place in Traditional Pottery, 2010) and the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show (Espanola, NM).
Johnny says his favorite style of pottery to make is what his great-grandmother called a "fist pot" (it's about the size of a fist but a bit less spherical) and while he likes to use a micaceous clay slip on the surfaces, he also likes to paint avanyu's, feathers and geometric designs like his great-grandfather used to paint.
When he's not making pottery (which isn't often: Johnny loves working with clay), you can usually find him either at a local baseball game (rooting for his kids) or a local art show (showing his pots and/or rooting for his kids).
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved
San Ildefonso Pueblo
San Ildefonso Pueblo is located about twenty miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. Although their ancestry has been traced to prehistoric pueblos in the Mesa Verde area, their most recent ancestral home is in the area of Bandelier National Monument, the prehistoric village of Tsankawi in particular. Tsankawi abuts the reservation on its northwest side.
A mission church was built in 1617 and named for San Ildefonso. Hence the name. Before that the village was called Powhoge, "where the water cuts through" (in Tewa). Today's pueblo was established as long ago as the 1300s. When the Spanish arrived in 1540, they estimated the village population at about 2,000.
That mission was destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and when Don Diego de Vargas returned to reclaim the San Ildefonso area in 1694, he found virtually all the Tewa people on top of nearby Black Mesa. After an extended siege the two sides negotiated a treaty and the people returned to their villages. However, the next 250 years were not good for them. The Spanish swine flu pandemic of 1918 reduced the pueblo's population to about 90. Their population has grown to more than 600 now but the only economic activity available on the pueblo involves creating art in one form or another. The only other work is off-pueblo. San Ildefonso's population is small compared to neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo, but the pueblo maintains its own religious traditions and ceremonial feast days.
San Ildefonso is most known for being the home of the most famous Pueblo Indian potter, Maria Martinez. Many other excellent potters from this pueblo have produced quality pottery, too, among them: Blue Corn, Tonita and Juan Roybal, Dora Tse Pe and Rose Gonzales. Of course the descendants of Maria Martinez are still important pillars of San Ildefonso's pottery tradition. Maria's influence reached far and wide, so far and wide that even Juan Quezada of the Mata Ortiz pottery renaissance in Chihuahua, Mexico, came to San Ildefonso to learn from her.
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved