Black jar with 4 bear paw imprints made by Toni Roller of Santa Clara
Toni Roller, Santa Clara, Black jar with 4 bear paw imprints
Toni Roller
Santa Clara
$ 3200
rwsc0k169
Black jar with 4 bear paw imprints
8.25 in H by 7.75 in Dia
Condition: Excellent
Signature: Toni Roller Santa Clara Pueblo
Date Created: 1995


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Toni Roller

Santa Clara
An avanyu design carved into a black jar

Toni Roller was born to Margaret and Alcario Tafoya at Santa Clara Pueblo in 1935. Among her siblings were Virginia Ebelacker, Jennie Trammel, Lee Tafoya, LuAnn Tafoya, Mela Youngblood, Shirley Tafoya and Mary Esther Archuleta. Growing up in that circle she had no choice in the matter: she became an excellent traditional potter.

Toni used to speak of making her first pot at the age of six but back in those days, she said she was also more interested in making clay marbles and firing them in the same fires where her mother was firing pottery to sell (imagine the results if any of her marbles had exploded).

Toni was focused on her art in her early years and sold her first commercial piece in 1968. Right after that came the years when she was too busy raising seven children. In the early 1990's she returned to making pottery full time and quickly became known for her fantastic polish and crisp carving.

Toni still makes pottery, still digs and processes her own clay, forms and polishes her pots, carves the designs and then fires them outdoors, just as she was taught by her mother so many years ago. She just takes her time more these days.

Santa Clara Pueblo

The Puye Cliff Ruins
Ruins at Puye Cliffs, Santa Clara Pueblo

Santa Clara Pueblo straddles the Rio Grande about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. Of all the pueblos, Santa Clara has the largest number of potters.

The ancestral roots of the Santa Clara people have been traced to the pueblos in the Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado. When that area began to get dry between about 1100 and 1300, some of the people migrated to the Chama River Valley and constructed Poshuouinge (about 3 miles south of what is now Abiquiu on the edge of the mesa above the Chama River). Eventually reaching two and three stories high with up to 700 rooms on the ground floor, Poshuouinge was inhabited from about 1375 to about 1475. Drought then again forced the people to move, some of them going to the area of Puye (on the eastern slopes of the Pajarito Plateau of the Jemez Mountains) and others to Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo, along the Rio Grande). Beginning around 1580, drought forced the residents of the Puye area to relocate closer to the Rio Grande and they founded what we now know as Santa Clara Pueblo on the west bank of the river, between San Juan and San Ildefonso Pueblos.

In 1598 Spanish colonists from nearby Yunque (the seat of Spanish government near San Juan Pueblo) brought the first missionaries to Santa Clara. That led to the first mission church being built around 1622. However, the Santa Clarans chafed under the weight of Spanish rule like the other pueblos did and were in the forefront of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. One pueblo resident, a mixed black and Tewa man named Domingo Naranjo, was one of the rebellion's ringleaders. When Don Diego de Vargas came back to the area in 1694, he found most of the Santa Clarans on top of nearby Black Mesa (with the people of San Ildefonso). An extended siege didn't subdue them so eventually, the two sides negotiated a treaty and the people returned to their pueblo. However, successive invasions and occupations by northern Europeans took their toll on the tribe over the next 250 years. The Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 almost wiped them out.

Today, Santa Clara Pueblo is home to as many as 2,600 people and they comprise probably the largest per capita number of artists of any North American tribe (estimates of the number of potters run as high as 1-in-4 residents).

Today's pottery from Santa Clara is typically either black or red. It is usually highly polished and designs might be deeply carved or etched ("sgraffito") into the pot's surface. The water serpent, ("avanyu"), is a traditional design motif of Santa Clara pottery. Another motif comes from the legend that a bear helped the people find water during a drought. The bear paw has appeared on their pottery ever since.

One of the reasons for the distinction this pueblo has received is because of the evolving artistry the potters have brought to the craft. Not only did this pueblo produce excellent black and redware, several notable innovations helped move pottery from the realm of utilitarian vessels into the domain of art. Different styles of polychrome redware emerged in the 1920's-1930's. In the early 1960's experiments with stone inlay, incising and double firing began. Modern potters have also extended the tradition with unusual shapes, slips and designs, illustrating what one Santa Clara potter said: "At Santa Clara, being non-traditional is the tradition." (This refers strictly to artistic expression; the method of creating pottery remains traditional).

Santa Clara Pueblo is home to a number of famous pottery families: Tafoya, Baca, Gutierrez, Naranjo, Suazo, Chavarria, Garcia, Vigil, Tapia - to name a few.

Harvest, Santa Clara Pueblo c. 1912 Courtesy Museum of New Mexico Neg. No. 4128

Santa Clara Pueblo c. 1920 Courtesy Museum of New Mexico Neg. No. 4214
Map showing the location of Santa Clara Pueblo
For more info:
at Wikipedia
Pueblos of the Rio Grande, Daniel Gibson, ISBN-13:978-1-887896-26-9, Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2001
Upper photo courtesy of Einar Kvaran, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Margaret Tafoya Family Tree

Disclaimer: This "family tree" is a best effort on our part to determine who the potters are in this family and arrange them in a generational order. The general information available is questionable so we have tried to show each of these diagrams to living members of each family to get their input and approval, too. This diagram is subject to change should we get better info.

Note: Sarafina (Gutierrez) Tafoya was the sister of Pasqualita Tani Gutierrez.

    Sarafina Tafoya (1863-1949) & Geronimo Tafoya
    • Margaret Tafoya (1904-2001) & Alcario Tafoya (d. 1995)
      • Mary Ester Archuleta (1942-2010)
        • Barry Archuleta
        • Bryon Archuleta
        • Sheila Archuleta
      • Jennie Trammel (1929-2010)
        • Karen Trammel Beloris
      • Virginia Ebelacker (1925-2001)
        • James Ebelacker (1960-) & Cynthia Ebelacker
          • Jamelyn Ebelacker
          • Sarena Ebelacker
        • Richard Ebelacker (1946-2010) & Yvonne Ortiz
          • Jason Ebelacker
          • Jerome Ebelacker & Dyan Esquibel
            • Andrew Ebelacker
            • Nickolas Ebelacker
      • Lee Tafoya (1926-1996) & Betty Tafoya (Anglo)
        • Linda Tafoya (Oyenque)(Sanchez) (1962-)
          • Antonio Jose Oyenque
          • Jeremy Rio Oyenque
          • Maria Theresa Oyenque
        • Melvin Tafoya
        • Phyllis Bustos Tafoya
      • Mela Youngblood (1931-1990) & Walt Youngblood
        • Nancy Youngblood (1955-)
          • Christopher Cutler
          • Joseph Lugo
          • Sergio Lugo
        • Nathan Youngblood (1954-)
      • Toni Roller (1935-)
        • Brandon Roller
        • Cliff Roller (1961-)
        • Deborah Morning Star Roller
        • Jeff Roller (1963-)
          • Jordan Roller
          • Ryan Roller
        • Susan Roller Whittington (1955-)
          • Charles Lewis
        • Tim Roller (1959-) & Clarissa Tafoya
        • William Roller
      • LuAnn Tafoya (1938-) & Sostence Tapia
        • Michele Tapia Browning (1960-)
          • Ashley Browning
          • Mindy Browning
        • Daryl Duane Whitegeese (1964-) & Rosemary Hardy
          • Samantha Whitegeese
          • Tina Whitegeese
      • Shirley Cactus Blossom Tafoya (1947-)
      • Meldon Tafoya
        • Andrea Tafoya
        • Crystal Tafoya
        • Melissa Tafoya
    • Christina Naranjo (1891-1980) & Jose Victor Naranjo (1895-1942)
      • Mary Cain (1916-2010)
        • Billy Cain (1950-2005)
        • Joy Cain (1947-)
        • Linda Cain (1949-)
          • Autumn Borts-Medlock (1967-)
          • Tammy Garcia (1969-)
        • Douglas Tafoya
        • Marjorie Tafoya Tanin
      • Teresita Naranjo (1919-1999)
        • Stella Chavarria (1939-)
          • Denise Chavarria (1959-)
          • Joey Chavarria (1964-1987)
          • Sunday Chavarria (1963-)
      • Cecilia Naranjo
        • Sharon Naranjo Garcia (1951-)
        • Judy Tafoya (1962-) & Lincoln Tafoya (1954-)
      • Mida Tafoya (1931-2024)
        • Sherry Tafoya (1956-)
        • Phyllis Tafoya (1955-)
        • Robert Tafoya
        • Ethel Vigil
          • Kimberly Garcia
    • Camilio Tafoya (1902-1995) & Agapita Silva (1904-1959)
      • Joe Tafoya & Lucy Year Flower (1935-2012)
        • Kelli Little Kachina (1967-2014)
        • Myra Little Snow (1962-)
        • Forrest Red Cloud Tafoya
        • Shawn Tafoya (1968-)
      • Joseph Lonewolf (1932-2014) & Katheryn Lonewolf
        • Greg Lonewolf (1952-)
        • Rosemary Apple Blossom Lonewolf (1954-) & Paul Speckled Rock (1952-2017)
          • Adam Speckled Rock
        • Susan Romero
      • Grace Medicine Flower (1938-)
    • Dolorita Padilla (1897-1960) & Alberto Padilla (1898-)
    • Tomacita Tafoya Naranjo (1884-1918) & Agapita Naranjo
      • Nicolasa Naranjo (c.1910-) & Jose G. Tafoya
        • Howard Naranjo & Linda Naranjo

Some of the above info is drawn from Pueblo Indian Pottery, 750 Artist Biographies, by Gregory Schaaf, © 2000, Center for Indigenous Arts & Studies

Other info is derived from personal contacts with family members and through interminable searches of the Internet.