Polychrome wedding vase corn holder and eagle design made by Margaret and Luther Gutierrez of Santa Clara
Margaret and Luther Gutierrez, Santa Clara, Polychrome wedding vase corn holder and eagle design
Margaret and Luther Gutierrez
Santa Clara
$ 1850
aasc2e382
Polychrome wedding vase corn holder and eagle design
6.25 in L by 9.75 in W 11 in H
Condition: Very Good
Signature: Margaret / Luther Santa Clara Pueblo



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Margaret and Luther Gutierrez

Santa Clara

Polychrome turtle storyteller with animal, geometric design and 3 turtle children

Margaret Gutierrez was born in 1936 and passed on in 2018. She and her brother, Luther, were a team of Santa Clara potters. Their parents were Lela and Van Gutierrez Luther was born in 1911, began making pottery around 1935. He made pots almost until the day he passed on in 1987.

From 1956 to about 1966, Luther worked with Lela after Van died, then worked with Margaret after Lela died. The signature dates on their pottery are like this:

  • Lela/Luther signature: 1956-1966
  • Margaret/Luther signature: 1966-1987
  • Margaret/Pauline: 1987-1988
  • Margaret alone: 1988-2018

Margaret and Luther began collaborating in the early 1960s but that ended when Luther passed on. After that, Margaret worked with Luther's daughter, Pauline. Shortly after that, Pauline died, so Margaret began working with Pauline's daughter, Stephanie.

Margaret and Luther continued and expanded on a tradition begun by their parents. In the early days of their collaboration, they were producing polychrome jars, bowls and wedding vases, often decorated with avanyu, clouds, rain, sky bands and lightning bolts in bright, traditional Santa Clara color combinations. Then Luther began searching out new colors of clay and they developed their own unique color palette. In the 1970s they switched it up and began producing polychrome figurines of various animals and other creatures, painted with the unique color palette they had become famous for.

They were participants in the 1974 Seven Families in Pueblo Pottery exhibit at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque. In 1976 they were honored with a show at the Popovi Da Studio of Indian Arts at San Ildefonso Pueblo. In 1985, along with Margaret Tafoya and others, they were participants in a show at the Sid Deutsch Gallery in New York City.

Margaret, by herself, won a First Place ribbon for a painted wedding vase at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1975. She participated in Santa Fe Indian Market every year from 1975 to 1998. She was also a participant in the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts and Crafts Show from 1995 to 1998. Margaret and Luther may not have won a lot of awards during their career together but they did make a lot of people smile with the sheer whimsicality of many of their pieces.

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

The Story of
the Wedding Vase

as told by Teresita Naranjo of Santa Clara Pueblo

Wedding vase by Helen Naha

Helen Naha
Hopi
Red wedding vase with sgraffito geometric design

Wilma Baca Tosa
Jemez Pueblo
Avanyu design carved into a black wedding vase

Margaret Tafoya
Santa Clara Pueblo




The Wedding Vase has been used for a long, long time in Indian Wedding Ceremonies.

After a period of courtship, when a boy and girl decide to get married, they cannot do so until certain customs have been observed. The boy must first call all his relatives together to tell them that he desires to be married to a certain girl. If the relatives agree, two or three of the oldest men are chosen to call on the parents of the girl. They pray according to Indian custom and the oldest man will tell the parents of the girl what their purpose is in visiting. The girl's parents never give a definite answer at this time, but just say that they will let the boy's family know their decision later.

About a week later, the girl calls a meeting of her relatives. The family then decides what answer should be given. If the answer is “no” that is the end of it. If the answer is “yes” then the oldest men in her family are delegated to go to the boy's home, and to give the answer, and to tell the boy on what day he can come to receive his bride-to-be. The boy must also notify all of his relatives on what day the girl will receive him, so that they will be able to have gifts for the girl.

Now the boy must find a Godmother and Godfather. The Godmother immediately starts making the wedding vase so that it will be finished by the time the girl is to be received. The Godmother also takes some of the stones which have been designated as holy and dips them into water, to make it holy water. It is with this holy water that the vase is filled on the day of the reception.

The reception day finally comes and the Godmother and Godfather lead the procession of the boy's relatives to the home of the girl. The groom is the last in line and must stand at the door of the bride's home until the gifts his relatives have brought have been opened and received by the bride.

The bride and groom now kneel in the middle of the room with the groom's relatives and the bride's parents praying all around them. The bride then gives her squash blossom necklace to the groom's oldest male relative, while the groom gives his necklace to the bride's oldest male relative. After each man has prayed, the groom's necklace is placed on the bride, and the bride's is likewise placed on the groom.

After the exchange of squash blossom necklaces and prayers, the Godmother places the wedding vase in front of the bride and groom. The bride drinks out of one side of the wedding vase and the groom drinks from the other. Then, the vase is passed to all in the room, with the women all drinking from the bride's side, and the men from the groom's.

After the ritual drinking of the holy water and the prayers, the bride's family feeds all the groom's relatives and a date is set for the church wedding. The wedding vase is now put aside until after the church wedding.

Once the church wedding ceremony has occurred, the wedding vase is filled with any drink the family may wish. Once again, all the family drinks in the traditional manner, with women drinking from one side, and men the other. Having served its ceremonial purpose, the wedding vase is given to the young newlyweds as a good luck piece.

Gutierrez 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.

    Jose Domingo Gutierrez (1844-before 1931) and Tonita Gutierrez (1859-aft 1934)
    • Lela (1895-1966) & Van (Evangelio) Gutierrez (1885-1956)
      • Luther Gutierrez (1911-1987) & Lupita Naranjo
        • Paul & Dorothy (Navajo) Gutierrez
          • Gary Gutierrez
          • Paul Gutierrez Jr. (1966-)
        • Pauline Gutierrez Naranjo (1931-)
          • Stephanie Naranjo (1960-)
      • Margaret Rose Gutierrez (1936-2018)
    • Leocadia Gutierrez (c. 1877-1950) & Thomas Sublette Dozier (Anglo from Missouri) (1857-1925)
    • Severa Gutierrez Tafoya (1890-1973) and Cleto Tafoya
      • Angela Tafoya Baca (1927-2014) & Antonio Baca
        • Alvin Baca (1966-)
        • Daryl Baca (1961-)
        • David Baca (1951-)
        • Leona Baca (1958-)
      • Epimenia (Mela) Tafoya (1920-1962) & Robert Nichols
        • Robert Cleto Nichols (1961-) & Miana Pablito (Zuni)
      • Lydia Tafoya (1923-1975) & Santiago Garcia (San Juan/Ohkay Owingeh)
        • Greg Garcia (1961-2010)
        • Tina Garcia (1957-2005)
        • Virginia Garcia (1963-)
      • Maria (Mary Agnes) Tafoya (1925-1983) & Mosimino Tafoya
        • Stephanie Tafoya Fuentes (1963-) & Lorenzo Fuentes
        • Alita Povijua (1957-)
        • Kathy Silva (1947-)
        • Gwen Tafoya
        • Wanda Tafoya (1950-)
          • Eric Tafoya (1969-)
          • Lawrence Tafoya (1968-)
          • Mary Agnes Talache (1981-)
          • Charlene Victoria Talache (1986-)
      • Tonita (1930-) & Paul Tafoya
        • Paul Speckled Rock (1952-2017)
          • Adam Speckled Rock (1972-)
        • Kenneth Tafoya (1953-)
        • Ray Tafoya (1956-1995) & Emily (Suazo) Tafoya
          • Jennifer (Tafoya) Moquino (1977-) & Michael Moquino
          • Leslie Tafoya

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.