A polychrome jar decorated with a three-panel parrot, rainbow, flower and geometric design made by Barbara and Joseph Cerno Sr of Acoma
Barbara and Joseph Cerno Sr, Acoma, A polychrome jar decorated with a three-panel parrot, rainbow, flower and geometric design
Barbara and Joseph Cerno Sr
Acoma
$ 2600
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A polychrome jar decorated with a three-panel parrot, rainbow, flower and geometric design
8.75 in L by 8.75 in W by 7.75 in H
Condition: Excellent
Signature: Acoma, New Mexico Barbara and Joseph Cerno
Date Created: 2008


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Barbara and
Joseph Cerno Sr.

Acoma
Polychrome pot with traditional Acoma design
 

Barbara Hayah Cerno (born in 1951) and Merle Joseph Martin Cerno (born in 1947) are a husband and wife team making traditional Acoma pottery. Joseph learned the basics from his mother, Santana Cimmeron Cerno. She won many prizes for her work in the early days of the Santa Fe Indian Market. Joseph says he spent years working with his mother, learning to work with the clay, make the natural slips, pigments and paints they use and fire pots as large as he makes now. Barbara is descended from a long line of Hopi potters and kachina carvers. After marrying Joseph she, too, learned from his mother.

While Joseph usually makes the pots, Barbara usually decorates them. Together they make some of the largest and most colorful contemporary Acoma pots being made today. They have also have made some of the smallest Acoma pots, usually in the form of seed pots. On large water jars, they often decorate with a parrot theme and on seed pots ancient Mimbres designs are a common theme. Now and then they decorate some of their larger jars with Mimbres themes, too.

Barbara and Joseph have taken home many prizes over the years as they have participated in shows at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial in Gallup and the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. Their finely shaped and beautifully painted jars are among their most popular work.

Their pottery is formed by hand using the coil method with hand-dug Acoma clays. Decorations are painted with colors derived from ground minerals and boiled-down plants, the latter usually boiled-down purple blossoms from bee weed. From the time they dig the clay to the final clean up after firing a jar can be months: the traditional method of making potttery is not a quick process.

Some Awards Barbara and Joseph have Earned

  • 2000 Santa Fe Indian Market. Class II - Pottery, Div. E - Traditional pottery, jars with painted designs on matte or semi-matte surface, Cat.1204 - Jars, Acoma (over 7" tall), Third Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
  • 1995 Santa Fe Indian Market. Class II - Pottery, Div. F - Traditional pottery, painted designs on matte or semi--matte surface, Jars, Cat. 1304 - Jars, Acoma or Laguna (over 7 inches tall), First Place and Third Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
    - Div. J - Non-traditional, any forms using non-traditional materials or techniques, Cat. 1602 - Jars & vases painted (other than stoneware), Second Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
  • 1982 Santa Fe Indian Market. Pottery, Second Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
  • 1982 Heard Museum Guild Native American Arts Exhibit. Special Award, Ruth I. Elam Memorial Award - Miniature Pottery
    - Class V - Pottery, A - Traditional Construction, First Place and Second Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
    - Class D - Pottery Miniatures - First Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno
  • 1981 Santa Fe Indian Market. Pottery, First Place and Third Place, Joseph and Barbara Cerno

Acoma Pueblo

Acoma from the air
Sky City

According to Acoma oral history, the sacred twins led their ancestors to "Ako," a magical mesa composed mostly of white rock, and instructed those ancestors to make that mesa their home. Acoma Pueblo is called "Sky City" because of its position atop the mesa. Acoma is located about 60 miles west of Albuquerque.

Acoma, Old Oraibi (at Hopi) and Taos all lay claim to being the oldest continuously inhabited community in the U.S. Those competing claims are hard to settle as each village can point to archaeological remnants close by to substantiate each village's claim. While the people of Acoma have an oral tradition that says they've been living in the same area for more than 2,000 years, archaeologists feel more that the present pueblo was established near the end of the major migrations of the 1300s. The location is essentially on the boundary between the Mimbres-Mogollon and Ancestral Puebloan cultures. Each of those cultures has had an impact on the styles and designs of Acoma pottery, especially since modern potters have been getting the inspiration for many of their designs from ancient pot shards they have found while walking on pueblo lands.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado ascended the cliff to visit Acoma in 1540. He afterward wrote that he "repented having gone up to the place." But the Spanish came back later and kept coming back. In 1598 relations between the Spanish and the Acomas took a really bad turn with the arrival of Don Juan de Oñaté and the soldiers, settlers and Franciscan monks that accompanied him. After ascending to the mesa top, Oñaté decided to force the Acomas to swear loyalty to the King of Spain and to the Pope. When the Acomas realized what the Spanish meant by that, a group of Acoma warriors attacked a group of Spanish soldiers and killed 11 of them, including one of Oñaté's nephews. Don Juan de Oñaté retaliated by attacking the pueblo, burning most of it and killing more than 600 people. Another 500 people were imprisoned by the Spanish, males between the ages of 12 and 25 were sold into slavery and 24 men over the age of 25 had their right foot amputated. Many of the women over the age of 12 were also forced into slavery and were eventually parceled out among Catholic convents in Mexico City. Two Hopi men were also captured at Acoma and, after having one hand cut off, they were released and sent home to spread the word about Spain's resolve to subjugate the inhabitants of Nuevo Mexico.

When word of the massacre and the punishments meted out got back to King Philip in Spain, he banished Don Juan de Oñaté from Nuevo Mexico. Some Acomas had escaped that fateful Spanish attack and returned to the mesa top in 1599 to begin rebuilding. In 1620 a Royal Decree was issued which established civil offices in each pueblo and Acoma had its first governor appointed. By 1680, the situation between the pueblos and the Spanish had deteriorated again to the point where the Acomas were extremely willing participants in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

After the successful Pueblo Revolt the Spanish retreated back to Mexico. Refugees from other pueblos began to arrive at Acoma, fearing an eventual Spanish return and reprisals. That strained the resources of Acoma until the Spanish actually did return. The residents of the pueblo had to make a hard decision. Many of the refugees chose to try a peaceful solution: they quickly relocated to the ancient Laguna area and made peace with the Spanish as soon as they appeared in the region.

Over the next 200 years, Acoma suffered from breakouts of smallpox and other European diseases to which they had no immunity. At first they sided with the Spanish against nomadic raiders from the Ute, Apache and Comanche tribes. Then New Mexico changed hands, the railroads arrived and Acoma became dependent on goods brought in from the outside world.

For many years the villagers had been content on the mesa top. Now most live in villages on the valley floor where water, electricity and other necessities are easily available. While a few families still make their permanent home on the mesa top, the old pueblo is used almost exclusively for ceremonies and celebrations these days.

It's the dense, slate-like clay, that allows Acoma pottery to be thin, lightweight and durable. After they form a pot, they paint it with a white slip. Once dry, black and red design motifs are added using mineral and plant derived paints. Fine lines, geometrics, parrots and old Mimbres designs are common motifs. The traditional paintbrush is chewed from the yucca leaf. Historically, Acoma was known for large, thin-walled "ollas," jars used for storing food and water. With the arrival of the railroad and tourists in the 1880s, Acoma potters adapted the size, shapes and styles of their pots in order to appeal to the new buyers.

Acoma potters felt it was an inappropriate display of ego to sign a pot up into the mid-1960s. Then Lucy Lewis, Jessie Garcia and Marie Z. Chino started signing their pots. The 1960s is also a time when the primary Acoma white clay vein passed through a layer of widely distributed impurities, impurities that passed through the clay filtering process and showed up only during and after the firing. The problem was so bad it affected virtually every Acoma potter and every pot they made. Thankfully, by the late 1960s they had dug through that layer of clay and into a deeper layer that didn't have the problem.

Acoma Pueblo c. 1923
Acoma Pueblo c. 1932
Map showing location of Acoma Pueblo

For more info:
at Wikipedia
official website
Pueblos of the Rio Grande, Daniel Gibson, ISBN-13:978-1-887896-26-9, Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2001
Upper photo courtesy of Marshall Henrie, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Cerno 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.

    Santana "Annie" Cimmeron Cerno (1907-) & George Cerno
    • Joseph Cerno, Sr. (1947-) & Barbara Cerno (1951-)
      • Jolene Cerno
      • Joseph Cerno Jr.
      • Merle James Cerno
    • Rachel Concho (1936-)
      • Carolyn Concho (daughter-in-law) & George Concho
        • Alisha Sanchez (daughter-in-law) & George Concho Jr.
      • Gary Concho & Lisa Little
        • Tatiana Concho
    • Dennis & Loretta Vallo
      • Grandson student of Annie: Adrian Vallo (1964-)

Some of the above info is drawn from Southern Pueblo Pottery, 2000 Artist Biographies, by Gregory Schaaf, © 2002, Center for Indigenous Arts & Studies

Other info is derived from personal contacts with family members and through interminable searches of the Internet and cross-examination of the data found.