Lucy Leuppe McKelvey

Dineh

Lucy Leuppe McKelvey was born into the Navajo Nation at Fort Defiance, Arizona, in April, 1946. She was raised by her grandparents: her grandfather was a traditional Navajo medicine man and her grandmother a traditional weaver. She never put her hands in clay until she was in college.

Lucy says she is essentially a self-taught potter but she picked up a lot of hints from watching her Hopi-Tewa neighbors who made pottery.

After graduating from High School, Lucy served her LDS missionary period with her own people. Then she attended Brigham Young University, graduating with a degree in Elementary Education and Indian Studies. She taught kindergarten through Junior High on the Navajo Nation for a few years, participating also as an artist-in-residence at the schools where she taught.

Over the years, Lucy has worked to elevate Navajo pottery into a fine art, producing large, polychrome pottery decorated with designs inspired by shards of ancient pottery she found around her grandmother's home, and designs from her people's ceremonial sand paintings, baskets and rugs, after making those designs her own, of course.

Sandpaintings are sacred to the Dineh. Making one into a permanent image and then putting it in a fire is the height of sacrelige to her people. Yeibichai are believed to be far too powerful for that. A way to avoid the problem is to alter the image and leave any Yeibichai pictured a way out. Lucy has said, "My grandfather, who was a medicine man, told me that it was okay to paint these designs as long as I did not exactly reproduce a sandpainting figure. That is why, while I take some inspiration from a sandpainting, I always change it and add something different."

A common theme in McKelvey pottery is "The Whirling Rainbow Goddesses of the Windway Ceremony." Lucy's grandfather was the last surviving member of that clan and when he passed on, those chants, designs and dances passed to her.

Lucy gathers her clays, pigments and other natural materials around Low Mountain in northeastern Arizona. Lucy has also taught her daughters Cecilia, Celeste and Celinda how to make pottery and they each have become renowned potters in their own right.


100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved

 

Dineh

A view in Monument Valley
A view in Monument Valley

The Dineh refers to themselves as "Dineh" because the word means "the People" in their language. "Navajo" is a name that was given to them by the early Spanish. Historical and archaeological evidence points to the Dineh people entering the Southwest around 1400 CE. Their oral history still contains stories of that migration as the journey began in eastern Alaska and northwestern Canada centuries after their ancestors made the journey across the Bering Land Bridge from central Asia about 10,000 years ago. They were primarily hunter-gatherers until they came into contact with the Pueblo peoples and learned the basics of survival in this drier climate. Dineh oral history points to a long relationship between the Dineh and the Puebloans as they learned from and traded with each other.

When the Spanish first arrived, the Dineh occupied much of the area between the San Francisco Peaks (in Arizona), Hesperus Mountain and Blanca Peak (in Colorado) and Mount Taylor (in New Mexico). Spanish records indicate they traded bison meat, hides and stone to the Puebloans in exchange for maize and woven cotton goods. It was the Spanish who brought sheep to the New World and the Dineh took to sheep-herding quickly with sheep becoming a form of currency and sign of wealth.

When the Americans arrived in 1846, things began to change. The first fifteen years were marked by broken treaties and increasing raids and animosities on both sides. Finally, Brigadier General James H. Carleton ordered Colonel Kit Carson to round up the Dineh and transport them to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico for internment. Carson succeeded only by engaging in a scorched earth campaign in which his troops swept through Dineh country killing anyone carrying a weapon and destroying any crops, livestock and dwellings they found. Facing starvation and death, the last band of Dineh surrendered at Canyon de Chelly.

Carson's campaign then led straight into "the Long Walk" to Bosque Redondo, a 300-mile trek during which at least 10% of the people died along the way. At Bosque Redondo they discovered the government had not allocated an adequate supply of water, livestock, provisions or firewood to support the 4,000-5,000 people interned there. The Army also did little to protect them from raids by other tribes or by Anglo citizens. The failure was such that the Federal government and the Dineh negotiated a treaty that allowed the people to return to a reservation that was only a shadow of their former territory little more than a couple years after they had left. However, succeeding years have seen additions to the reservation until today it is the largest Native American Reservation in the 48 contiguous states.

Large deposits of uranium were discovered on the Navajo Nation after World War II but the mining that followed ignored basic environmental protection for the workers, waterways and land. The Dineh have made claims of high rates of cancer and lung disease from the environmental contamination but the Federal government has yet to offer comprehensive compensation.

As a semi-nomadic tribe, the Dineh never made much pottery, preferring to use baskets for most storage purposes. They did produce a small amount of pottery for ceremonial uses. Once they were settled on a reservation, pottery began to make more sense. From a beginning making simple wares for colonial estates they transformed their pottery into art. After 1950 Cow Springs brownware began to appear on the market. A trader named Bill Beaver was in Shonto back then, encouraging local potters to "make something different" and the market in the outside world responded positively to those different creations.

Rose Williams is considered the matriarch of modern Dineh pottery. She learned from Grace Barlow (her aunt) and passed her knowledge and experience on to her daughters and many others. Today, most Dineh pottery is heavy, thick-walled and coated with pine pitch (a sealer they also use on many of their baskets). Most Dineh pottery has little in the way of decoration but many pieces have a biyo' (a traditional decorative fillet) around the rim. Unlike Puebloan potters, Dineh potters do not grind up old pot sherds and use them for temper in creating new pottery. Their religion says those pot sherds are infused with the spirits of their ancestors and that forbids the reuse of the material. Similarly, Dineh religion limits Dineh potters to using primarily Dineh carpet designs in the decoration of their pots.

Dineh potters have also created a panoply of folk art, including unfired clay creations called "mud toys." Other Dineh potters, like Christine McHorse, have graduated into the mainstream of American Ceramic Art and easily compete among the finest ceramic artists on Earth.

Location map for the Navajo Nation

For more info:
at Wikipedia
at Wikipedia
official website


100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved

 

Alarge,polychrome,low-shoulderedjardecoratedwithawhirlingfour-panelYeiandgeometricdesign, Click or tap to see a larger version
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Lucy McKelvey, Dineh, Alarge,polychrome,low-shoulderedjardecoratedwithawhirlingfour-panelYeiandgeometricdesign
Lucy McKelvey
Dineh
$ SOLD
shnv4f592
A large, polychrome, low-shouldered jar decorated with a whirling four-panel Yei and geometric design
15 in L by 15 in W by 6.5 in H
Condition: Very good
Signature: ASDZAAN KIISAANI Navajo Lucy Leuppe McKelvey Whirling Rainbow Goddesses of Windway Chant


100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved