Margaret Lou Gutierrez
1934-2017
San Ildefonso
Born into San Ildefonso Pueblo, Margaret Lou Roybal (1934-2017) was the daughter of Juan and Tonita Roybal. She may have just been learning to work with clay when her mother died. Margaret was only ten.
In 1957 Margaret married Patrick Gutierrez of Santa Clara Pueblo and moved to his home there. Sometime around 1971, after being encouraged by her father, Margaret began producing pottery in the style of her mother. She specialized in black-on-black but sometimes produced redware. She made traditional jars, bowls and plates painted with a multitude of designs that her father introduced her to. Her favorite designs, though, seem to have included parrot tail feathers, feathers-in-a-row, water waves and checkerboards.
Sometimes Margaret's brother, J.D. Roybal, would do some painting for her. She also sometimes collaborated with Elvis Torres.
Some of the Awards Margaret won
- 1994 Santa Fe Indian Market. Second Place for a painted bowl, up to 6 inches diameter;
- Third Place for a painted jar - 1981 Santa Fe Indian Market. Second Place
- 1980 Santa Fe Indian Market. Second Place
- 1978 Santa Fe Indian Market. First Place for a black-on-black bowl;
- First Place for a black-on-black plate - 1977 Santa Fe Indian Market. First Place for a black jar;
- Third Place for a black jar - 1976 Santa Fe Indian Market. Second Place for a painted bowl
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, west of Pojoaque, south of Santa Clara and straddling the Rio Grande. Although their ancestry has been traced to prehistoric pueblos in the Greater Mesa Verde area, the prehistoric pueblo at Tsankawi, in a non-contiguous parcel of Bandelier National Monument, is their most recent ancestral home. Tsankawi abuts the reservation on its northwest side.
Franciscan monks named the village after San Ildefonso and in 1617, forced the tribe to build a mission church on top of the village's main kiva. Before that the village was known as 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 San Ildefonso in 1694, he found virtually all the Tewa people camped out 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 so good for them.
The swine flu pandemic of 1918 reduced the pueblo's population to about 90. Their population has grown to more than 600 since but the only economic activity available on the pueblo itself 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