Margaret Garcia

Margaret Garcia is a recognized Santa Clara Pueblo potter known for her black-on-black pottery, including jars, bowls, and engagement baskets. Her work features traditional techniques such as hand-coiling and stone polishing, often with geometric designs, as seen in a black-on-black basket with a geometric pattern above the shoulder. Her contribution to the Santa Clara tradition of finely crafted, polished blackware and redware with deep carvings. Garcia comes from a lineage of notable potters, though she is distinct from Margaret Tafoya, a renowned Santa Clara matriarch known for large, polished blackware vessels and deep carvings, and Tammy Garcia, a contemporary innovator who is Tafoya’s great-niece. Margaret Garcia’s work upholds the pueblo’s centuries-old tradition of creating glossy blackware and redware, often incorporating traditional symbols like bear claws or geometric patterns, while contributing her own artistic voice to this vibrant heritage.