Santa Clara Pottery Bowl by Margaret Tafoya

ca 1960
4.5" x 7"
Hand coiled with carved design.
Excellent Overall Condition
Maria Margarita "Margaret" Tafoya (Tewa name: Corn Blossom; August 13, 1904 – February 25, 2001) was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters. She was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

Margaret learned the art of making pottery from her parents, and was particularly influenced by her mother. Sara Fina was considered the leading potter of Santa Clara in her day, as the master of making exceptionally large, finely polished blackware. She also occasionally made redware, micaceous clay storage jars and other smaller utilitarian forms. Margaret's father was primarily concerned with raising food for the family but he was also known to make pottery and helped Sara Fina with many aspects of her pottery production.

As a child, Tafoya started making small animals out of the clay that her parents had extracted from the Santa Clara land for Sara Fina's works. Showing promise, her mother encouraged young Margaret to make her own pottery and taught her how to knead the clay and polish shaped pots, as well as where to gather fuel for the firing process. Sara Fina allowed Margaret to sell her first pottery to a dealer in Santa Fe, although Margaret did not recall how much money she made that day. But the act of selling her work gave her confidence to continue making pottery.