Maria Martinez’s process began near her home in the San Ildefonso Pueblo. Once a year, when the ground was wet, clay was gathered and stored in an temperature stable adobe structure. Before gathering the clay, Martinez would scatter sacred corn as an offering to the Great Spirit for providing the clay. Resourceful with the land, she was careful with the clay and mindful of its origins. Elsewhere blue sand was gathered; acting as binder, it was mixed in equal quantities with the clay. She added water to the mixture and worked into the clay with her hands until the mass was supple enough. The clay was then kneaded with calculated force until it attained more plasticity. Covered with a paper towel, the clay was let to sit for a day. Using pukis, a supporting base with a rounded bottom made of clay, Martinez flattened balls of clay and created rope coils by rolling the clay in-between her hands. Stacking the coils on top of each other to build walls, Martinez tightly pinched the coils to rid them of air bubbles.
Using scrapers made from gourds, Martinez smoothed her pottery. Turning the pot kept her lines symmetrical, while her fingers molded the pot into its final shape. Afterwards shaped pottery was left to harden in the sun until it was completely dry. When dry and ready for polishing, an earth colored clay slip was applied in four to five coats. This required meticulous skill, since the slip could not dry before polishing was done–otherwise the pot would appear streaky. Martinez used polishing stones from creek beds to smooth her pots. These took years of use to truly form a smooth finish, and then became prized possessions. Polishing was a lengthy process because potters from the San Pueblo never used glazes. Martinez and her husband Julian worked together on their pottery. While Maria made the pots, Julian did most of the fine decorating. Decorations were done in a lighter earth toned slip by a brush made from yucca leaves. When fired the designs would have a shiny finish, while the rest of the pot would appear matte.
Firing pots required a calm day; even the slightest breeze could ruin a firing process. Early in the morning a fire mound was started where the pottery would eventually rest on raised iron grates. Underneath the grates, cedarwood became kindling and around the pottery, scrap metal and broken pottery formed a stifling enclosure. Air vents were created in the sides of the enclosure to control the temperature while firing. Dried cow chips, placed around the firing mound, fueled the fire. The fire burned for about an hour, reaching temperatures above eight-hundred degrees fahrenheit possibly even nearing fourteen-hundred degrees. Once the cow chips ignited, in a three hour process, the fire was smothered with old horse manure. The high carbon content of the manure over hot ashes created Martinez’s signature jet black pottery.
Peterson, Susan. The Living Tradition of Maria Martinez. Kodansha USA, 1977. Accessed November 16, 2018.
Maria Martinez: Indian Pottery of San Ildefonso. 1972. VHS. November 21, 2013. Accessed November 16, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkUGm87DE0k.
This documentary follows Maria Martinez as she demonstrates the process behind her signature black-on-black pottery, from collecting the materials to the finished product. A narrator voices over the majority of the video based in the Pueblo, though there are many clips of Martinez adding further insight on her techniques and why she practices them that way. This documentary served useful in coming to understand how Martinez created her work because it provided visual context for processes I had only read about before. This was especially important when learning about Martinez’s firing techniques. A meticulous operation, she fired her pottery outdoors using cow chips as fuel with scrap metal as temperature regulation–a stark visual and technical contrast to modern day kilns. Additionally, the documentary pays close attention to Pueblo influences and customs, integrating them into the narrative and thoroughly explaining the significance behind certain cultural aspects of Martinez’s practice.
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