Grounded in Clay: Evone Martinez

Evone “Snowflake” Martinez (San Ildefonso and Cochiti Pueblos) learned how to make pottery from her aunt Florence Naranjo, mother, Catherine Trujillo, and grandmother Helen Cordero. Much of her inspiration came from watching her grandfather Joe Aguilar work on his pottery and from the advice he gave her in her very early years. Today her work consists of traditional and contemporary styles. Alongside her pottery-making, she is a seamstress, sewing instructor, and teacher. In this podcast, Evone carefully listens to and recounts a story for this San Ildefonso jar created around 1905-1910 (IAF.2021).

Originating in the cradle of the Indigenous Southwest, Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery is a rare exhibition curated by the Native American communities it represents. The project gives authority and voice to the Pueblo Pottery Collective, a group of over 60 individual members of 21 tribal communities who selected and wrote about artistically or culturally distinctive pots from two significant Pueblo pottery collections—the Indian Arts Research Center of the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe and the Vilcek Foundation of New York.

Organized by SAR and the Vilcek Foundation, Grounded in Clay debuts July 31, 2022, on unceded Tewa Indian lands at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe before traveling nationally in 2023. The exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the creation of SAR’s Indian Arts Research Center’s pottery collection in 1922. As SAR’s first traveling exhibition, it also marks the institution’s multi-year efforts to bridge the cultural needs and knowledge of Native communities with its public education mission.

For more information, visit groundedinclay.org

This project was supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.