Artist Statement

I was born and raised in the Farmington, New Mexico area. The way that I was brought up was with traditional Navajo beliefs and ideas. I have always had my hands in some sort of art my whole life. It was not until I started my formal art training at Western New Mexico University though, that I found my true medium, clay.

The process I used in college and the process I use now are the same. This includes using a red and white stoneware clay body and mixing my glazes from the raw form. The firing technique, which I use, is done in a downdraft gas kiln, with a heavy body reduction. The firing process takes about a total of twenty-one hours. The pottery goes through a nine hour first firing cycle making the pottery porous enough to hold the glaze. It then goes through a second firing cycle of twelve hours with a heavy reduction.

Within the past two years my glaze designs have been heavily influenced from the Navajo rug weavings, which is practiced in my family and from the traditional stories of the Navajo people. The drawings I depict on some wall plates are representative of the shamans and traditional Navajos of the next millennium. My pottery forms are influenced from traditional Native American pottery and contemporary pottery of today.

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