Santa Clara Pueblo potter 'caught by surprise' with Best of Show win

Aug. 18—The title of Jennifer Tafoya's pot, Caught by Surprise, was fitting Friday when it won her the Best of Show award at the 101st Santa Fe Indian Market.

The award left Tafoya, a potter from Santa Clara Pueblo, speechless on stage at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center.

"Never in my entire life would I have thought this would happen," she said after the ceremony, where the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts recognized 10 artists out of about 1,000 for their standout skills in categories including pottery, jewelry, two-dimensional arts, sculpture and carving, beadwork and quillwork, textiles and basketry.

Tafoya's winning piece, chosen by over 60 judges with varied expertise, is a small black pot etched with realistic dinosaurs running through a natural landscape. Start to finish, she worked on the pot for about a month, including 50 to 100 hours of meticulously etching the design, she and her boyfriend estimated.

Tafoya uses a technique called sgraffito, which involves applying layers of clay paint to a piece of pottery and etching detailed designs into it.

She submitted her winning pot for judging "at the last minute," thinking the dinosaur design might be too unusual, she said.

She started making pottery at just 6 years old, following in the footsteps of her parents, both potters. In 2004, she won SWAIA's Best of Pottery award and later won an award for a collaboration with potter Russell Sanchez.

When Sanchez won Best of Show last year, it was the first time in nearly 20 years the overall award had been given for a pottery piece, and such recognition two years in a row is a win for the industry, said Tafoya's boyfriend, Chris Youngblood, another potter.

"This is huge for Jen because she is so talented, and I don't feel like she's ever gotten the recognition she deserves," Youngblood added.

Tafoya uses contemporary designs and colors in her work but crafts all of her pieces using traditional methods.

She and family members, including her son and Youngblood, hand-dig and process their own clay from a vein in Santa Clara Pueblo and coil, carve and polish their pots by hand. They fire the pottery in traditional pit fires outside with manure and slabs of wood, rather than in a kiln.

Tafoya also sources the rainbow of colors that show up in her works from natural clay pigments she has found hiking in Northern New Mexico and surrounding states.

Other award winners came to Indian Market from across the country.

Dan HorseChief, born in Oklahoma, won the top prize for two-dimensional art for his painting depicting the Battle of Greasy Grass, also known as the Battle of Little Bighorn.

"I tried to pick a style and subject that would make people think outside the usual histories," HorseChief said at the awards ceremony Friday.

As a kid almost 50 years ago, he and his siblings, who are Pawnee/Cherokee, would play on the field of the Little Bighorn while his mom worked, he said. Early on, he had a different perspective on the history of the place than that told in history books.

"There were holes in the narrative, and I wanted to fill them. And it's not a mystery, it's just that we don't listen to all the voices," he said.

The youngest award winner, 13-year-old Aydrian Day, who is HoChunk/Anishinaabe/Lakota, won the Best of Youth division with a Lakota-style cradle board he titled Father's Love, or Ate Iyocicila in Lakota.

Day took after his relatives in beginning to develop skills in beadwork, quillwork and other art by age 7, and his father's love for him inspired his winning piece, Day said.

"In our culture, the men made the cradle board, and I wanted to bring that back to symbolize ... taking back our culture, even though many people try to take it away from us," he said after the ceremony.

Lyndon Tsosie, who is Navajo and won Best of Jewelry, came to art a different way.

After his mom kicked him out of their home, he needed a job and ended up working for a production company stamping jewelry. That started him on a long path to establishing himself as an independent jeweler, he said.

"I started 33 years ago with $30 in my pocket, $40 worth of silver and a tiny toolbox," he told the audience Friday. "This [award] is the end result of 33 years of hard work, and I'm elated."