Welcome to Jurassic pottery: Artist Jennifer Tafoya brings dinosaurs and dragons to life in her award-winning pieces

Apr. 14—Dinosaurs and dragons orbit the black pottery of Jennifer Tafoya, ancient and extinct creatures etched in lines as slender as a hair.

The Santa Clara Pueblo artist won Best of Show at last summer's Santa Fe Indian Market, the ultimate prize in the largest market of its kind.

Although she had won the Tony Da Memorial award in 2019 and Best of Classification in 2004, Tafoya swears she never expected to claim the highest honor.

Like the title of her winning piece — "Caught By Surprise" — she was.

"I said, 'If I win, I'll eat those words,' " Tafoya said, laughing.

The jar features an Allosaurus baring its serrated teeth as it chases after a much smaller Coelophysis (New Mexico's state fossil.) A Stegosaurus with its kite-shaped vertical plates looms across the opposite side.

The daughter of Santa Clara Pueblo potters Emily and Ray Tafoya, Jennifer grew up drawing the Jurassic figures from the age of 5. When her mother brought her Barbies, she gave them away to her sister and played with her dinosaur and Godzilla figures.

Today, Tafoya researches the ancient reptiles through books and the internet. She shapes her pots using the coil method after gathering the clay at the pueblo. She mixes the clay with volcanic ash as a temper to keep it from exploding or cracking. She gathers natural pigments throughout the Southwest. Then she begins sketching.

Tafoya began by using an X-Acto knife, then she switched to an embossing tool for metal. But it proved too hard to sharpen.

"I found rivets in my dad's toolbox and (they were) very sharp," she said. "So I was able to use it like a pencil."

She begins with a china marker; if she doesn't like what she sees, she can wipe it off. Next, she uses her rivet tool to scratch out the outlines.

"It's a needle-sharp tool; I need that for precision," Tafoya said. "I just kept experimenting."

She surrounds her images with pueblo motifs — feathers for life, thunderclouds for rain.

The fire-breathing dragon circling the top of one pot is derived from Chinese imagery.

"I was intrigued by Asian art," Tafoya said. "Some of their art is similar to ours. The dragon is similar to our avanyu — the protector of water."

She sometimes sculpts small animals. A saber-toothed tiger bares his canine teeth while pueblo designs swirl across his back.

A Velociraptor inspired by the movie "Jurassic Park" rises on a plate encircled by feathers, clouds, lightning and stars. A pair of saber-toothed tigers lope through a desert landscape.

"Saber-toothed tigers we find throughout North America, even here in New Mexico," Tafoya said.

"I think it's fascinating to find out what life was like before humans," she continued. "The farther you go back, the more alien it gets."

When she received the phone call that she had won Best in Class last summer, she was thrilled. She never expected more. She was waiting in the Santa Fe Community Convention Center after the luncheon when the judges announced she had won Best of Show.

"When they said my name, my heart dropped," Tafoya said. "I couldn't breathe. I looked at the director and said, 'Me?' When they asked me to come up, I couldn't even talk."

Jamie Schulze, (Northern Cheyenne/ Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) executive director of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, first met Tafoya through her family. The use of realism in her parents' imagery revitalized the style of sgraffito pottery originated by Joseph Lonewolf in the 1970s.

"I was blown away by her pottery," Schulze said. "Her etching was so unique and traditional."

Schulze called Tafoya the first Native artist she knows of to put dinosaurs on pottery.

"It's been a very unique choice," she said. "Her form and the etching is beautiful. I couldn't even write my signature with that kind of detail. Having the dinosaur motif was very unique and very innovative."

Tafoya has shown her work at King Galleries in both Santa Fe and Scottsdale, Arizona, for more than 20 years. She has been featured in books such as "Talking with the Clay," "Crafted to Perfection" and "Breaking the Mold." She also won the Best in Pottery award for a collaborative jar at the 2013 Heard Indian Market Guild.