Pottery by American Indian Women

The Legacy of Generations

by Susan Peterson

This catalog documents the work of six American Indian women potters, their descendants, and other Native American women breaking new ground in clay--28 artists in all. Most of the artists profiled are from the Four Corners region of the Southwest, although Winnebagos, Sioux, and Osage are also represented. While affiliation with a reservation was not a criterion for inclusion in the show (Jean Bad Moccasin lives in the Chicago area), maintaining traditional methods of working was. The text discusses these methods and also traces the art's social context and role as cultural legacy. The catalog accompanies an exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., that will travel to the Heard Museum in Phoenix. The show's curator and the catalog's author is herself a potter who has previously written monographs on ceramic artists. The interviews and the high-quality illustrations make this book desirable for all art and ethnographic collections.

224 pp — ©1997