Hi to all,
Today day I am featuring my information on a female artist, born in 1915 a town called Cochiti Pueblo New Mexico. The artist is Helen Cordero and was born at a time when the rich pottery tradition was declining. In the late 1950s, Helen and her cousin, an accomplished potter began their journey making pottery a nice change to from their bead and leather work. Helen never liked her bowls she was making so her cousin said why not try making figurines and so a never-ending story began. So began countless birds and animals and people came to life.
A traditional form was a female holding a child, she was known as the singing mother. When Helen started the female form, she was repeatedly seeing her grandfather Santiago Quintana, who constantly had his grandchildren on his knee telling stories. So her first form turned male with countless children all over him and he was called the storyteller.
Almost immediately, the Story Teller brought Cordero public attention. Helen won awards at the New Mexico State Fair and Indian Market and the Heard Museum's Annual Indian Arts and Crafts Show. Her figures have been exhibited in museums across the United States and Canada, and she received the 1982 Governor's Award for Pottery. Cordero's reinvention of a Cochiti figurative pottery tradition initiated a revolution in contemporary Pueblo ceramics.
In a Storyteller exhibit in Albuquerque in 1981, there were more than 200 figurines by 63 potters. Helen's work remained distinctive. She said of her grandfather's portrait, which she made so many times, "His eyes are closed because he is thinking; his mouth is open because he is singing." Between five and 30 child figures cling to each Storyteller. No two are alike. In addition to the Storyteller, she made other figures, the Water Carrier, the Drummer, the Mother With Children, the Turtle. But the Storyteller was the favourite, a fact that Cordero attributed to "the kids ... going all over him and maybe wanting to learn. They learn, and that's what's so important. The people that buy, I tell them, 'You listen someday, listen real hard, he'll be telling you. Listen very closely, and he'll be telling you stories.'"
Read more info on this wonderful artist
https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/helen-cordero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Cordero
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