Reviewed by: Kelley Hays-Gilpin KAH2@a1.ucc.nau.edu
Navajo Nation Archaeology Dept., Northern Arizona University
Box 6013, Flagstaff, AZ USA 86011
Submitted: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 10:44:00 -0700 (MST)
Abstract: Rick Dillingham's _Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery_ (1994, University of New Mexico Press) is a visually beautiful volume, richly illustrated with photos and the potters' own words about their work. Its genealogical charts and profuse illustrations are a major contribution to promoting and documenting contemporary Pueblo pottery. It is, however, impossible to tell how the images and quotes were selected. Although the potters' comments seem to provide a wealth of anthropological and ethnoarchaeological data, quotes may have been selected to reflect tradition and continuity rather than innovation and active involvement in market processes. The author states that pots and potters were selected largely on the basis of "personal taste." Although questions of interest to anthropologists are not addressed in the text, and are perhaps even deliberately avoided, the very existance of this book should suggest many interesing avenues for research: how are the relationships between producers and consumers of art mediated by the authority of scholars, museums, and books? What are the roles of different culturally constructed definitions of tradition and innovation in this process? How do Pueblo communities respond to the fame and fortune of certain families and not others who are engaged in the same activities?
Rick Dillingham's _Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery_ is a
beautiful volume, richly illustrated with color photos and
punctuated with the faces of potters and short statements about
their own experiences and beliefs about families and pottery-
making. This long-anticipated sequel to the diminutive 1974
Maxwell Museum exhibit catalog, _Seven Families in Pueblo Pottery_,
has received approval from the book's intended audience, including
collectors, artists, patrons, dealers, and a wide array of people
who love and appreciate Indian arts. The genealogies of each of
the fourteen families, illustrations of examples of each potter's
work, and accompanying portraits and quotes constitue a major
contribution to promoting and documenting the work of Pueblo
potters. Like its 1974 predecessor, the book provides a general
overview of what pueblo potters are making today as well as
specific information about particular potters, past and present.
Alert anthropologists, however, will find this book a curious puzzle, a collection of fragments that do not fit together, whose rough edges have been filed to create an illusion of seamless continuity and completeness where there most likely is nothing of the sort. Most important are what is revealed by questions about authorship and intent. Is this book really the collective effort it appears to be at first glance through its 289 pages of the words and works of potters and only 5 pages of text by the author? Or is it one man's vision of the world of contemporary Pueblo art pottery, as indicated by his name on the cover and the content of his 5 pages?
If not for the author's untimely death, would Dillingham have explained how images of pots were selected? By the potters, by the author, by a press photographer? Are they representative of the potter's work, or are they personal favorites, and if so, whose? Were the potters asked, "what, in 200 words or less, would you like to say to the readers of this volume?" Or did the author or a now invisible editor make selections from interview notes and tapes, and previously published gallery catalogs?
Why are these questions important? At first glance, the potters' comments seem to provide a wealth of anthropological and ethnoarchaeological data on learning frameworks, pottery techniques, and the ideological components of craft production, and this is how the general public will probably perceive this material. Potters discuss learning by watching and doing rather than formal instruction. They tell who in their family most influenced them, and the relationships can be surmised, at least in part, from the book's many genealogical charts (which are not, however, kinship charts). One potter describes burying igneous rock fragments by the riverbank to let natural freeze-thaw cycles break it down to make it usable for temper, a clue to how prehistoric potters might have prepared "crushed rock temper" in, for example, the Mesa Verde area.
But did all the potters consistently reinforce the ideas that tradition and family are the most important influences in their work? Were any topics and viewpoints left out because the author did not consider them "traditional"? Did some potters talk about how electric kilns allow one to ignore the weather and work all year round, how H.P. Mera's books on historic puebloan design styles provided inspiration, how much easier it is to purchase commercial grog than to gather and bury basalt cobbles now for use in two years? The author discusses the continual changes in Pueblo pottery changes and acknowledges that "tradition" is continually reinvented, and that this reinvention can be a source of conflict, but the role of market forces seems downplayed. Most of the Pueblo potters I have met in my own work explore and evaluate modern technology, read archaeology books, meet and swap information with Mexican potters met at craft fairs, and make up their own minds about each aspect of pottery technology and design. Many come to the conclusions presented in this book--tradition is best. But why is tradition best? Partly it is because the values expressed here are important. The process of making pottery not only expresses traditional values but is a way of living those values. In a way, the pots form the potter as well as the potter forming pots. But in addition, many sectors of the Indian art market reward and even demand tradition. Those who influence the market, such as this book's author, help define tradition by voting with dollars.
What, then, is this book's intent? It is not just another gallery catalog without critical reflection. Dillingham's introduction, the only part of the book where the author's voice is explicit, states that this book intends to redress in part the flaws of the 1974 "Seven Families" exhibit catalog. The Maxwell Museum staff, including Dillingham, selected the original set of potters because they belonged to families having three or more generations of potters. Consequently, many talented potters were "left out." The catalog was "unexpectedly influential," in Dillingham's words. "Some beginning collectors felt that if a potter wasn't in the catalogue his or her work wasn't 'collectable.' Nothing could be further from the truth." This suggests interesting research possibilities--how is the relationship between producers and consumers of art mediated by the authority of scholars, museums, and books? What are the roles of different culturally constructed definitions of tradition and innovation in this process? How do Pueblo communities respond to the fame and fortune of certain families and not others who are engaged in the same activities? Were only "some" beginning collectors misled or did the book have a greater impact? Did potters who were "in the book" get more money and better gallery representation than those who were equally talented and hard- working but "not in the book?" Whose innovations were accepted by buyers and whose were rejected?
Dillingham's "solution" to the flaws of the original volume is two-fold. First, his introduction carefully disclaims any intention of influencing the market, leaving anyone out, or making any value judgements. He states that selection of pots and potters is based on "my personal tastes, my friendships with the potters, and the potters' desire to work with me," and apparently hopes that dealers and collectors will heed his words and keep the business of names out of the market. Second, the author doubles the number of families included, updates with recent generations, and comes up with at least four-fold the number of potters as before. In a couple of years, it would be interesting to systematically examine whose prices are going up, whose innovations are accepted, who is now using a matrinym instead of a patrinym, and so on.
Only J.J. Brody's Foreword provides useful historical context for the original exhibit and this expanded version. Brody's commentary provides some clues to what is going on here that become even more interesting on reading Bruce Bernstein's recent (1994) article, "Potters and Patrons: The Creation of Pueblo Art Pottery." Bernstein's statement that at the Santa Fe Indian Market, and other shows, "Pottery is judged utilizing vague notions of what is considered to be authentic and traditional" is a critically important fact that never appears anywhere in Seven Families or Fourteen Families.
On the other hand, as a second-generation collector (my father always checked signatures and looked them up "in the book"), this book brings me joy. I enjoyed putting potters' faces to their names, seeing the faces of some old friends, and reading their words.
Bernstein, Bruce 1994 "Potters and Patrons: The Creation of Pueblo Art Pottery" _American Indian Art_ 20:1:70-79 Winter 1994. Maxwell Museum 1974 _Seven Families in Pueblo Pottery_. The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.