Maria Martinez

Maria Poveka Montoya Martinez ( – July 20, 1980) was a Pueblo artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian, and other family members, including her son Popovi Da, examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people's legacy of fine artwork and crafts. The works of Maria Martinez, and especially her black ware pottery, are in the collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and more. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia holds eight vessels – three plates and five jars – signed either "Marie" or "Marie & Julian".

Maria Martinez was from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a community located 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. At an early age, she learned pottery skills from her aunt and recalls this "learning by seeing" starting at age eleven, as she watched her aunt, grandmother, and father's cousin work on their pottery during the 1890s. During this time, Spanish tinware and Anglo enamelware had become readily available in the Southwestern United States, making the creation of traditional cooking and serving pots less necessary. Traditional pottery-making techniques were becoming less common, but Martinez and her family experimented with different techniques and helped preserve the cultural art. or 1887. Born in San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico to Tomas and Reyes Pena Montoya, Maria had four sisters: Maximiliana (Ana), Juanita, Desideria, and Clara. Maria was the middle child. Her aunt, Nicolasa, taught her clay work. Martinez and all four of her sisters made pottery, and some examples of her sisters' pottery can be seen in exhibits. In reality, the nearby inhabitants of Santa Clara Pueblo, had produced the highly burnished black pottery, since the 17th century.

Between 1907 and 1909, Hewett sought out skilled Pueblo potters who could re-create the ancient pots in biscuit ware. His intention was to place recreated pots in museums and thus preserve the ancient art form. Maria Martinez was known in the Tewa pueblo of San Ildefonso, New Mexico for making thin pots quickly. Therefore, either Hewett or his associate, Kenneth M. Chapman, chose Maria as one of several Pueblo potters who would bring his idea to life. contrary to popular myth.

Challenges and experiments

A long process of experimentation and overcoming challenges was required to successfully recreate the black-on-black ware pottery style to meet Maria's exacting standards. "As almost all clay found in the hills is not jet black, one specific challenge was to figure out a way to make the clay turn the desired color. Maria discovered, from observing the Tafoya family of Santa Clara Pueblo, who still practiced traditional pottery techniques, that smothering the fire surrounding the pottery during the outdoor firing process caused the smoke to be trapped and is deposited into the clay, creating various shades of black to gunmetal color." She experimented with the idea that an "unfired polished red vessel which was painted with a red slip on top of the polish and then fired in a smudging fire at a relatively cool temperature would result in a deep glossy black background with dull black decoration." After much trial and error, Maria successfully produced a black ware pot. The first pots for a museum were fired around 1913. These pots were undecorated, unsigned, and of a generally rough quality.

Embarrassed that she could not create high quality black pots in the style of the ancient Pueblo peoples, Martinez hid her pots away from the world.

Description of black ware pottery Maria and Julian Martinez matte-on-glossy blackware wedding vase, ca. 1929, collection of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art An olla jar has a slightly flattened rim and a marked angle at the shoulder. The one created by Maria and Julian Martinez is characteristic of this type, which is "decorated on the rims only, i.e. above the angle of the shoulder." Light is reflected off of the shiny, smooth surface. The jet black ceramic product's finish appears unblemished in any way. A band of a lighter black decoration stands out against a solid black matte background. This type of pot "depends for decorative effect on the manipulation of surface finish alone" to appear as though the decorations are scratched into the pot's surface.

The first step is to gather the clay, which is done once a year, usually in October when it is dry. The clay is then stored in an adobe structure where the temperature remains constant. The firing process would take many hours in addition to the weeks of preparation beforehand. She often was assisted by her husband or children. The firing occurred early in the morning on a clear, calm day when wind would not hinder the process.

First, the pots were placed in the firing pit, and carefully covered with broken pieces of pottery and aluminum sheets or scrap metal. In order to allow ventilation to keep the fire burning, small spaces were left uncovered. The pit-kiln assembly was then surrounded with cow chips - very dry cow dung - as fuel. The chips were placed carefully in order to leave the vents free. The goal was to prevent any flame from actually touching the pots, hence the protective metal sheets. After covering the kiln with more cow chips, they lit the kindling on all sides to ensure an even distribution of heat. They continued to feed the fire with dry cedar wood until it reached the desired temperature of around 1,200 to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the desired look they intended for the batch of pots. If the fire continued to burn, the pottery would achieve a red-brown color. But in order to make the blackware pottery that Maria was famous for, the fire was smothered with dry, powdered horse dung. By doing this, the amount of oxygen within the kiln was greatly reduced, therefore creating a reduction atmosphere that caused the color of the pots to turn black. After several hours, Martinez shifted the horse dung to extinguish the fire and bury the pots so they could cool slowly. After the pit kiln was cool enough to unload, they carefully removed the pots using a stick if the pots were still hot, or by hand if the pots were cool enough to touch.

Decorations Julian Martinez, Maria's husband, began decorating Maria's pots after many trials and errors. "To create his designs, a slurry of clay and water known as slip is created and applied to the already burnished, but yet unfired surface. You cannot polish a design into a matte background, as the stone is not as precise as a brush is." The pieces signed as "Marie" were made between 1923 and 1925.

She won many awards and presented her pottery at several world fairs and received the initial grant for the National Endowment for the Arts to fund a Martinez pottery workshop in 1973. Her portrait was created by Malvina Hoffman, a notable American sculptor. In 1978 Martinez had a major solo exhibition at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. In 2022, Martinez was included in a book on Women's Work, noting the change from feminine arts to feminist art, by Ferren Gipson.

Collections

Birmingham Museum of Art Brooklyn Museum Cincinnati Art Museum Cleveland Museum of Art Crocker Art Museum Denver Art Museum Everson Museum of Art Gilcrease Museum Institute of Texan Cultures Jesse Peter Multicultural Museum Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Millicent Rogers Museum Minneapolis Institute of Art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg Museum of Modern Art National Museum of the American Indian National Museum of Women in the Arts Portland Art Museum Smithsonian American Art Museum Toledo Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art