Rose Cata Gonzales (1900–1989) was born in

Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo Ohkay Owingeh (, ), known by its Spanish name as San Juan Pueblo from 1598 to 2005, is a pueblo in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined that community as a census-designated pla ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. She is known for her original carved blackware pottery, and for traditional pottery in the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo style.

Biography and artistic career

When she was very young, her parents died during a swine flu epidemic. She and her sister Pomasen were left orphans and lived with a relative, Mary Cata. In 1920 Gonzales married Robert Gonzales and, along with her sister, moved to his native pueblo of

San Ildefonso San Ildefonso (), La Granja (), or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the Province of Segovia, in the Castile and León autonomous region of central Spain. It is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama moun ...

. It was her mother-in-law, Ramona Sanchez Gonzales, who taught Gonzales how to make pottery. She learned the methods of black-on-black, polished blackware and black-on-red. By 1930 she began to create very refined and highly polished, blackware and redware. The fine redware she made came from her home tradition of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. In 1930 she also began her innovative process of deep carved pottery. Her carved blackware pottery was an original creation. She credits a shard of carved pottery that was found by her husband while deer hunting for giving her the idea. Using a sharp knife and a chisel she would carve out her designs. She carefully sanded her edges to create a "cameo" style with the design standing out in low relief. She would then sand the edges of her design to create more rounded forms. She used an old-style

yucca ''Yucca'' ( , YUCK-uh) is both the scientific name and common name for a genus native to North America from Panama to southern Canada. It contains 50 accepted species. In addition to yucca, they are also known as Adam's needle or Spanish-bayon ...

brush when adding painted designs to her pieces. Some of her favorite designs were the Avanyu (water serpent), birds, clouds, seeds uncurling,

thunderbird (mythology) The thunderbird is a mythological bird-like spirit in Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a supernatural being of power and strength. It is frequently depicted in the art, ...

figures and

kiva A kiva (also ''estufa'') is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circula ...

steps. When firing she used

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

wood and cow dung, placing the pots upside down on a metal grate to allow the flames to swirl evenly around them. She would often fire up to twenty pots at a time. During the 1930s and 40s she traded these innovative pots for food, allowing her to feed her large family. By the 1970s she had received numerous awards from the

Santa Fe Indian Market The Santa Fe Indian Market is an annual art market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the weekend following the third Thursday in August. The event draws an estimated 150,000 people to the city from around the world. The Southwestern Association for ...

, the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial and had become a well-known and successful potter. Gonzales taught her son Tse-Pe to make pottery along with his wife Dora and their daughter Irene. Gonzales and Tse-Pe sometimes worked together, especially when creating pottery in duotones (two shades of the same color). While Tse-Pe also carves pottery he prefers

sgraffito (; ) is an artistic or decorative technique of scratching through a coating on a hard surface to reveal parts of another underlying coating which is in a contrasting colour. It is produced on walls by applying layers of plaster tinted in con ...

, which is carving designs in low relief. Gonzales had a major influence on pottery making at San Ildefonso, and today her pieces have become highly valued by collectors. She died in 1989.

References

* Allan Hayes and John Blom (1996) Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni * Schaaf, Gregory (2000) Pueblo Indian Pottery: 750 Artist Biographies

External links

Rose Gonzales at the Holmes Museum of Anthropology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonzales, Rose 1900 births 1989 deaths Pueblo potters American potters Ceramists from New Mexico American women potters Native American women potters 20th-century American women artists People from Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico 20th-century American ceramists 20th-century Native American artists 20th-century Native American women artists Ohkay Owingeh artists Ohkay Owingeh women