Trujillo, Adrian

Born in January, 1968, Adrian Trujillo is a potter from Acoma Pueblo. He specializes in making polychrome jars and bowls. He’s one of the few potters at Acoma still making large pieces.

When we asked him how he learned to make pottery, he told us when he was a teenager, his Aunt Sarah Garcia had been chopping wood and got a splinter in her eye. She was having a hard time after that so he went over to her house and offered to help her out. She gave him some chores to do and when he was done, he sat on the couch, thinking to maybe watch some TV.

Sarah was having none of that. She told him, “You’re not going to just sit there, you’re going to do something.” She went into the other room and came back with a ball of clay. She put it on the table and said “Make something with it.” So he picked it up and fumbled around with it a bit. Then she took it back and said, “Watch me” as she formed the ball into a pinch pot. Then she squished it back into a ball and said, “Now you do it.”

That was how he started, almost 40 years ago. She wouldn’t let him just sit. Soon, he grew to love the feel of the clay. Eventually, he became an award-winning potter in his own right. That said, he says he still gets his inspiration from Aunt Sarah and will always be grateful to her for what she and his grandmother, Jessie Garcia, were able to teach him.

On the other hand, Adrian says he truly loves tending his veggies and such on the family farm, except he’s extremely allergic to bee stings…