Tafoya, Camilio

Camilio Sunflower Tafoya was born in 1902 to Geronimo and Sara Fina Tafoya of Santa Clara Pueblo. Like his sisters, Margaret Tafoya and Christina Naranjo, he grew up watching and helping his mother make pottery.

His father, a wood carver, taught him to carve and Camilio adapted that learning to the carving of pottery. He learned to make his clay coils thicker and allow the pots to dry harder before beginning to carve them. That solved the problem of carving too deeply and ruining a pot by carving through it. Using his method he learned to make very large carved jars.

Among his favorite designs to carve were the avanyu (the mythic Tewa water serpent), birds, flowers and bear paws. He also liked to carve ancient rock art designs he found while hiking in the hills and mountains around Santa Clara.

Joseph Lonewolf, Camilio’s son, remembered his father taking him into the mountains and showing him around. Joseph was impressed by the petroglyphs they often came across. Camilio was able to translate the meanings of many of the designs so that Joseph could understand what the designs symbolized.

Variations of those carved designs reappeared many times over the years in the work of Camilio and later in Joseph’s work. During those walks they also found many old pottery sherds, some painted, some incised, some carved, some corrugated, all ancient. That’s where the great storehouse of Santa Clara designs is kept.

Camilio was one of the first men to become known as a potter in the pueblo. Many men helped their wives with different aspects of the process, like digging and processing the clay, scraping and sanding pots, gathering firewood and manure, firing the pots, etc., but Camilio did the whole process himself, from end to end.

His wife, Agapita Silva (1904-1959), was an accomplished potter when they married and they worked together for many years. Camilio and Agapita taught their son, Joseph Lonewolf, and daughter, Grace Medicine Flower, and daughter-in-law, Lucy Year Flower, to make pottery, too.

In the late 1960s, after his wife passed on, Camilio stopped making his large, carved pots and his famous sculptural horses. Instead, he, Joseph and Grace began developing the fine art of meticulously incising pottery now known as sgraffito. In that method, designs are scratched into the hard-dried surface of a pot before firing. Simple mistakes can ruin a pot. The amount of time and degree of meticulous work involved have made for increased prices for sgraffito-decorated pots.

In late 1968 Camilio began working closely with Grace, making many highly polished black and red seed pots decorated with intricate sgraffito work. In 1972 he went to work at Joseph’s house and was busy making exceptional sgraffito art there almost until the day he died.

In 1985, along with his sister, Margaret Tafoya, and 42 other Santa Clara potters, Camilio participated in a show at the Sid Deutsch Gallery in New York City. He also participated in several gallery shows with his son Joseph in Sacramento and Santa Monica, California, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Camilio passed on in 1995.

Some Exhibits that featured Camilio’s work

• Gifted! Recent Additions to the Heard Collection. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. 2015
• Home: Native Peoples in the Southwest. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. 2005
• Breaking the Surface: Carved Pottery Techniques and Designs. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. 2005
• The Collecting Passions of Dennis and Janis Lyon. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. May – September 2004
• Every Picture Tells a Story. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. September 2002 – September 2005
• Recent Acquisitions from the Herman and Claire Bloom Collection. Heard Museum. Phoenix, Arizona. January – July 1997
  4th Annual Collectors Auction. Cameron Trading Post. Cameron, Arizona. October 27-29, 1989
• Celebrating the Spirit: Contemporary Native American Art. Felicita Foundation for the Arts. Mathes Cultural Center. Escondido, California. October 21 – November 30, 1985
• Joseph Lonewolf, Camilio Sunflower Tafoya, Pho-Sa-We: Presenting a New Collection of Their Incomparable Pottery Creations. Galeria Capistrano. San Juan Capistrano, California. September 26-28, 1980
• 1975 Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition. Safari Hotel Convention Center. Scottsdale, Arizona. March 12-15, 1975. Note: 13th Annual
• 1974 Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition. Safari Hotel Convention Center. Scottsdale, Arizona. March 6-9, 1974. Note: 12th Annual
• 1970 Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition. Executive House. Scottsdale, Arizona. February 28 – March 8, 1970. Note: 8th Annual