Teller, Chris

Chris Teller was born into Isleta Pueblo in January, 1956. Her parents were Stella Teller and Louis Teller. She grew up watching and working with her mother making pottery. Chris was showing her own pottery at Santa Fe Indian Market before she was 30.

Chris makes polychrome jars and bowls but seems to prefer making figures: storytellers, nativities and sculptures. Like her mother she usually paints her storytellers with sleeping eyes. The grandmothers and babies are often singing. Some of them wear their hair in Hopi whorls. Many of them are sitting with their legs crossed. All of them will make you smile.