Cruz, Clarence

Born in 1953, Clarence Cruz is a potter from Ohkay Owingeh. He’s also a graduate of the BFA and MFA programs in Studio Arts at the University of New Mexico. Clarence also served an internship at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and, with that, added a minor in Museum Studies to his BFA.

Ohkay Owingeh (formerly known as San Juan Pueblo) has a long history of pottery-making, going back to before the people left the four Corners area and headed southeast in the late 1200s CE. Archaeologists even date certain timespans in the Pueblo II era by the San Juan Polychrome and San Juan blackware pot sherds that have been found in many digs (although they trace the beginnings of that to the northern San Juan River watershed). The styles were so striking for the time that archaeologists have been able to reconstruct trade routes by the date of appearance of those styles in different pueblos. But the art of making pottery the traditional way is not so widespread at Ohkay Owingeh these days.

Clarence likes to gather all his materials himself, collecting his clays, slips, volcanic ash, mineral pigments and Rocky Mountain beeweed (for making black paint and for use as a binder) on public lands in northern New Mexico. He does all his firing the traditional way: outdoors using wood, bark and manure for reduction firing, oxidation firing and open firing (to create fire clouds).

A few years ago, Clarence retired from teaching graduate and undergraduate classes in Pueblo Pottery at the University of New Mexico. He has also shared his knowledge and experience in the Art and Design Department at Santa Fe Community College and in Native communities.

Because of his dedication and contributions to the art of traditional Pueblo pottery, in 2012 the Southwest Association of Indian Arts and the Santa Fe Indian Market awarded Clarence the Lifetime Achievement Allan Houser Legacy Award Honoring Pueblo Potters.

Clarence also took advantage of an opportunity to travel to China as part of a UNM faculty exhibition at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute.

UNM hired Clarence as Consultant Curator for the Inaugural Exhibition for the Alfonso Ortiz Center at the University’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology.

Clarence likes to make pottery using the shapes and designs of the Potsuwi’i tradition. He also likes to make golden micaceous utilitarian cooking pottery. Some people say that beans cooked in one of his bean pots are the best beans they’ve ever eaten.

Some of Clarence’s works were part of the Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art exhibit at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, from November 1, 2019 to June 21, 2020. Note: the exhibit was based on objects from the Yale University collections and was accompanied by an exhibition catalogue.