Vigil, Evelyn

Evelyn Vigil (1921-1995) was an exceptional potter from Jemez Pueblo. She first appeared in the marketplace in the 1950s and made pottery almost until she passed on.

In the 1970s the National Park Service launched a program to investigate whether the ancient lead-glazed pottery could be made again or not. Lead-glazed decorations on pottery were common in the area before the Spanish conquest. Using lead in the paint stopped when the Spanish claimed all the lead sources for themselves and denied the people access. Pecos Pueblo, along with the Tewa pueblos in the Santa Fe River basin and the Keres pueblos in the Galisteo Basin were the primary producers of lead-glazed pottery. When Pecos was finally abandoned in 1838, the final residents relocated to Jemez Pueblo and, as a pueblo, still have their own presence there.

A Pecos descendant, Evelyn felt recreating those ancient lead-glazed decorations was a worthy task and she devoted many years to finding just the right sources for her materials. Working together with Juanita Toya Toledo, Persingula M. Casiquito, and her daughter, Andrea Vigil Fragua, she finally put it all together.

It took them more than five years, volunteering at Pecos National Historic Park together and directly researching and sampling the clays, tempers, natural pigments, firing temperatures and available firewoods. Her effort was to revive the styles and designs that were produced at Pecos from about 1250 CE to 1700. Then she settled into a productive and prosperous artistic groove for the rest of her life, recreating designs and styles not seen since the 1700s.