Tafoya, Forrest

Forrest Red Cloud Tafoya was born to José Louis Tafoya and Lucy Year Flower in 1978. Myra Little Snow is his sister. His heritage is 1/2 Santa Clara Pueblo, 1/2 Pojoaque Pueblo.

Forrest picked up on making pottery early in life. By the time he was 14, he’d already earned a Best of Division, a First Place for sgraffito, a First Place for burnished red or black and a Third Place ribbon for an animal figure, all in the Youth 18-and-under Divisions at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Then he stopped working with clay.

Forrest’s grandfather, Camilio Tafoya, was known for his ability to read the petroglyphs carved into rocks all over the eastern slopes of the Jemez Mountains. Forrest’s uncle, Joseph Lonewolf, relates stories about hiking in the mountains with Camilio and learning the stories. A lot of Forrest’s work looks like examples of some of that rock art, updated with some sgraffito geometrics.