Gutierrez, Geraldine

Born into San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1960, Geraldine Gutierrez is the daughter of Helen Atencio Gutierrez and Frank Gutierrez (Santa Clara). Like her sisters Kathy, Carol and Rose, she learned to make pottery while watching and working with their mother as she grew up. Her painting style was also strongly influenced by her brother, Gilbert Atencio. Later in life she chose to move to her father’s pueblo and still lives there.

Geraldine makes redware, blackware, cream-on-red jars and bowls and sometimes paints pieces for other potters, including her mother. Her favorite designs to paint are parrot tail feathers, bands of feathers, the avanyu (the mythic Tewa water serpent) and rain clouds.

Geraldine was an exhibitor at the Santa Fe Indian Market for a decade, ending in the early 1990s.

One of Geraldine’s paternal uncles was Denny Gutierrez, a maker of elegant faceted and lidded black jars. Denny also served a couple terms as Governor of Santa Clara Pueblo. Her paternal grandmother was Katherine Gutierrez of Santa Clara, a maker of redware miniatures, plates and bowls who earned a ribbon at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1979 for a painted jar with a feather design.

Geraldine is also an accomplished watercolor painter and colored printmaker. Her paintings were part of an exhibit in 1995 at the Museum of American Contemporary Arts in San Francisco entitled Dancing Across Time: Indian Images of the Southwest.