Namingha, Jocelyn

Jocelyn Quam Namingha was born into Zuni Pueblo in 1965. While she spent most of her childhood at Zuni, she graduated from high school in Riverside, California. She then returned to Zuni where she started learning to be a jeweler. She was also working at the Running Bear Trading Post selling arts and crafts. That’s where she met the man who was to be her husband, Les Namingha.

Les is of mixed Zuni/Hopi heritage. He was educated in boarding schools in Brigham City, Utah and at Brigham Young University but he’d spent his summers in Polacca, at the foot of First Mesa. There he learned how to make pottery from his aunt, Dextra Quotskuyva.

After finishing college, Les returned to Zuni where he met and married Jocelyn. Jocelyn learned how to make pottery from Les and from Dextra. She earned a few ribbons at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Arts Fair & Market and the Santa Fe Indian Market but by 2001, they had two young boys in hand. Jocelyn and Les decided they’d rather have Jocelyn home-school the boys so she slowed down on making pottery the traditional way. She hasn’t made much since, having switched mostly to using commercial clay, glazes, paints and a potter’s wheel.

Some Awards Jocelyn earned

  • 2005 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. Class. VIII – Pottery, Div. D – Non-traditional/wheel thrown/glazed/commercial clay, Honorable Mention
  • 2004 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. Class. VIII – Pottery, Div. B – Traditional/native clay/hand-built (unpainted), Honorable Mention
    – Div. D – Non-traditional/wheel thrown/glazed/commercial clay, Best of Division
  • 1999 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. Class. VII – Pottery, Div. A – Traditional/native clay/hand-built (painted), Honorable Mention
  • 1998 Santa Fe Indian Market. Challenge Award in Traditional Pottery
  • 1997 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. Class. VII – Pottery, Div. A – Traditional/native clay/hand-built (painted), Honorable Mention
  • 1997 Santa Fe Indian Market. Class. II – Pottery, Div. F – Traditional pottery, painted designs on matte or semi-matte surface, all forms except jars (in the style of Hopi, Acoma, Laguna, Zia, Santa Ana, San Ildefonso, Santo Domingo, Cochiti, Zuni, & related styles), Category 1303 – other bowl forms, Third Place
    – Div. E – Traditional pottery, jars, painted designs on matte or semi-matte surface, jars (in the style of Hopi, Acoma, Laguna), Category 1201 – Jars, Third Place
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