Martinez, Juanita

“I used to make little pinch pottery and ask my mother to sell it for me. And they sold.”

Juanita Martinez was born and raised at Jemez Pueblo. She learned how to make pottery as she was growing up and preferred to make figures: storytellers and nativities, often as miniatures. Then she married a man from Taos Pueblo and moved to his home there.

At Taos, Juanita was still making Jemez-like figures but with access to micaceous clay, she added that to her palette. Her pieces are made of base and colored clays she gets at Jemez Pueblo, the micaceous clay comes from veins near Taos Pueblo.

After her husband passed away, Juanita stayed at Taos, still making her clay figures.