Wall, Kathleen

“I feel as though I’m fulfilling my grandmother’s legacy passing on the knowledge of Pueblo pottery.”

Kathleen Wall was born into Jemez Pueblo in September 1972. Her mother was Fannie Loretto (of Jemez Pueblo), her father Steve Wall (a Chippewa stone carver), her grandmother Carrie Reid Loretto (married into Jemez from Laguna Pueblo).

Kathleen made her first piece of pottery when she was about eight. She learned by watching and working with her mother and grandmother as she grew up. She also counts aunts Dorothy Trujillo, Mary Toya, Edna Coriz, and Alma Maestas among her teachers. By the time she was seventeen Kathleen was fully supporting herself as a working artist.

Kathleen finished high school and attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, earning an Associate of Fine Arts degree and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree there. Then she returned to Jemez Pueblo and got busy making the kind of storytellers she’d learned to make earlier in life. However, she says she was always aware that she would transcend what she’d been taught and forge her own path. It didn’t take long, she was developing her signature Koshare clown figures within a year. Now she’s even making them in bronze.

Kathleen received a commission from the Smithsonian Institute in 2006 to create a storyteller for First Lady Laura Bush. When it was finished, Kathleen took it with her to Washington DC and presented it to Mrs. Bush at the Congressional Club “First Lady’s Luncheon.”

In 2016 Kathleen earned the Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native Artist Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. Her project involved research into how traditional names for the people and for the land connect the people to the land.

Some Awards Kathleen has earned

  • 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II-E, Category 903 – Figures, including sets, Second Place
  • 2020 Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Native Treasures Living Treasure Award
  • 2019 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II-E – Contemporary Pottery, any form or design, using commercial clays/glazes, all firing techniques, Category 904 – With Added Elements (like beads, feathers, stones, etc.), any form: First Place
  • 2018 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division E – Contemporary Pottery, Any Form or Design, Using Commercial Clays/Glazes, All Firing Techniques, Category 904 – With Added Elements (like Beads, Feathers, Stones, etc.), Any Form: First Place
  • 2018 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division D – Figurative, native clay, hand built: Second Place. Awarded for artwork: “Dance”
  • 2017 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification V – Sculpture, Division A – Representational sculpture (realistic/stylized), Category 1907 – Clay: First Place
  • 2016 Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native Artist Fellow. School for Advanced Research. Santa Fe, New Mexico. 2016. Note: Kathleen Wall was in residence from March 1, 2016-May 1, 2016.
  • 2015 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification V – Sculpture: Best of Classification
  • 2015 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification V – Sculpture, Division B – Bronze and Other Metals: Honorable Mention
  • 2011 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification V – Sculpture, Division B – Bronze and other materials: First Place
  • 2010 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division E – Non-traditional design or form with Native materials: Honorable Mention
  • 2008 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division B – Traditional, native clay, hand built, unpainted: Honorable Mention
  • 2008 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division F – Non-traditional design or form with non-native materials: Honorable Mention
  • 2007 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division E – Non-traditional design or form with native materials: Second Place
  • 2004 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division H – Non-traditional pottery using traditional materials and techniques with non-traditional decorative elements, Category 1504 – Single figures: Third Place
  • 2004 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division J – Non-traditional ceramics, all materials, all techniques, with or without decorative elements, any form, any design: Third Place
  • 2004 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II – Pottery, Division J – Non-traditional ceramics, all materials, all techniques, with or without decorative elements, any form, any design, Category 1607 – Sets and scenes: First Place
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