Charlie, Lena

Lena Charlie lived from either 1888 or 1908 to 1978. She was a Hopi-Tewa potter from Tewa Village at First Mesa. Information about her immediate family connections is sketchy but she is sometimes considered to be a great-niece or granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano. It’s possible that Lena was a daughter of William Komalestewa (Nampeyo and Lesou’s son) but William and his wife died during the 1918 flu epidemic. Hopi and Hopi-Tewa genealogies don’t generally follow the men involved or their offspring either. In a case like that Lena would likely have been adopted by a female relative or she grew up living in the Corn clan house run by Nampeyo.

As Nampeyo was going blind she would go around to her daughters and granddaughters looking for someone to paint pottery for her. If Annie, Fannie and Daisy weren’t available, some sources say Nampeyo would go next to Lena.

Lena married her second husband, Victor Charlie, in 1928. She was active as a potter on her own from about 1933 to 1961. She mostly made black-and-red-on-yellow jars and black-and-white-on-red bowls. Her favorite designs included birds, parrots, feathers, rain clouds, moths and the Nachwach-clan handshake. On many pieces she also added black dots around the rim, spaced about one-quarter-inch apart.

Lena usually signed her pieces on the bottom with an ear-of-corn hallmark and a feather sticking up.