Spencer, Lorenzo

Lorenzo Spencer is a Dineh potter who learned how to make pottery through watching and working with his wife, Susie Williams Crank, daughter of Rose Williams. Like many couples who make pottery, Lorenzo and Susie may be working in the same room but they are working on their own things. And they could well be completely silent the entire time.

Lorenzo may learned how to make pottery from watching and working with Susie but his designs are more like Dineh carpet designs, incised into the surface of his pots. Her pieces tend to be simple and smooth with the only decoration being a rope biyo’ around the opening. For both of them, their pottery is brown with fire clouds. That’s because they paint nothing on their clay and they fire the traditional way, with an outdoor fire stacked specifically to engender fire clouds.