Goodman, Louise

Louise Goodman was born into the Deer Spring Clan on the Navajo Nation in 1937. Her sister-in-law, Lorena Bartlett, taught her how to make pottery.

Early in her career as a potter Louise made standard bowls and jars in a wide variety of shapes and sizes but in the 1970s, she moved more into producing animal figures: chickens, dogs, rams, squirrels, lions, bears, elephants and more. In the 1980s Louise began making large, pot-bellied bears with stubby legs and small heads, sitting on their haunches. Those have been much sought after by collectors.

Louise worked in a closet-sized studio in her home in Cow Springs, Arizona for many years. Her studio was especially crowded in those years when her children were working with her.

Her pottery was coiled and shaped by hand using clay she mined near Black Mesa on the Navajo Nation. She ground-fired her pieces with wood and completed her pots with a veneer of melted piñon pine pitch.

Louise’s “rope pots” were a true innovation: constructed of coils smoothed only on the inside, left rough on the exterior and accented with random fire clouds. It’s been hundreds of years since similar pottery has been made in any quantity in the Southwest. They can be found in many museums including the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, and the Navajo Tribal Museum in Window Rock.

Louise was featured in the book Navajo Folk Art, by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, 1994. Louise signed much of her work: “LRG”. She died on April 4, 2015.