McKelvey, Lucy

Born in Fort Defiance, Arizona in 1946, Lucy Leuppe McKelvey grew up in the eastern part of the Navajo Nation, in the care of her great-grandmother and her medicine man grandfather. After being steeped in the lore of her grandfather, she finished eighth grade and moved with her mother to Gallup, NM. In Gallup she went to high school. From there she went to Brigham Young University where she earned her degree in Education and Indian Studies.

Lucy married a fellow student at BYU, then returned to the Navajo Nation and taught school for nine years before becoming a full-time potter. She had taken a course in pottery at BYU and was hooked but on the reservation, she knew nothing about where to get the clay or how to make a Navajo pot. It took her nine years of observation, experimentation and some help from a Hopi-Tewa relative to master that.

Lucy’s pots are usually painted in multiple colors and depict Dineh legends and stories, often decorated with altered versions of sandpainting symbols she learned from her grandfather.

Lucy showed her pottery at the Santa Fe Indian Market for more than 30 years, earning many awards.