Naranjo, Maria

Maria I. Naranjo was the sister of Isabel Naranjo. They both learned how to make pottery through watching and working with their mother, Amelia Tafoya, as they grew up.

Maria seems to have enjoyed making horse figures and earned quite a name for them. She sculpted, polished and painted matte black manes and designs on her nearly perfectly formed glossy black horses. She made bowls, jars, bookends, candlestick holders and more, decorated with horse figures.

Maria is most noted for winning a contest to recreate a black steam engine train to commemorate the arrival of the railroad at Santa Clara Pueblo in 1880. The original black steam engine train had been created by Santana Tafoya Gutierrez (sister-in-law of Sarafina Tafoya). She sold versions of it at the Espanola/Santa Clara train station for years. Maria’s version was to commemorate the hundred-year anniversary of the train’s arrival.