Williams, Rose

Rose Williams has been recognized as the Matriarch of modern Dineh pottery. She was long considered a living treasure. Rose was born in 1915 and passed away in March 2015 at the age of 99.

Rose was a very traditional Dineh woman who spoke only a few words of English. She lived in a small frame house in Cow Springs, AZ (in the Tonalea area) for most of her life. Like all the women in her immediate family, she was a member of the Dineh Lok’aa’dine’e (Reed People) clan.

Rose learned the traditional art from her aunt, Grace Barlow. The family relationships are a bit different as Alice Black, Mary Black and Rose were the biological daughters of sisters of Grace but they were all raised together by Grace and considered Grace to be their mother. Other potters later married into the Lok’aa’dine’e clan and joined the teaching lineage of Grace and Rose.

For hundreds of years Dineh clay-work was made specifically for domestic or ceremonial use only. Many Dineh used Rose as a source of ceremonial pottery for most of their lives.

The majority of her pottery, though, was made for the marketplace. In the 1980s she began producing large cylindrical jars, some measuring more than 24″ in height and 12″ in diameter. Those quickly became a specialty for her as some were used for ceremonial cooking and some for making drums.

In her later years various family members would help Rose with collecting the clay and polishing and pitching her pots. They dug the brown-firing clay from a special place near Black Mesa, screened it to eliminate impurities and mixed it with sand for temper. Rose then used the hand-coil technique to build her pottery, perhaps adding a biyo’ (a traditional decorative fillet around the rim) as her only nod to decoration. She usually worked in a brush shelter next to her house, firing in a cast-iron stove near the doorway. After firing she finished her pots inside and out with a coat of hot pine pitch.

Rose taught several generations of students the traditions of Dineh pottery making. Among her relatives, neighbors and students were Faye Tso, Silas Claw, Louise Goodman and Lorena Bartlett. Her three daughters, Alice Cling, Susie Crank and Sue Williams, are recognized potters. So is her former daughter-in-law Lorraine Williams-Yazzie.

Rose never entered her work in any juried competitions or shows. Dealers and collectors often entered her work for her. On that basis, Rose earned awards at the InterTribal Indian Ceremonial in Gallup, NM, at the Navajo Craftsman Exhibition at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff and at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair & Market in Phoenix. Rose did not sign her work until she was well into her eighties. Even then her mark was usually just “RW”.