Montoya, Tomasita Reyes

Tomasita Reyes Montoya was born into Ohkay Owingeh in February 1899 and passed on in May 1978. She became of the seven original potters of the Ohkay Owingeh pottery revival in the 1930s. She was active as a potter from the early 1930s until she died. She mostly made incised polychrome redware bowls, jars and vases. Some of those included fine line designs. She also made some micaceous jars and bowls and used micaceous clays to decorate some of her incised pots.

By the early 1930s, most traditional arts and crafts at Ohkay Owingeh had almost died out. Then a group of eight women came together to try to revive something. At first they started with embroidery. Then they learned about some pre-contact pottery that had been found in a dig on the west side of the Rio Grande on Ohkay Owingeh land. From that pottery those women distilled a form and style for the making of original San Juan pottery. They named it Potsuwi’i, after the ancient pueblo where it had first been found. Of those original eight women in the group, seven became potters.

As they were growing up, Tomasita taught her daughters, Rosita de Herrera and Dominguita Sisneros Naranjo, how to make Potsuwi’i pottery, too.