Aragon, Wanda

Wanda (Torivio) Aragon was born into Acoma Pueblo in November, 1948. Wanda and her older sister, Lilly Maria Salvador, learned how to make pottery through watching and working their mother, Frances Pino Torivio.

Wanda started making pottery for the marketplace around 1965. She made her first storyteller in the early 1970s. Over the years she made storage jars, wedding vases, bowls, owl figures, bird effigy pots, canteens, Nativities, miniatures and human figures. Her favorite designs were parrots, rainbows, deer-with-heart-lines, clouds and berry bushes.

Wanda participated in her first Santa Fe Indian Market in the early 1970s. In 1975, she started winning a long series of First, Second, Third, Honorable Mention, Best of Division and Best of Class ribbons everywhere from Santa Fe Indian Market to the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles to the Heard Museum in Phoenix to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis and the Lawrence Indian Arts Show in Lawrence, KS.

Wanda’s work is on display at several museums around the world. She usually signs her pieces DZINATS’ITUWITS’A but sometimes she’ll sign W. Aragon and sometimes she’ll sign both.