![]() You give it its first bath and prepare it to be out there.” “Sofia taught me that when you create a pottery, you’re giving it life,” Elizabeth says. Elizabeth and Marcellus tenderly bathe them, as they would a newborn child. She coils the toughened clay, smooths it into shape, and applies a white slip, and then she or her husband, Marcellus Medina, paints onto each surface the red, black, and white birds, flowers, and geometric designs that affirm who they are as a people-battered but resilient, with centuries of tradition bound in the muscle memory of their hands.įired in a pit, the pots emerge dark with soot. Like them, Elizabeth gathers the special clay and mixes it with handfuls of crushed basalt rocks-the sturdy temper that defines Zia pottery. The roster of traditional creators includes names like Reyes Ansela Shije Herrera and Trinidad Gachupin Medina, Marcellus’ late great-grandmother. Among Southwestern tribes, Zia pottery stands apart, as do its potters. Adopted into Zia Pueblo, her husband’s tribe, she learned the secret place, the sacred stories, the layered meaning of every brushstroke on a piece of art. Her mother-in-law, Sofia Medina, a renowned potter, long ago revealed to her an area of especially rich clay, but only after Elizabeth renounced her birthright to Jemez Pueblo. EVERY ONE OF ELIZABETH MEDINA'S award-winning pots begins with a mystery. ![]()
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