Pottery by American Indian women

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Primarily a women's art, American Indian pottery reflects a heritage of powerful social, religious, and aesthetic values. Even now, modern American Indian women use the clay, paint, and fire of pottery making to express themselves, creating designs that range from dutifully traditional to strikingly original. This book - written in conjunction with one of the most important exhibitions of American Indian pottery ever mounted - provides an in-depth look at a unique North American art form. The text and lavish illustrations focus on the American Indian women who have maintained and expanded the art in the twentieth century: the craft's six well-known matriarchs (including Lucy M. Lewis and Maria Martinez), family members who followed in their footsteps, and women working in the avant-garde. The author - herself a potter, with longstanding personal ties to the century's most important American Indian clay artists - personally introduces these remarkable women. In informal interviews, they explain their working methods and their aesthetic visions, allowing rare and surprisingly intimate glimpses into the fulfillment they gain from working the stuff of the earth into beautiful new forms.