Native art highlighted at Acoma

Well-known Acoma potter Lee Vallo uses a Yucca plant leaf fiber to paint a black line for a leaf design on an Acoma water jug during the arts and crafts fair at Sky City Cultural Center this Memorial Day weekend. The event was part of a celebration of the second anniversary of the opening of the new cultural center on Memorial Day weekend 2006. [photo by Jim Tiffin / Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

PUEBLO OF ACOMA — It was a perfect Memorial Day weekend as hundreds of area residents and visitors from out-of-town and out-of-state attended the Second Anniversary Celebration of the opening of the new Sky City Cultural Center, and the first-ever Memorial Day weekend arts and crafts fair, at Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum.
There were 29 native artisans from Acoma, Zuni and Laguna pueblos and Navajo, showcasing everything from small pieces of linen and blouses, to all kinds of jewelry, to the well-known Acoma pottery.

Visitors

Sherrie Coats of Portola Valley, Calif., who was on a tour with 14 other women, said she felt privileged that so many artists were exhibiting and everyone was so willing to talk about their work.

Karla Wirges, of Madrid, Neb., and her two daughters, Ashley, 18, and Erin, 16, were visiting family in Grants and attended the center’s arts and crafts fair Saturday. The three were planning to take the tour to Sky City on top of the mesa.

Erin Wirges said she thought the pottery and other work the artists had on display were beautiful and colorful.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Her older sister, Ashley, said, “This art is different in a different way.”

Andrew Chavez and his wife and son, Denise, and Austin, 10, said they were also visiting family in Grants.

Both Andrew and Denise Chavez said they were from Grants and graduated from Grants High School in 1980 and 1982 respectively.

Austin’s reaction to the pottery and other art work was “the artists did a really good job.”

“The dog pottery, I really like it,” Austin Chavez said, “I like it best.”

Lee Vallo

Lee Vallo, an Acoma potter, was painting a water jug.
“I’m using a Yucca leaf,” he said.

He said he takes the Yucca leaf of the plant and chews of the excess skin to get to the fibers, which allow him to paint fine lines on his pottery.

The water jug he was working on had a bright yellow color in a rain bird design.

“The yellow becomes a red after it is fired,” he said.

He also had a parrot design on a water jug he was working on as well.

Both designs represented rain, he said, and represented his clans.

Vallo said he was a member of the Little Oak Clan, which was a smaller clan that was a part of a larger one, the Sun Clan.

Vallo is a fourth-generation potter and has been doing pottery for 20 years.

He said his work is shown at the Haak’u Museum in Acoma; in Santa Fe; Albuquerque; Fountain Hills, Ariz.; Tucson; and Phoenix.

The new Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum, as it stands today, was reconstructed and opened on Memorial Day 2006.

Plans are to continue a weekend celebration every Memorial Day, as a way of thanking tribal members and providing some economic stimulus to tribal members who are artists and are able to show their work to area residents and visitors to the center, Howath said.

When the Wirges returned from the Sky City Tour, Ashley said she was amazed at how the Acoma people still live on top of the mesa and still use many materials they used for centuries.

Erin said she was moved by the inside of the church and realized that it meant a lot to the people of Acoma.

“I am impressed and humbled by the ancient items and that the people are so strong they are able to keep their traditions alive, despite all the adversity they have suffered,” Karla Wirges said.