Betty Manygoats

Manygoats was born at Shoto/Cow Springs, on the Navajo Nation.[1] She was born into the Tàchiiʼnii clan.[2] She and her husband William Manygoats, whom she married in 1963, have ten children.[2][3] Many of her grown children are also potters.[3] She is also known as Betty Barlow.[1]

Manygoats learned the art of silversmithing, weaving and beadwork when she was growing up.[2] When she was in her twenties, she learned to make traditional functional pottery from her grandmother, Grace Barlow.[1] As her work progressed, she developed a style that exaggerated the surface decoration, motifs, and shapes of traditional Navajo pottery.[1] In the 1970s, Manygoats developed a style of working that incorporated the application of hand-built clay horned toads which became her trademark.[3]

Manygoats' work is included in the collection of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[4] She is also represented in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian.[4] and the William C. and Evelyn M. Davies Gallery of Southwest Indian Art at the Museum of Texas Tech University.