Laurencita Herrera

Laurencita R. Herrera (1912–1984) was a renowned Native American Cochiti Pueblo artist, specializing in traditional Cochiti figurative pottery called storytellers and her pottery vessels.[1] She is of the Herrera family, a renowned family of Pueblo potters in New Mexico, whose work is often found in art collections and in art museums.[2] She was an actively making pottery between the 1930s through the 1970s and is known as one of the, "finest Cochiti potters of that era".[3]

About

Laurencita R. Herrera was born in 1912 at Cochiti Pueblo in Cochiti, New Mexico. She started learning pottery making from her mother Reyes Romero (c. 1890 -?).[4] She was married to Cochiti Pueblo drum maker, Nestor Herrera.[2][5] Together they had nine children and two of her daughters were potters, Seferina Ortiz (née Herrera) and Mary Francis Herrera.[2] Many of her grandchildren are potters and artists, including Inez Ortiz, Virgil Ortiz, Joyce Lewis (née Ortiz), Janice Ortiz, Mary Ramona Herrera,[2] and even some of her great-grandchildren, including Lisa Holt.

The Cochiti Pueblo has documented storyteller pottery for sale to tourists as early as the 1870s, however the tradition had become less popular until 1964, when Helen Cordero created the first revival of the Cochiti storyteller figure due to a request from her patron, Alexander Girard.[6] A number of artists at the time started creating pottery of either animal figurines, adult figures holding drums or pots ("singing ladies"), and/or adult figures singing to a baby in their arms ("singing mothers"), including artists Laurencita Herrera, Damacia Cordero, Teresita Romero.[6]

Her artwork is on permanent display at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico[7] and in the permanent museum collection at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in the Bandelier Museum within the Bandelier National Monument.[8][9]

References
  1. Rosaldo, Renato; Lavie, Smadar; Narayan, Kirin (2018). Creativity/Anthropology. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501726040.
  2. Dillingham, Rick (1994). Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery. Albuquerque, New Mexico: UNM Press. pp. 120, 127. ISBN 9780826314994 – via Google Books.
  3. "Dorothy Herrera". Morning Star Gallery. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  4. Hayes, Allan; Blom, John; Hayes, Carol (2015). Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni. Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 70. ISBN 9781589798625.
  5. "Individual : Nestor Herrera". Museum of International Folk Art Archives. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  6. Peterson, Susan (1997). Pottery by American Indian Women: The Legacy of Generations. Abbeville Press. p. 92.
  7. American Indian Art Magazine. American Indian Art, Incorporated. 1982. p. 36. have Storytellers on permanent display in the Indian Pueblo Culture Center; and the work of seven Cochiti figurative potters, Rita Lewis, Aurelia Suina, Seferina Ortiz, Teresita Romero, Ada Suina, Laurencita Herrera and
  8. "AR.00004.038a Craftsmen of New Mexico 1959 [MOIFA.AR.00004.038a]". Museum of International Folk Art Archive. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  9. "Bowl, Cochiti Pueblo". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
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