Margarita Paz- Pedro

Apprenticeship Journal

7/10/22- Initial visit to Nora’s house.  We met in person finally.  I had Keith and Solanna with me.  She gave us a tour of her very lovely place.  There is a nice outdoor seating and playing area so Keith and Solanna hung out there while Nora and I got to planning business.  We met for a while just getting to know each other and figure out a schedule and plan of action.  It was a really nice first meeting.  She explained that while she uses other mediums clay keeps her grounded.

the drive in

7/26/22-I had Solanna today and her granddaughters were there.  She was being shy at first and then they all warmed up to each other.  She just went off and played and I would go check on her.  I started working in the clay and beginning my relationship with it.  It feels very forgiving and sturdy.  It is a mixture she uses for sculpture purposes.  It has some Santa Clara clay and some micaceous clay.  I started a cup and Solanna made a little pinch pot that I then finished for her. Nora commented that we sure can talk about anything and I shared that I felt that is one of the beautiful things about clay, it allows for commination and relationship building.

Nora then took me on a tour of Santa Clara.  They are still “closed” but we were just waved through and it was fine.  We made a stop at one of her sisters and then another sister also stopped by.  They really made me feel like one of the family and it was heartwarming.  They also said they would look into my genealogy to see if they could find any information.  It was a really long day, but full of good stuff.

Nora’s floor

7/28/22-  Nora was unable to be here that day, but I continued with my pieces and made a few more.  I had Solanna with me and she felt comfortable enough to go play on her own.  I would do some work and then take a break and go check on her.  Nora mentioned she hopes this experience is also a moment of rest.  Which reminded me about how time flows on the rez.  It is much slower and there isn’t that continuous hustle and bustle to constantly be productive.  It’s ok to take breaks and check on the kids, eat a snack, have a conversation.

the driveway from Nora’s to Eliza’s (trampoline)

8/4/22- I was fresh out of covid this day and my energy level was pretty low.  Today I was able to help Nora with her own project.  I did some sewing of burlap and helping her construct her figure.  She is making these really large figures out of all recycled materials.  She has one already made and is working on the second.  She said she is not sure where they will go, or where there home maybe, but knows it will get figured out.  As always when working side by side, the conversation flows and is full of good things.

8/7/22-  We continued with working in the Santa Clara clay.  My pieces were ready for the next steps, sanding and surface decoration.  We sat outside and she demonstrated on my pots how to start with the sanding.  Then it was wiping the work down and buffing ti with a cloth.  She then went through the different surface variations.  This is where it got my mind going.  Seeing all the options was pretty exciting.  We worked with 2 different kinds of micaceous slip and then the classic Santa Clara red slip.  Each has their own process of application and outcome.  I was still a little tired and after we finished it was beat and full of information.

8/9/22-  Nora has another apprentice, Binet, working with her for a few weeks.  She is from Minnesota and in undergrad in Minneapolis.  She is really sweet and I invited her to come to IAIA while I was there.  She is working on an ambitious sculpture.

Today I recycled clay.  It had been sitting in water to break down into slip.  I then sieved it through a strainer to get any impurities out of it.  It did take a few hours and my daughter enjoyed helping me with it.  Some stuff she is into and has patience for and some stuff she doesn’t.  Though she is always more interested in the trampoline.  After that I worked on some of my pieces and then I was out of time.

The trampoline

8/11/22 Today we met at Coe Center for the Arts to help her daughter Eliza with her upcoming show.  I was trying to get there at 9:30 and they were doing all that construction on la Bajada hill and it took an extra hour ☹.  When I got there they were stringing flowers.  I was going to jump on that but then they heard I had some sewing skills so we helped Jameson finish the ends of his moon prints with some hand stitching.  Nora worked alongside me, she was really fast and the quality was amazing.  I was trying to keep up with her.  We were trying to work fast, because we had an appointment to visit MIAC and meet with one of the curators for the Grounded in Clay show.  In fact, we were both rushing and we accidently sewed one side backwards and didn’t notice until right as we finished.  We were both like “crap!”  Eliza called Jameson and asked if that was going to be an issue and he said it was probably fine.  It was going to be dark there with specific lighting and folks probably wouldn’t even notice.  So that was a relief.  We were both chatting away and didn’t even snap til it was done.  She had ordered pizza and we were able to share a meal with the folks at Coe, her daughter, Binet and another volunteer.

Next stop was MIAC.  I had heard about this show and was really excited about attending with one of the curators to meet another curator that works at MIAC and get the inside scoop.  It was such a good show!  Hearing about their curatorial decisions and the Pueblo Pottery Collective was heartening that there is some good work being done with major museums right here in NM.  Nora is often talking about the work of Lonnie Vigil.  He has a monumental work in that show that was her suggested work of choice.  We met with Tony Chavarria and he explained different parts of the exhibition that were different from others.  He also answered a lot of questions.  It was a rich day.

8/13/22  We took a trip to Taos to meet with Michelle from Millicent.  My family and I came up on Friday and stayed at a hotel by Santa Clara.  That way we could wake up, pick up Nora and Benet and hit the road to Taos.  From Santa Clara it’s only an hour or so.  From Albuquerque it’s about 3 hours and I didn’t want to do that driving all in one day.  Nora had actually mentioned in our first meeting that we could go up and visit that place as one our field trips.  So when we took that trip up for our residency I had mentioned that to Michelle and let her know I was going to do an apprenticeship with Nora.  She was familiar with her work and offered to show us the collections if we wanted to make the trip up.  I introduced them over email and we set a date to go up.  I had my whole family and Nora invited Benet to go too.  We all squeezed into my truck and made our way up.  The day before we went there was a rock slide because of all the rain and the road was closed for a little while.  We were worried we wouldn’t be able to pass, but apparently there are other routes.  The road was open and we saw where the rock slide was.

We went to Millicent and it was interesting to see Nora’s perspective on the place.  She noticed how dated a lot of the displays were.  Inside the vault she asked an important question about who accesses the collections.  She said it would be nice to invite folks from the communities that these pieces come from to activate/engage/interact with these historical works.  They are lonely just sitting in these places.  They had a lot of historical works and very little more current works.  Michelle seems like a genuine and mindful person and is open to those kinds of suggestions.  She did say they have a pretty small staff.  Though I get the sense she can wage her resources pretty well.  Overall, it was an interesting visit.  We then ate a yummy meal and headed back.

8/16/22 Today I helped sieve the temper of shuu’na.  She had made a plan with her assistant to go gather some.  They were able to get a whole bunch!  I think she is stocked for a year, maybe longer.  It was gathered from behind her assistants property closer to Chimayo, I believe.  There are all sorts of impurities, sticks, rocks etc.. That is why it needs to be sieved.  I think I sieved about a 5 gallon bucket worth and it took a good couple hours.  Nora was working on her second large sculpture outside while I was sieving the time away.  We continued our conversations of everything and anything.

8/25/22 The day of mixing clay has arrived!  I sieved it and it was poured into a pillowcase to dry.  Then after its consistency is close to malleable clay we mix in the temper or shuu’na.  She had a sheet on the floor with the clay plopped down on there.  The way to mix it is with your feet.  There is a story about Jar Boy that comes from Santa Clara and she shared that with me.  I noticed it is also in the Grounded in Clay book as well.  It was actually a workout to mix the clay with your feet.  After I got it all mixed, she scraped the excess clay off my feet and that is my ticklish spot.  I tried to get the rest off with a sponge and towel, while I got most of it there was still a little there.  However the best line so far… “may you go on the rest of your day with clay between your toes..”  I loved that.

This was also the first day of classes at IAIA and I had taken leave from the high school job for the day.  I only had a small window of time before I went to my class at IAIA.  Everything has started at this point, teaching high school, teaching at IAIA, my own classes and my daughter’s school.  It is starting to feel like I rush from one to the other.

8/27/22 I went up on a Sat. morning to spend a few hours before I had to meet my family at Meow Wolf that afternoon. I spent time sanding and polishing a small work that I was hoping to use for a photo transfer.  While doing to process it cracked and wasn’t salvageable.  One work of many that has cracked or has yet to crack.  I have started taking work home to do some building at home.

8/30/22  I was hoping to get more done, but Nora had a sister in town with her husband from Taos.  So we visited with them while they got their chile roasted.  I was able to work on my cups for just a little bit.  I sanded 2 more cups I made and use the micaceous slip on them.   Sometimes there are some busy studio days and sometimes you spend time visiting with family.  I took all the in-progress things home and our next meeting is the firing in a few weeks.

9/25/22 Firing day!  In preparation for the firing, I was making a few cups at home with the clay I took home.  It became very apparent that all that I was doing in life was taking time away from making and my pieces were not happy.  The two I was working on cracked and I had no new works to add to the firing than the ones I did at Nora’s.  I did however break up the already broken works and polished a few and made some more sherds from that clay.  We went up the night before again and stayed nearby.  Nora prefers to fire early in the morning, 7:30/8a.  We got to her house at 7:30a, family in tow.  She had another previous apprentice there as well, who wanted to fire a few works from her grandma who passed.  I thought Nora’s sister was going to be there but it was just us.  She had a delicious spread for us including coffee.  We did 2 firings; a “clean” firing and a “black” firing.  She had our works preheating in her oven overnight to help with making sure they were dry and ready for a firing.  We put them in a metal box and with wood stacked around it we built a fire.  I was surprised to see she used lighter fluid, “old Indian method” she said.  We made sure the wood thoroughly burned through and then we could take the metal box off the heat let it cool more and access our works.  For the black firing after the firing was reduced to coals, we smothered the work with horse dung and let it smolder for a while.  Then we dug it all out.  We all had successful works and thankfully nothing exploded or cracked.  Everything came out beautifully!  Now I know how to do that process and could probably do it at my house.  She, of course, offered her place anytime.

In working together for a good month plus, we have gotten to know each other better, learn more about each other’s practice, process and decided there is still so much to learn.  I asked her if she was interested in still exploring somethings and she said yes.  I said this felt like the beginning of a new friendship, mentorship, auntieship, all of that.  We have made a plan to explore more experimentation and she is going to show me how to build with adobe.  She has really opened her home, studio, knowledge up to me and it feels like family.  It has been an amazing experience so far, and I hope it continues to be a lifelong relationship 😊.