Miniature polychrome seed pot with a butterfly, mountain, star and geometric design made by Glendora Fragua of Jemez
Glendora Fragua, Jemez, Miniature polychrome seed pot with a butterfly, mountain, star and geometric design
Glendora Fragua
Jemez
$ 195
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Miniature polychrome seed pot with a butterfly, mountain, star and geometric design
2 in H by 1.25 in Dia
Condition: Excellent
Signature: Her corn stalk hallmark
Date Created: 2021


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Glendora Fragua

Jemez
Polychrome jar with sgraffito and painted Corn Mother, corn plant and geometric design

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1958, Glendora Fragua also spent some of her early years in California before her family returned to Jemez Pueblo in the 1970s. Her grandmother, Beninga Medina Madelena, married into Jemez Pueblo from Zia Pueblo years before and has been credited with helping to revive the Jemez pottery making tradition. Glendora learned the fundamentals of the traditional Jemez way of making pottery from her mother, Juanita Fragua, and by the age of 16 she was working with sgraffito techniques, working to develop her own style.

Glendora characterizes her work as contemporary/traditional: hand-gathered-and-processed clay, volcanic ash for temper, paints from the rocks and the plants, everything is done by hand the ancient way... her electric kiln is the only modern technology she uses. The designs she uses are her own, carved into her pots after they've dried and been polished but before firing. After carving she might add a red or buff or micaceous slip, then she adds her trademark cornstalk to the bottom and signs the piece before placing it in her kiln and firing it. Sometimes she adds inlaid stones to a piece, placing them, removing them before going in the kiln and then replacing them after the piece is finished being fired.

Glendora Daubs is a name many collectors recognize her by as she used that during the time she was married. Over the years she has earned pretty much every Blue Ribbon awarded for pottery at the various Indian Markets and Fairs in the Southwest at least once.

Some Awards Glendora has Earned

  • 2020 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division E - Any design or form with native materials, kiln-fired pottery: First Place. Awarded for the collaborative artwork with Juanita C. Fragua: "Generations"
  • 2019 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division G - Pottery miniatures not to exceed three (3) inches at its greatest dimension: Honorable Mention. Awarded for artwork: "Night Flight"
  • 2016 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market: Best of Show. Awarded for the collaborative work with Jody Naranjo entitled: "Pueblo Luck"
  • 2016 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery: Best of Classification. Awarded for the collaborative work with Jody Naranjo entitled: "Pueblo Luck"
  • 2016 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional, Native Clay, Hand Built, Painted: First Place. Awarded for the collaborative work with Jody Naranjo entitled: "Pueblo Luck"
  • 2014 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II Pottery, Division C - Traditional, native clay, hand built, carved: Second Place
  • 2011 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery: Best of Classification with Harlan Reano
  • 2011 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional, native clay, hand built, painted: Honorable Mention
  • 2007 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division C - Traditional, native clay, hand built, carved: Second Place

Jemez Pueblo

The nave at the ruins of the San Jose de las Jemez Mission
Ruins of San Jose de las Jemez Mission

As the drought in the Four Corners region deepened in the late 1200's, several clans of Towa-speaking people migrated southeastward to the Canyon de San Diego area in the southern Jemez mountains. Other clans of Towa-speaking people migrated southwest and settled in the Jeddito Wash area in northeastern Arizona, below Antelope Mesa and southeast of Hopi First Mesa. The migrations began around 1275 and were mostly complete by 1350.

Archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes argues that pot shards found in the vicinity of the ruin at Sikyátki (near the foot of Hopi First Mesa) speak to the strong influence of earlier Towa-speaking potters on what became "Sikyátki Polychrome" pottery (Sikyátki was a village at the foot of First Mesa, destroyed before the first Hopi contact with the Spanish in 1540). Fewkes maintained that Sikyátki Polychrome pottery is the finest ceramic ware ever made in prehistoric North America.

Francisco de Coronado and his men arrived in the Jemez Mountains of Nuevo Mexico in 1539. By then the Jemez people had built several large masonry villages among the canyons and on some high ridges in the area. Their population was estimated at about 30,000 and they were among the largest and most powerful tribes in Northern New Mexico. Some of their pueblos reached five stories high and contained as many as 3,000 rooms.

Because of the nature of the landscape they inhabited, farming was very hard. So the Jemez became traders, too, and their people traded goods all over the Southwest and northern Mexico.

The arrival of the Spanish was disastrous for the Jemez and they resisted the Spanish with all their might. That led to many atrocities against the tribe until they rose up in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and evicted the Spanish from northern New Mexico. With the Spanish gone, the Jemez destroyed much of what they had built on Jemez land. Then they concentrated on preparing themselves for the eventual return of the hated priests and the Spanish military.

The Spanish returned in 1692 and their efforts to retake northern New Mexico bogged down as the Jemez fought them doggedly for four years. In 1696 many Jemez came together, killed a Franciscan missionary and then fled to join their distant relatives in the Jeddito Wash area. They remained at Jeddito Wash for several years before returning to the Jemez Mountains. As a result of that long ago contact, there are still strong ties between the Jemez and their cousins on Navajo territory at Jeddito. On their return to the Jemez Mountains, the people built the pueblo they now live in (Walatowa: The Place) and made peace with the Spanish government.

Some of the Jemez people had been making a type of plainware pottery (simple, undecorated, utilitarian) when they were still in the Four Corners area, while others had developed a distinctive type of black-on-white pottery. In moving to the Jemez Mountains, they brought their knowledge and techniques with them but had to adapt to the different materials available to work with. Over time, the Jemez got better in their agricultural practices and began trading agricultural goods to the people of Zia Pueblo in return for pottery. By the mid-1700's, the Jemez were producing almost no pottery.

East of what is now Santa Fe is where the ruins of Pecos Pueblo are found. Pecos Pueblo was a large pueblo housing up to 2,000 people at its height. The people of Pecos and the Galisteo Basin were the only other speakers of the Towa language in New Mexico and when that area fell on increasingly hard times (Apache and Comanche raids, European diseases, drought), Pecos was finally abandoned in 1838 when the last 17 residents moved to Jemez. The Governor of Jemez welcomed them and allowed them to retain many of their Pecos tribal offices (governorship and all). Members of former Pecos families still return to the site of Pecos Pueblo every year to perform religious ceremonies in honor of their ancestors.

When general American interest in Puebloan pottery started to take off in the 1960's, the people of Jemez sought to recover that lost heritage. Today, the practice of traditional pottery-making is very much alive and well among the Jemez.

The focus of Jemez pottery today has turned to the making of storytellers, an art form that now accounts for more than half of their pottery production. Storytellers are usually grandparent figures with the figures of children attached to their bodies. The grandparents are pictured orally passing tribal songs and histories to their descendants. While this visual representation was first created at Cochiti Pueblo (a site in close geographical proximity to Jemez Pueblo) in the early 1960's by Helen Cordero, it speaks to the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren of every culture.

The pottery vessels made at Jemez Pueblo today are no longer black-on-white. Instead, the potters have adopted many colors, styles and techniques from other pueblos to the point where Jemez potters no longer have one distinct style of their own beyond that which stems naturally from the materials they themselves acquire from their surroundings: it doesn't matter what the shape or design is, the clay says uniquely "Jemez."

Location of Jemez Pueblo
For more info:
at Wikipedia
official website
at the Catholic Encyclopedia
Pueblos of the Rio Grande, Daniel Gibson, ISBN-13:978-1-887896-26-0, Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2001
Prehistoric Hopi Pottery Designs, Jesse Walter Fewkes, ISBN-0-486-22959-9, Dover Publications, Inc., 1973

Seed Pots

Acoma, Hopi, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara
Seed pot jar
Sandra Victorino
Acoma Pueblo
Micaceous black Hopi seed pot
Preston Duwyenie
Hopi
Santa Clara Pueblo seed pot
Camilio Tafoya
Santa Clara Pueblo



It was a matter of survival to the ancient Native American people that seeds be stored properly until the next planting season. Small, hollow pots were made to ensure that the precious seeds would be kept safe from moisture, light and rodents. After seeds were put into the pot, the small hole in the pot was plugged. The following spring the plug was removed and the seeds were shaken from the pot directly onto the planting area.

Today, seed pots are no longer necessary due to readily available seeds from commercial suppliers. However, seed pots continue to be made as beautiful, decorative works of art. The sizes and shapes of seed pots have evolved and vary greatly, depending on the vision of Clay Mother as seen through the artist. The decorations vary, too, from simple white seed pots with raised relief to multi-colored painted, raised relief and sgraffito designs, sometimes with inlaid gemstones and silver lids.



Seed pot with sgraffito design and silver lid

Debra Duwyenie
Santa Clara Pueblo
Jemez Pueblo seed pot

Dominique Toya
Jemez Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo seed pot

Lucy Lewis
Acoma Pueblo

Miniatures

Most people think that miniature pottery is something new in the world of Native American pottery. In reality, archaeologists have found miniature pottery in the remains of ancient ruins in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, across eastern Arizona, southern New Mexico and south to the Paquimé and Casas Grandes region in northern Mexico. Archaeologists working in the eastern US have found miniature pottery spread across Early Woodland Culture sites, too, dated up to 1700 years ago.

We have no idea as to why the ancients created miniature pottery but there's lots of speculation. Perhaps it was made as toys for children. Perhaps it was made by children learning to make pottery, and as their expertise grew, the size of their pieces grew, too. Perhaps it was made and placed in a firing pit as a good luck charm, hoping that other pots being fired in the pit would survive the firing process and not crack or break. Perhaps it was made for some ceremonial purpose we have no possibility of knowing. We do know that in North America, almost every pottery-making group of ancients made miniature pottery. They decorated it, too, just like the full size pottery the women of the time were making.

As the rebirth of traditionally made Native American pottery has unfolded over the last century, research into the ancient forms, styles and designs has also brought the miniature back into focus. There are more than a few potters these days making tiny gems again, similar to and, at the same time, more refined than the products of the potters of prehistory. And while some are still being made by children learning as they grow up, many more are being made by established adult potters. Some have made their entire careers around the making of miniatures while others sometimes make a few miniatures to complement the full range of forms and styles of full size pieces they make.


Rita Casiquito Family Tree

Disclaimer: This "family tree" is a best effort on our part to determine who the potters are in this family and arrange them in a generational order. The general information available is questionable so we have tried to show each of these diagrams to living members of each family to get their input and approval, too. This diagram is subject to change should we get better info.

    Rita Casiquito Magdalena
    • Juanita Fragua (1935-) and Manuel Fragua
      • Betty Jean Fragua (1962-2022)
      • Clifford Fragua
      • Glendora Fragua Daubs (1958-)
    • Jeronima Shendo

Some of the above info is drawn from Southern Pueblo Pottery, 2000 Artist Biographies, by Gregory Schaaf, © 2002, Center for Indigenous Arts & Studies

Other info is derived from personal contacts with family members and through interminable searches of the Internet and cross-examination of the data found.