Thomas Tenorio
Santo Domingo
Born in 1963 at Santo Domingo Pueblo, Thomas Tenorio started making pots in the early 1990s. He grew up thinking he came from a family of heishi makers but found out his maternal great-grandmother had made traditional Santo Domingo pots and sold them by the side of the road in the 1940s. Realizing that these days only a few families continue to make Santo Domingo-style pottery he was inspired to learn so that he could help keep the tradition alive.
Thomas tells us he is a self-taught potter: "Nobody showed me how. I learned on my own through a lot of trial and error." He does credit Kenneth Chapman's book The Pottery of Santo Domingo Pueblo for providing him with examples of old Santo Domingo designs.
Thomas uses local Santo Domingo clay which he cleans, mixes, hand-coils, shapes, decorates and then fires outdoors in an open flame, just as his ancestors did for hundreds of years before him. He learned to protect his pots during the firing, surrounding them with a metal cage so no fuel touches them and burns the pot. It took him years to figure out the complicated chemistries of the buff slip and bee weed paint (made from a wild spinach that grows in New Mexico).
Thomas' greatest pleasure comes through recognition of his current work. While he enjoys the process, he "gets lost in the painting and could sit for hours and hours and paint." He especially loves painting the swirls of the water, the wind and the corn. He also loves painting his bowls, especially if they contain fish or the traditional Santo Domingo bird. He is exploring new shapes and designs on his more recent work but he isn't forgetting the traditional shapes and designs of Kewa on his huge pots.
Thomas read somewhere that he was a miniature potter. We laughed when he told us that because he is not a short person and some of his more recent pieces have been almost as big as he is. When we asked him where he gets his inspiration he replied, "My inspiration comes from my traditional faith at home and from nature".
Thomas often participates in the Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair (where he won the 2012 First Place ribbon for Traditional Painted Pottery). He won the same First Place award at the Heard in 2007 and has won First and Second Place ribbons at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2015, 2014, 2011 and 2010.
In 2015 Thomas had an extremely successful one-man show at Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery where he did an outdoor firing for some of our best customers. In 2023 he came to the attention of Travel & Leisure Magazine and they did a full article and video production on Thomas: making and painting his pots, then firing them the traditional way (the pueblo said no outdoor fires all that week, Andrea was able to get a fire permit and they filmed it at her house).
Thomas signs his pottery "Thomas Tenorio, Kewa, NM" and sometimes adds the year.
His pottery can be found in the collections of:
- The White House, Washington, DC
- Rockefeller Museum, New York City
- Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
- Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe, NM
- Pueblo Grande Museum, Phoenix, AZ
- Crocker Museum, Sacramento, CA
Some of the Other Awards Won by Thomas
- 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification IIB, Category 603 - Painted polychrome pottery in the style of Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Nambe, San Juan, Pojoaque, Any form, Second Place
- 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification IIB, Category 605 - Figures/Manas, Second Place
- 2018 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division B - Traditional Painted Pottery, Category 603 - Painted Polychrome Pottery in the Style of Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Nambe, San Juan, Pojoaque, Any Form: First Place
- 2018 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division B - Traditional Painted Pottery, Category 603 - Painted Polychrome Pottery in the Style of Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Nambe, San Juan, Pojoaque, Any Form: Second Place
- 2018 Santa Fe Indian Market, Pueblo Pottery Excellence Award. For Creative Excellence in the Use of Traditional Materials and Native Techniques and Designs in Pueblo Pottery
- 2012 Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair & Market. Phoenix, AZ. Class. II - Pottery, Div. A - Traditional, native clay, hand build, painted, First Place
- 2010 Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair & Market. Phoenix, AZ. Class. II - Pottery, traditional, native clay, hand built, painted, Honorable Mention
- 2008 Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair & Market. Phoenix, AZ. Class. II - Pottery, Div. A - Traditional, Native clay, hand built, painted, First Place
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved
Santo Domingo Pueblo
Santo Domingo Pueblo Mission Church
Santo Domingo Pueblo is located on the east bank of the Rio Grande about half-way between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Historically, the people of Santo Domingo were among the most active of Pueblo traders. The pueblo also has a reputation of being ultra traditional, probably due, at least in part, to the longevity of the pueblo's pottery styles. Some of today's popular designs have changed very little since the 1700s.
In pre-Columbian times, traders from Santo Domingo were trading turquoise (from mines in the Cerrillos Hills) and hand-made heishe beads as far away as central Mexico. Many artisans in the pueblo still work in the old ways and produce wonderful silver and turquoise jewelry and heishe decorations.
Like the people of nearby San Felipe and Cochiti, the people of Santo Domingo speak Keres and trace their ancestry back to villages established in the Pajarito Plateau area in the 1400's. Like the other Rio Grande pueblos, Santo Domingo rose up against the Spanish oppressors in 1680, following Alonzo Catiti as he led the Keres-speaking pueblos and worked with Popé (of San Juan Pueblo) to stop the Spanish atrocities. However, when Spanish Governor Antonio Otermin returned to the area in 1681, he found Santo Domingo deserted and ordered it burned. The pueblo residents had fled to a nearby mountain stronghold and when Don Diego de Vargas returned to Nuevo Mexico in 1692, he attacked that mountain fortress and burned it, too. Catiti died in that battle and Keres opposition to the Spanish crumbled with his death. The survivors of that battle fled, some to Acoma, some to fledgling Laguna, some to the Hopi mesas. Over time most of them returned to Santo Domingo.
In the 1790s Santo Domingo accepted an influx of refugees from the Galisteo Basin area as they fled the near-constant attacks of Apache, Comanche, Ute and Navajo raiders in that area. Today's main Santo Domingo village was founded about 1886.
In 1598 Santo Domingo was the site of the first gathering of 38 pueblo governors by Don Juan de Oñaté to try to force them to swear allegiance to the crown of Spain. Today, the All Indian Pueblo Council (consisting of the nineteen remaining pueblo's governors and an executive staff) gathers at Santo Domingo for their first meeting every year, to continue what is now the oldest annual political gathering in America. During the time of the Spanish occupation Santo Domingo served as the headquarters of the Franciscan missionaries in New Mexico and religious trials were held there during the Spanish Inquisition.
Today, the people of Santo Domingo number around 4,500, with about two-thirds of them living on the reservation. The pottery traditions of the pueblo almost died out after the railroads arrived and many Santo Domingos went to work laying tracks. Even today many Santo Domingo men work as firefighters for the US Forest Service in fire season and ply their artistic talents during the rest of the year.
Potter Robert Tenorio began working to revive the Santo Domingo pottery tradition in the early 1970s. His influence can be found among many of today's Santo Domingo potters, even if they say he stimulated them to learn on their own.
While today's Santo Domingo pottery is known for designs described as simple geometrics, another outstanding feature is boldness: the lines are thick and well-defined.
As religious leaders forbid the representation of human figures as well as other sacred designs on pottery made for commercial purposes, birds, fish and flowers are common design motifs. Depictions of mammals are rarely seen. Another typical Santo Domingo style is to paint in the negative, meaning cover the pot in panels of big swatches of black and red so that only a few lines of the cream slip show through.
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved
Santo Domingo
$ SOLD
zzsd4c200
Polychrome wedding vase with a bird, flower, and geometric design
8 in L by 8 in W by 17.5 in H
Condition: Excellent
Signature: Thomas Tenorio Kewa, NM, with date
Date Created: 2024
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved
The Story of
the Wedding Vase
as told by Teresita Naranjo of Santa Clara Pueblo
Helen Naha
Hopi
Wilma Baca Tosa
Jemez Pueblo
Margaret Tafoya
Santa Clara Pueblo
The Wedding Vase has been used for a long, long time in Indian Wedding Ceremonies.
After a period of courtship, when a boy and girl decide to get married, they cannot do so until certain customs have been observed. The boy must first call all his relatives together to tell them that he desires to be married to a certain girl. If the relatives agree, two or three of the oldest men are chosen to call on the parents of the girl. They pray according to Indian custom and the oldest man will tell the parents of the girl what their purpose is in visiting. The girl's parents never give a definite answer at this time, but just say that they will let the boy's family know their decision later.
About a week later, the girl calls a meeting of her relatives. The family then decides what answer should be given. If the answer is “no” that is the end of it. If the answer is “yes” then the oldest men in her family are delegated to go to the boy's home, and to give the answer, and to tell the boy on what day he can come to receive his bride-to-be. The boy must also notify all of his relatives on what day the girl will receive him, so that they will be able to have gifts for the girl.
Now the boy must find a Godmother and Godfather. The Godmother immediately starts making the wedding vase so that it will be finished by the time the girl is to be received. The Godmother also takes some of the stones which have been designated as holy and dips them into water, to make it holy water. It is with this holy water that the vase is filled on the day of the reception.
The reception day finally comes and the Godmother and Godfather lead the procession of the boy's relatives to the home of the girl. The groom is the last in line and must stand at the door of the bride's home until the gifts his relatives have brought have been opened and received by the bride.
The bride and groom now kneel in the middle of the room with the groom's relatives and the bride's parents praying all around them. The bride then gives her squash blossom necklace to the groom's oldest male relative, while the groom gives his necklace to the bride's oldest male relative. After each man has prayed, the groom's necklace is placed on the bride, and the bride's is likewise placed on the groom.
After the exchange of squash blossom necklaces and prayers, the Godmother places the wedding vase in front of the bride and groom. The bride drinks out of one side of the wedding vase and the groom drinks from the other. Then, the vase is passed to all in the room, with the women all drinking from the bride's side, and the men from the groom's.
After the ritual drinking of the holy water and the prayers, the bride's family feeds all the groom's relatives and a date is set for the church wedding. The wedding vase is now put aside until after the church wedding.
Once the church wedding ceremony has occurred, the wedding vase is filled with any drink the family may wish. Once again, all the family drinks in the traditional manner, with women drinking from one side, and men the other. Having served its ceremonial purpose, the wedding vase is given to the young newlyweds as a good luck piece.