Carmelita Dunlap
San Ildefonso
Carmelita Vigil was born into San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1925. The daughter of Juanita and Romando Vigil, she was also a niece of Maria Martinez and Desideria Montoya. Her mother died when she was eight years old. At that point, she began splitting her time between Maria's and Desideria's households, a few months with one, then a few months with the other. She watched both women making pottery and learned from both but she always referred to Desideria as "Grandma."
After finishing high school, Carmelita married Carlos Dunlap and they moved to California. They returned to San Ildefonso in 1955 and Carmelita threw herself into making pottery. She established herself with red and cream polychromes, then moved to black matte on black pottery and finally to the sunrise brown that is now her family's specialty.
Carmelita was a regular participant in the Santa Fe Indian Market from 1978 to 1999, and at the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show from 1995 to 1999.
Some Awards Carmelita has Earned
- 1989: 2nd Place, Painted jar over 8 inches tall, Santa Fe Indian Market
- 1992: 2nd Place, Painted jar over 8 inches tall, Santa Fe Indian Market
- 1998: Honorable Mention, Painted jar over 8 inches tall, Santa Fe Indian Market
Carmelita was also a participant in the 1974 Seven Families in Pueblo Pottery show at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Carmelita passed her knowledge on to her daughters, Jeannie Mountain Flower Dunlap, Linda (Turquoise Lake) Dunlap and Cynthia Star Flower Dunlap, and her son, Carlos Sunrise Dunlap (although he died in 1981 at the age of 23).
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved
San Ildefonso Pueblo
Black Mesa at San Ildefonso Pueblo
San Ildefonso Pueblo is located about twenty miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. Although their ancestry has been traced as far back as abandoned pueblos in the Mesa Verde area in southwestern Colorado, the most recent ancestral home of the people of San Ildefonso is in the area of Bandelier National Monument, the prehistoric villages of Tyuonyi, Otowi, Navawi and Tsankawi specifically. The area of Tsankawi abuts the reservation on its northwest side.
The San Ildefonso name was given to the village in 1617 when a mission church was established. Before then the village was called Powhoge, "where the water cuts through" (in Tewa). Today's pueblo was established as long ago as the 1300's and when the Spanish arrived in 1540 they estimated the village population at about 2,000.
That village mission was destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and when Don Diego de Vargas returned to reclaim the San Ildefonso area in 1694, he found virtually the entire tribe on top of nearby Black Mesa. After an extended siege the two sides negotiated a treaty and the people returned to their village. However, the next 250 years were not good for them. Finally, the Spanish swine flu pandemic of 1918 reduced the tribe's population to about 90. The tribe's population has increased to more than 600 today but the only economic activity available for most on the pueblo involves the creation of art in one form or another. The only other jobs are off-pueblo. San Ildefonso's population is small compared to neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo, but the pueblo maintains its own religious traditions and ceremonial feast days.
San Ildefonso has produced fine ceramic art since early pre-Columbian times. The pueblo is most known for being the home of the most famous Pueblo Indian potter, Maria Martinez. Many other excellent potters have produced quality pottery from this pueblo, too, among them: Blue Corn, Tonita and Juan Roybal, Dora Tse Pe and Rose Gonzales. Of course the descendants of Maria Martinez are still important pillars of San Ildefonso's pottery tradition. Maria's influence reached far and wide, so far and wide that even Juan Quezada, founder of the Mata Ortiz pottery renaissance in Chihuahua, Mexico, came to San Ildefonso to learn from her.
100 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
(505) 986-1234 - www.andreafisherpottery.com - All Rights Reserved