There's a unique class available in UNM's 2019 catalog. Introduction to Pueblo Pottery (Studio Arts 389) focuses on "gathering raw materials, pigments and clays, from sites accessible to the public, and then processing the materials to understand their possibilities and outcomes." UNM assistant professor Clarence Cruz, a noted potter from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, has been teaching these traditional pottery techniques to UNM students since 1989.
How many colleges or universities offer classes in the making of Native American pottery? "I know only one, the University of New Mexico," says Clarence. "We go to public lands, learning to understand the landscape itself. What do I look for? Telltale signs of clay. Students learn to understand materials in a different way, seeing the possibilities that the earth has to offer. And the next step is, what can I do with this."
In this more complete version of the interview, Clarence says that he encourages his UNM students to research how their own cultures, Native and non-Native, used clay, and then to explore those uses in the work they create for the class.
