New Acquisitions: Major Storyteller Figure By Helen Cordero

New Acquisitions: Major Storyteller Figure By Helen Cordero Donated to the Heard

BY DIANA F. PARDUE

CHIEF CURATOR

In 1976, the Heard Museum held an important exhibition for the figurative ceramic artist Helen Cordero (Cochiti Pueblo, 1915-1994). When she created a pottery figure with children seated on its lap in 1964, Cordero sparked a resurgence in a pottery tradition that was Cochiti Pueblo potter Helen Cordero, standing at left, with Dr. Barbara Babcock at the far right. centuries old. She based the figure on her grandfather, Santiago Quintana, who work and formed a special friendship with her was was known as a gifted storyteller. With eyes closed and Dr. Barbara Babcock, Regents’ Professor of English mouth open, one could almost hear the stories being told and Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies at the as they looked at Cordero’s pottery figures. University of Arizona. In 1986, Dr. Babcock partnered The Heard’s exhibition was only one of several with scholars Guy and Doris Monthan to write the significant events in Cordero’s career. Her creative works definitive book The Pueblo Storyteller. Dr. Babcock were widely covered by newspapers and magazines, and lectured widely on the topic and published articles one of her storytellers was featured on the cover of a in American Indian Art Magazine, Journal of American 1982 issue of National Geographic. Her figures caught the Folklore and New Mexico Magazine and many other attention of many, and as they grew in popularity, other journals and books. potters began to make these “storytellers” in their own The Heard Museum presented another exhibition in styles or explore variations in figurative ceramics. 1988 titled Earth, Hands, Life: Southwestern Ceramic One person who became keenly interested in Cordero’s Figures, which explored the tradition of figurative ceramics from pre-contact through contemporary times.

ABOVE AND RIGHT: Helen Cordero (Cochiti Pueblo, 1915-1994), storyteller figure, 1969. Ceramic, pigment. Heard Museum purchase, NA-SW-CO-F-3.

As you entered the gallery, the exhibition began with the most recent works, with examples by Nora Naranjo Morse (Santa Clara Pueblo, b. 1953) and Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo, b. 1962) and then moved to some of the earliest figures made in pre-contact times. Cordero’s figures illustrated an important turning point in the figurative pottery tradition and were joined by works in which other potters explored new themes. Seferina Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo, 1931-2007) and her teenage son Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo, b. 1969) both had works in the exhibition. Ortiz’s Cochiti Sunbathers provided a glimpse of the humorous caricature shared with some of the figures made almost 100 years before.

The Heard held a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition. Dr. Babcock was among the presenters and Cordero’s daughter-in-law, Mary Trujillo, shaped a storyteller figure from clay she brought from New Mexico.

Recently, the family of Dr. Babcock donated a major storyteller by Cordero to the Heard. The figure is seated, with 19 children sitting on its lap, climbing its arms and hanging on its back—each with distinctively decorated clothing. This is now the most complex figure in the Heard Museum Collection. As a later example of Cordero’s work, it joins important early works by Cordero in the Heard Collection that were donated by Dennis and Janis Lyon. In addition to this remarkable figure, the family also gifted a charming storyteller turtle by Cordero’s grandson Tim Cordero (Cochiti Pueblo, b. 1963), a photograph of Cordero and Dr. Babcock, and a copy of The Pueblo Storyteller signed by most of the potters in the book.