Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery Reception at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 10, 2023. All photos courtesy of The Met. Credit: Paula Lobo.
New Mexico proud! Members of the Pueblo Pottery Collective and their families, as well as SAR staff and board members, showed up in full force for the community opening of the Grounded in Clay exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vilcek Foundation in New York City. The New York opening gave community curators and collaborators a chance to celebrate this remarkable exhibition and all of the hard work it took to bring it to life.
There’s no better way to celebrate Pueblo pottery than with Pueblo dancing! Dancers from Picuris Pueblo traveled all the way to New York City to kick off the community opening of the Grounded in Clay exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in style!
In addition to the incredible pottery currently on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vilcek Foundation for the Grounded in Clay exhibition, The Met also commissioned new works by Pueblo artists, Mallory Quetawki, DeHaven Solimon Chaffins, Mateo Romero, and Michael Namingha. Mateo and Michael are both former SAR Native Artist Fellows and they collaborated on the diptych pictured in the background of the featured photos, bringing a bit of the New Mexico landscape to the walls of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mateo’s piece is on the left and Michael’s is on the right.
Easy, breezy, beautiful. Recognize the stunning piece featured in the center of the display case? This Laguna storage jar, made by Arroh-a-och circa 1870, graces the cover of the Grounded in Clay catalog. It, along with nearly 100 other pieces from SAR and the Vilcek Foundation’s collections, are currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vilcek Foundation in New York City.
What a power trio! Celebrated artist Kathleen Wall, Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Patricia Norby, and Director of the Indian Arts Research Center Elysia Poon share a well-deserved moment of levity at the community opening of the Grounded in Clay exhibition at the Met.
In addition to being the Associate Curator of Native American Art for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dr. Patricia Norby is also one of sixty curators for the Grounded in Clay exhibition. Norby is pictured here speaking at the reception for the opening at the Met and with fellow curator and Jemez artist Kathleen Wall.