Tradition and innovation on display in Pueblo pottery exhibit at Mia
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On the first floor of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, across from the gift shop and cafe, visitors can find an exhibit titled, “O’ Powa O’ Meng.” The title translates to “I came here, I got here, I’m still going.”
The exhibit features the art and legacy of Jody Folwell, a Pueblo potter and artist from Kha’p’o Owingeh, also known as the Santa Clara Pueblo, a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in New Mexico. The 82-year-old is credited with starting a contemporary movement in Pueblo pottery.
Folwell reflects on the title’s meaning, “I have done what I need to do, and this is what you are seeing. I am going also in ‘what’ direction right now. It's unknown to me, but it's exciting to know that there's another direction that I can take.”
In 1984, Folwell entered one of her pieces into an American Indian marketplace competition in Santa Fe. Competition judges could not find a category that fit her entry — a green pot with human and horse figures painted onto the surface. It was a stark difference from the competing traditional black pots.
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“It became a really interesting period of time for me, because it was total experimentation in a different direction, and it wasn’t something that had been handed down for generations,” Folwell said.
Folwell says she won that day in 1984 with her pot. Although she had been experimenting with her artwork by pushing boundaries, she also kept elements of traditional pottery. She says she always starts with the basics to remember those original uses for everyday life.
“If it becomes very contemporary, it still has to have that sense of tradition, the culture, this spiritualness of the piece,” Folwell said.
Her ideas and artwork inspired her daughter and grandchildren, who are also potters and artists. Folwell’s daughter, Susan Folwell, recalls a memory from her childhood where she watched her mother work on a pot.
“I was 5 years old, and she used a palette knife to make buffalo, literally on top of a pot. I had never seen anybody do that before, and certainly not in any of the Pueblos,” Susan Folwell said.
The pot features racing buffalo along the surface and utilizes the texture of the clay for a three-dimensional effect. This pot would be entered into Jody Folwell’s first Santa Fe Indian Market competition in 1975.
Susan Folwell’s own contemporary pottery pieces are featured in the exhibit alongside her mother’s. One notable piece is inspired from the well-known franchise, “Star Wars.” The pot is painted in intricate detail, showing iconic characters while taking inspiration from the Navajo Nation.
Susan Folwell says she made the pot after the movie had been dubbed into the Navajo language. Written in Navajo on the side of the pot reads, “In a galaxy far, far away…”
“Living in a modern world ... there’s a lot of food for fodder in the way that you're always looking at the world through Native eyes,” Susan Folwell said about her pottery pieces.
At the museum, Jody Folwell describes one of her favorite pieces. The piece is a pot shaped like a conch shell made from sienna, a type of clay. She says she wanted the pot to look like a shell that could be picked up and blown into like a horn.
“I have chosen to feel that they [shell pot] were used to call someone and to call people to the pottery world,” Jody Folwell said.
Adriana Greci Green is a co-curator at the Freeland Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. She says the university collaborated with the Minneapolis Institute of Art to put the exhibit together.
Green says Jody Folwell’s artwork is about the connection to one’s home and community. She hopes Minnesotans will find connections to Indigenous communities around Minnesota in reflection.
“She really is recognized as the one that brought about this opportunity of standing your ground as an artist and doing what she wanted to do, as opposed to … pushing directions that were more conventional,” Green said.
The exhibit will be on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the Cargill Gallery through Jan. 26, 2025.