A Storyteller Figurine by Ethel Marie Shields – Acoma Pueblo Artist (Passed away on October 16, 2021 at age 95.)
“We would load all the pottery into a wagon and drive to the main road between Grants and Albuquerque
[Route 66]; that was before it was paved. We would sit there at a roadside stand and sell the pottery to
people driving by.”
— Ethel talking about selling pottery with her mother in the early 1940s
When Mud Woman Begins
Electricity
- down my arm
through this clay
forming into
spirit shapes- of men
- women
and children
I have seen
somewhere before.
- women
- of men
Electricity
- surging upward
as I mix
this mud
like my mother- as her mother did
with small
brown feet.
- as her mother did
Folding into this earth
- a decision of
joyful play,
transcending expectations
of fear- failure
or perfection.
- failure
Creating spirits
- calling invitations
of celebration.
What occurs
in completed form,
bright- and bold,
is motion
from our mother’s skin.
- and bold,
I smile
- momentarily satisfied
with my play.
Electricity,
generated from star colors
far from home,
entering- through my feet
blessing my hands
and opening my heart.
- through my feet
— from From Mud Woman, Poems from the Clay by Nora Naranjo-Morse
