Tesuque Pottery

I was looking at a book with some references to Tesuque pottery designs. The library in Merced has a wonderful book with different designs from different tribes. The Tesuque designs interested me.

The Tesuque are a Pueblo tribe north of Santa Fe. They have pottery that represents the rain God and dove or bird like pots with a rain God type of motif worked into it. The major proliferation of the clay Rain Gods occurred when a trader noticed its relationship to the famous Kikopelli, the pipe playing symbol. The main problem was that the rain God elements emphasized phallic segments. These needed to be removed or modified to make the little ceramic rain Gods more salable to the tourists. This modification occured around the turn of the century when Indian artifacts became a tourist industry.

These little terra cotta turn of the century pieces are continuing to go up in price even though they were not very authentic.

The designs on the bowls however, are more authentic and represent a different design constraint. I am looking at these for a border for one of my next paintings. I need a painting that will go with the gold in my bathroom. This may be it.

If you have a chance fire up that Google and take a look at the design that the Tesuque use in their art work.

: ) Pat