Mary Witkop

American, (1948–2010)

Mary Witkop was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1948. She became interested in art as a child due to the fact that her mother experimented with making pottery and her father was a jeweler. She attended Colorado State University where she took a class in Pre-Columbian art, after which she began experimenting with making her own pots using the ancient methods of coil building, stone burnishing, and pit firing. Deciding she wanted to be a potter full time she moved to Taos, New Mexico. She was hired to teachat a NMPCA workshop at Ghost Ranch in 1977 and taught several workshops at the Taos Art Association, sharing her and her husband’s methods of making and firing pots. Witkop also taught numerous pottery classes at Ranchos Elementary as a guest art instructor, served as Mayordoma of the Pilar Acequia Association, and served as Taos County Art Commissioner from 1991 to 1992. She died at her New Mexico studio in 2010.