NEHMA | Collection - Wedding Jar

Rose Naranjo

Native American
(1915–2004)

Wedding Jar
1986

Earthenware
7.625 x 6 x 6.625 in.
Gift of the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation
1986.66

Santa Clara Pueblo pottery is widely recognized for its highly polished surfaces, incised designs, and melonlike forms, but Rose Naranjo’s Wedding Jar eschews these typical features in favor of a matte surface with minimal patches of color. This simple decoration highlights the elegance and organicism of Naranjo’s design. The slender necks and curvaceous openings of the jar’s paired orifices over the common water chamber poetically evoke the way marriage unites individuals in a shared life. The wedding jar is a traditional element of Pueblo engagement and marriage ceremonies, and Naranjo renders the form in a subtle and harmonious way.

Rose Naranjo was born in the Santa Clara Pueblo, a village renowned for its pottery, which was traditionally made by the women and girls of the tribe. After her marriage at age 18 to a Southern Baptist minister named Michael Naranjo, Rose moved to the neighboring Pueblo of Taos, where she lived for the next twenty-seven years, raising her eight children. She passed on her craft to her offspring, and ensured that they all attended college, receiving the education that was not available to her. Several of her children went on to become artists, including Edna Romero, also included in this catalogue. In January 1994 the city of Santa Fe bestowed on Rose the designation of Living Treasure in recognition of her work as a potter and matriarch to a family of accomplished artists.

Danielle Stewart

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