Paddle and Anvil: A Piipaash Pottery Tradition
A documentary film by Steven Yazzie, featuring Ron Carlos
Sponsored by: The Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market
Learn from Ron Carlos how to make paddle and anvil pottery. Talk with him in person at Demonstration Booth 07. The Guild commissioned this video specifically to support this year’s Indian Fair & Market theme: Celebrating the Art of Pottery. The film can be seen in the Harnett Theater inside the Museum. It alternates with the film HOME. Both films give you insights into American Indian lifeways in the Southwest through a series of interviews with artists. Below is a trailer of the pottery film and brief bios of Carlos and Yazzie.
Ron Carlos (Piipaash)
I am descended from both Pima and Maricopa tribes and am an enrolled tribal member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. My pottery is made from all natural materials. All clays and pigments are hand dug and processed by myself and other family members. My pottery is constructed using the paddle and anvil which is a type of pottery-making technique indigenous to both the Maricopa and Pima tribes of southern Arizona.
I learned to make pottery from Phyllis Cerna and her daughter Avis Pinion, both from Gila River Indian Community District #7 – Maricopa Colony. Along with being a potter, I also make gourd rattles, do beadwork, sing traditional songs of the Maricopa tribe, and lastly work on preserving and revitalizing the Maricopa Language.
Steven J. Yazzie (Navajo)
Steven J. Yazzie is a multidisciplinary artist working with film/video, painting, sculpture and installation environments. Many may know him for the mural “Fear of a Red Planet: Relocation and Removal” in the We Are Gallery in the Heard Museum. His approach in film/video production brings a necessary knowledge and understanding of effective visual storytelling in a creative and meaningful way.
Yazzie lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a proud member of the Navajo Nation and has served honorably with the United States Marine Corps. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Intermedia at Arizona State University and was named the 2014 outstanding graduate for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. He also studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine.
Yazzie has been a part of numerous regional, national, and international exhibitions. Most notably he has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe, NM and many museums in Arizona including the Heard. His work can be found in a number of public and private collections throughout the country. He has received a number of regional and national grants.
