Years ago, King Galleries owner Charles King was hosting a group show featuring pottery collaborations from some of the top artists. One of the artists, Santa Clara potter Nancy Youngblood, was asked who she wanted to be paired up with. “Russell Sanchez was the first name I suggested,” Youngblood says. “So when Charles called up Russell and he wanted to work with me, that was the beginning of something really special. We’ve become great friends since then.”
Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso), Polychrome jar with bear lid, 2021
Sanchez agrees. “For that show we didn’t have to babysit each other or even really watch other. She made her pot and I made mine and then we handed them off to each other, and we knew exactly where to take it from there,” Sanchez says. “We were really inspired by each other, so much so that the works look like they were made by one person, not two.”
Nancy Youngblood (Santa Clara), 32-rib S swirl melon water jar
Youngblood and Sanchez, both considered by many to be two of the greatest living Native American potters working today, will be featured in a new show, Walking to the Now, opening October 16 at King Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Walking to the Now is a reflection of two Pueblo potters focusing on historic work from their families and giving it their own personal interpretation,” King notes about the show. “The work created by these two potters reflects on contemporary Native clay art as evolving and dramatically alive.”
Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso), Polychrome jar and plate with bear designs, 2021
For Youngblood, she’ll be showing some of her classic swirl pots, jars and melon bowls, some of them with turtle- and flame-shaped lids. Sanchez will be presenting his polychrome jars and plates, many of them with inlay and a recurring bear motif.
Nancy Youngblood (Santa Clara), 64 straight-rib melon bowl with flame lid
“This new batch of work is really based on old-style polychrome pots made by my great-grandmother, Ignacia Pena Sanchez, from around the mid-1800s to some of her later ones in the early 1900s,” Sanchez says. “I’m taking her designs and being inspired by them, but then also taking them a few steps further with some inlay and heshe.”
The show will open at King Galleries’ Santa Fe location, and it will continue through October 30.
King Galleries
October 16-30, 2021
130 Lincoln Avenue, Suite D, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(480) 440-3912, www.kinggalleries.com
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