Stitched and clay as a visual proof of life.
Helen Cordero rejected formal studios to work at her Cochiti Pueblo kitchen table. She fired her clay on an open iron grate, reclaiming her yard as a proving ground for ancestral technology.
Image Credits: Helen Cordero, Storyteller with Twenty Figures, ca. 1985, fired clay with slip and beeweed, 11 1/8 x 7 7/8 x 11 in. (28.3 x 20.0 x 27.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock, 1997.124.148
Her Storyteller Dolls are tactical portraits of her grandfather, Santiago Quintana, a really good storyteller. Their open mouths signify the continuous singing of Pueblo heritage to the children clinging to the figures – a record managed outside institutional oversight.