Lorencita Atencio Bird (October 22, 1918 – May 4, 1995), also called T'o Pove ("Flowering Piñon"), was a

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

textile artist Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...

from the

Ohkay Owingeh Ohkay Owingeh (Tewa: Ohkwee Ówîngeh ), known by its Spanish name as San Juan de los Caballeros from 1589 to 2005, is a pueblo and census-designated place (CDP) in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. Ohkay Owingeh is also a federally recognized tribe ...

(San Juan) Pueblo. She studied at the

Santa Fe Indian School The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...

under

Dorothy Dunn Dorothy Dunn Kramer (December 2, 1903 – July 5, 1992) was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School. Background Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Chi ...

and exhibited her artwork across the country and in Europe. In particular, she is known for her embroidery designs, utilizing symbolic colors and motifs such as diamonds, butterflies, and the color gold. Her artworks can be found in private collections including the Margretta S. Dietrich Collection and in museums including the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

, the

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...

, the

Philbrook Museum of Art Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wi ...

, and the

Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medici ...

. Atencio was born on October 22, 1918, the daughter of Juan Bautista and Luteria Trujillo Atencio. She was an active watercolor painter and embroidery artist through the 1930s and 1940s, selling her work and earning a living. Some of her paintings depicted subjects going about daily tasks, such as gathering water. In the 1950s, she became the mother of several children and stopped painting as prolifically. She continued to work on weaving and embroidery throughout her life, creating sashes, ceremonial regalia, and wedding attire. Atencio also worked as a crafts instructor at the Santa Fe Indian School and at the U. S.

Albuquerque Indian School Albuquerque Indian School (AIS) was a Native American boarding school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which operated from 1881 to 1981. It was one of the oldest and largest off-reservation boarding schools in the United States. For most of its histo ...

. Atencio died on May 4, 1995. She is buried in the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo Cemetery in Ohkay Awingeh, New Mexico.

References

1918 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century indigenous painters of the Americas Native American painters Pueblo artists Painters from New Mexico American weavers 20th-century women textile artists 20th-century textile artists American fashion designers American embroiderers 20th-century Native Americans Indigenous fashion designers of the Americas Native American women artists {{NorthAm-native-bio-stub