Maria Ramita Simbolo Martinez "Summer Harvest" (1884 - October 1969) was a
Picuris Pueblo
Picuris Pueblo (; Tiwa: P'įwweltha ’ī̃wːēltʰà is a historic pueblo in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. It is also a census-designated place (CDP) and a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people. The 2010 censu ...
potter. Martinez learned traditional methods of creating
pottery and has been recognized for preserving a cultural tradition of the Picuris Pueblo. Martinez collaborated with her husband, Juan José Martinez, who decorated her finished pots.
Biography
Martinez was born in
Picuris Pueblo
Picuris Pueblo (; Tiwa: P'įwweltha ’ī̃wːēltʰà is a historic pueblo in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. It is also a census-designated place (CDP) and a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people. The 2010 censu ...
in 1884 to the Simbola family.
She learned to make pots by watching her mother, Solidad Simbola, make her own.
In the
pueblo, she was known as "Summer Harvest."
She married Juan José Martinez, and the couple had six children together.
She and her husband collaborated on the pottery she made and sold their items together from the back of a
wagon.
Martinez died in October 1969 and was buried in Picuris. A
historic marker in
New Mexico describes her contribution to the preservation of traditional pottery methods.
Work
Martinez gathered
clay from the hills outside Picuris. Martinez used traditional methods to work on her pots which were generally red-brown in color and had a sparkles from the
mica
Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...
in the clay. She would shape the pots and then her husband, Juan José Martinez, would decorate them before
firing.
Martinez's work is part of the collections of the
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Leonard D. Hollister Collection at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
References
External links
Appraisal: Ramita Martinez Cooking Pot(video from ''
Antiques Roadshow'')
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Maria Ramita
1884 births
1969 deaths
20th-century American ceramists
20th-century American women artists
American women ceramists
Artists from New Mexico
Native American potters
American potters
Native American women artists
People from Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico
Pueblo artists
20th-century Native American artists
20th-century Native American women