"Lucy Martin Lewis": Quilt Art by Rebekka Seigel

"Set in the context of Pueblo tradition, Lucy Lewis's pots fit. Set in the context of a visionary contemporary art idiom, they almost overwhelm."

Lucy is honored in this series for her excellent craftsmanship as a potter from the Acoma Pueblo and her life lived within a unique tradition. Like Jean Ritchie, she built her life around the traditions of her family and people. Yet despite this devotion to tradition, Lucy managed to have a personal vision about her pottery providing her a personal means of expression, not simply copying the patterns of the past, but tweaking them and adding her own design sense to the work. Lucy studied the ancient shards she found from time to time around the pueblo and even ground them up to use for grog in her pots; a unique way of keeping the tradition within her work. She always fired her pots with dung in the same manner as her ancestors and taught her children to do the same despite other Pueblo potters who have taken to firing their works in electric kilns. Lucy led a far more “normal” life than many of the other women portrayed in this group of quilts, but she graced her life with art, expression and tradition.

The pattern forming the body of this quilt is one that Lucy used often on her pots. The colors, black, white and tan, are the only colors Lucy used in her pottery. Images of her designs and those of her ancestral people, the Anastasi. are appliquéd around the border. Her costumes reflect the everyday tasks and celebrations of her life. She is shown carrying water, carrying a baby, selling pots to tourists and dressed in her dancing costume and “Sunday Best”. Lucy loved dressing up and donning her beautiful jewelry.