As a native Jemez Pueblo potter, learning skills of traditional age-old clay potting from my maternal grandmother, the late Eloisa F. Toledo and my mother, Carol Toledo Pecos. The teaching of traditions stem from taking Mother Earth’s gifts with prayer, ritual and respect. The tradition holds all the way from taking the clay, volcanic ash(temper), mineral, vegetal paints and also the fire used to finalize the pieces. After gathering the clay and volcanic ash, there is a careful process of refinement used to clean the clay, ash and paints from impurities that may cause crazing, cracking and breakage during the drying and firing process. I liquify the clays, paints and refine through a fine mesh screen. The ratio of clay to ash combination is a critical step in the process of mixing the clay. After hand processing clay, I can create a hand-built piece using both coil and slab methods. I consider the methods and themes I use more contemporary based using traditonal methods and techniques
