The most famous of all Pueblo potters is Maria Martinez (1887-1980). She is credited as having created the first contemporary black Pueblo pottery, but in reality, that is not true. They had made black pottery at Santa Clara since the 1600s.

She created the famous "Black on Black" pottery with painted mat black designs on a beautiful black finish.

The first time I really took the time to look at Shonto Begay's work was in the 1980s when I was judging Navajo weaving at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Back in those days, and really, still today, there are not many Navajo weavings entered at the Market. 

In May of this year, a collector we have worked with for many years contacted us about a small collection of very nice Indian art that he had decided to sell. We picked the paintings up in Denver and are featuring them this Thursday night, along with a few other unique paintings we received about the same time. Most of these paintings were collected 40 years ago. They range in price from $250 to $2500.00 and include works by Pueblo Indian artists, Navajo painters and even a few Plains pieces.

Mae was born around 95 years ago. Even she does not know for sure how old she is because no one recorded the date when she was born.

We do know that she has been at it a long time!