Dee Morris Contemporary Vessels

Old and new potters combine turquoise, coral and other adornment with clays of various textures and finishes. Earthenware effigy jars by the late Annie Fields, Mohave, are rare collector's gems. COLLECTION OF DON & NITA HOEL SEDONA, ARIZONA The white-glaze Acoma style pots, below, represent the transcending art of Dee Morris, Sedona. More than 270 carats of Bisbee turquoise and 150 carats of coral make the classic shaped vessels into contemporary art forms. NINIBAH COLLECTION SEDONA, ARIZONA EDITOR'S NOTE: Somewhere in our travels we have seen the saying: When life hands you a lemon, find more and open a lemonade stand.

When the current energy crisis forced us to shift our publication schedule designed to promote tourism (which has been our reason for being), we decided to program a series of cultural editions in place of scenic attractions. Our Turquoise issue has become an international collector's edition, as has the February Prehistoric Pottery special. This May, Contemporary Southwest Pottery is without doubt the most comprehensive graphic presentation to date on the subject. A 48 page full-color book on Navajo Rugs and Indian Weaving in July will be followed by another Collector Series Special about Southwestern Indian Silversmithing, highlighting the famous Zuni silversmiths.

CREDITS and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It happens with every issue, and we cannot foresee that this one will be different. There is always someone uncredited and unmentioned. And so, to those we have missed crediting and mentioning, forgive us. As soon as we hear from you we'll reserve space in our next issue. Our photographers for this special, mainly Ray Manley, Jerry Jacka, and Peter Bloomer contributed extraordinary measures of quality and quantity. Doctor Patrick Houlihan was a treasure of information other than appears in his text. The Heard Museum trustees and directors never cease to make their institution one of the most attractive and informative sources of Indian arts, crafts and culture. Our three University Museums at Tucson, Tempe and Flagstaff and the Museum of Northern Arizona provided writers and photographers with pottery specimens and background information.

We are most grateful to the several private collectors who asked that their names be withheld for security reasons. We share with them the pleasures and joys related to pride of possession. Barbara Cortwright is a new-found star in our galaxy of contributors. Maggie Wilson is one of the non-Indians most welcome in the pueblos and her columns in the Arizona Republic, Phoenix' A.M. newspaper, are good for an extra cup of morning coffee.

Bob Ashton operates one of the leading Indian arts and crafts establishments in Scottsdale. He and Richard Spivey of Santa Fe, New Mexico are prime sources of information.

Within the profession we are always happy to acknowledge the courtesies and cooperation of Carl Rosnek, Supervisor, Publications Staff, and his staff of El Palacio, Quarterly Journal of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Carlos Nagel, Director.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

No Turning Back, by VADA F. CARLSON, 1964 University of New Mexico Press The Pottery of San Ildefonso Pueblo, by KENNETH M. CHAPMAN, 1970 University of New Mexico Press Maria Martinez, by MARY CARROLL NELSON, 1972, Dillon Press Historic Pueblo Indian Pottery, by FRANCIS H. HARLOW, 1970 Museum of New Mexico Press Contemporary Pueblo Pottery, by HARLOW AND YOUNG, 1970 Museum of New Mexico Press The Indian Arts Fund Collection of The School of American Research. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAURA GILPIN, Museum of New Mexico Press Maria Making Pottery, by HAZEL HYDE, 1973 The Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, N.M.

Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso, by ALICE MARRIOTT University of Oklahoma Press Pueblo Indian Pottery, by MARJORIE F. LAMBERT Museum of New Mexico Press.

PUEBLO POTTERS TODAY

ONE WITH THE CLAY

Since my auto accident two years ago. Oh, I've made forms, but they are empty shells. Without essence. Without the breath of life, of beauty, of oneness.

"I form pots with my hands occasionally now but they lack the harmony. They are empty shells because my mind is disturbed and frustrated and I am filled with aches, pains and anxieties.

"The harmony will return and I will pot again one day. But not yet. Not yet do I hear the music and see the beauty flowing from the clay. Not yet am I one with the clay. Not yet, not yet . . ."

"Did I pray when I was forming pots? Absolutely. The clay is a living being when you put it in your hand, you know. Look at it. A lump . . . a lump that says to me, 'Make me as I am . . . make me beautiful.' So we converse every step of the way, the clay and I.

"If I can see the beauty in my hand . . . if it touches my own inner heartstrings and I can mold it into visual, harmonious beauty, then I have met the challenge.

"But I have to be alone . . . alone with the clay . . . to listen slavishly to its commands, to feel the rhythm, the pulse, the life of it.

"Oh, yes, I pray. One must be alone with the Creator the Supreme Being to capture this feeling of oneness. One with the clay. One with the Creator. One with every living thing, including the grains of sand.

"The clay is a selfish medium, you know. You can't abuse it.

"I won't use it until I can hear its song again, feel its rhythm, its lively heartbeat until I can converse with it again.

"Until that time comes, until I can breathe life into the lump of clay, all I would form would be empty vessels. Just forms without essence.

"I wait for the day I can put a song of beauty into a lump of clay again.

"Perhaps that song of beauty will speak its own harmony to the viewers of my pots again. That will be for me the essence of oneness, beauty, harmony.

"But the time is not yet . . . not yet . . ."

This extraordinary woman began life in the last years of the last century at Old Oraibi, on the Third Mesa of the Hopi Country in Arizona. Polingaysi Qoyawayma was born in the pueblo that has been continuously occupied longer than any settlement in the United States more than a thousand years. One of the first Hopi children to receive an education, she was the first of that group to become a teacher. She taught for thirty years in government schools of Arizona and New Mexico. On retirement in 1954, she received a citation and a medal for distinguished service from the Department of the Interior. She lives now in New Oraibi, at the foot of the mesa where she was born. She is dedicated to obtain-ing educational opportunities for Hopi young people.

YOURS SINCERELY FROM CARLOS ELMER

When the March, 1974 issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Containing its mention of my new book, ARIZONA IN COLOR, was put in the mails, I was just leaving for Mexico City and a visit with daughter Elizabeth. Since the article mentioned that persons not having ready access to book stores could order copies directly from me, I took the precaution of autographing 40 copies so that my good wife, Wilma, could put these in the mails without delay.

After a few days of my Mexican trip, a phone call home disclosed the startling news that Wilma was collecting that many orders each day! The response has been quite unex-pected and quite overwhelming. Since all net proceeds from such direct sales have been pledged to funds in my home town of King-man, Arizona, benefiting widows and children of the 12 men who died in last July's propane tank car explosion, the response was also most gratifying. I have already made my initial visit to Kingman, depositing $700.00 realized from the outpouring of love and affection that I received from all parts of our land, and more comes in each day. Equally unexpected were the extra monies enclosed for these funds, ranging from a few pennies to most substantial amounts. Perhaps most touching to me was the single dollar bill tucked into a fold of ruled tablet paper. The inscription read, simply, "For the children of Kingman." I feel quite honored and privi-leged to serve as a conduit for these expres-sions of sympathy and concern to the people of Kingman who have known sorrow. I have tried to say thank you by means of a form letter accompanying the books, but realize the inadequacy of this. By means of this let-ter, I would wish to again thank your readers, who have clearly shown me what is right with America.

There have been other "fringe benefits." Several old friends from Kingman days have written, and I have heard from no less than six owners of Kodak Medalist cameras who recognized the camera I was holding by the edge of the Grand Canyon. Of special note was the gentleman in the Midwest who owns four of them, using one each year so they wear out together! The Medalist, which was perhaps the finest expression of American camera craftsmanship, was produced more than 30 years ago. I well recall using it as a combat camera in the South Pacific.

The picture of me was taken by another veteran camera, a Leica "G" with 35mm Sum-macron lens. Its age is probably closer to 40 years, but, again, they most certainly "don't make them like they used to." The photographer was Miss Akemi Kishi of Los Angeles, who was seeing the Canyon for the first time as a guest of daughter Liz and myself.

As a final word of clarification, the color picture showing two gals watching golfers amid the pines was taken at Alpine Country Club, Alpine, Arizona, a nice place to be in the summertime. The low-paid models are, again, daughter Elizabeth, left, and Wilma. The picture is in the new book, but I should explain that the format of ARIZONA IN COLOR is 7 x 91½ inches, as compared to the 9 x 12 inch format of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

Again, my thanks on the behalf of King-man and myself to your readers.

A. C. MCARTHUR, BILTMORE ARCHITECT

I have been an admirer and constant reader of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for many years and with the April, 1974 issue, you have con-tinued to uphold the tradition of spectacular and beautiful photographs of Arizona's many wonderful attributes.

I must take exception however to some of the content of the article by Margaret Dudley Thomas describing The Arizona Biltmore Hotel. One would judge from Ms. Thomas' story that Frank Lloyd Wright played a sig-nificant role in the design and construction of The Biltmore which, of course, remains one of the great hotels in the world today. The impression she creates, however, is incon-sistent with the facts.

My uncle, Albert Chase McArthur, as well as the rest of the McArthur family, were close friends of Frank Wright and his family in Chicago since the 1890's. In fact Frank Wright was the architect for the McArthur's Chicago home on Kenwood Avenue which he designed during his early career. Frank and Albert were contemporaries but to my knowledge Albert McArthur never worked "as a young designer and draftsman" for Frank Lloyd Wright. When The Arizona Biltmore began my father, at Albert's request, contacted Frank Wright for permission to use his textile block construction method and Wright was paid a substantial amount of money for the use of this system (I understand at some later time Frank was sued and lost a case brought by another architect who was in fact the inventor of the textile block system). Contrary to the article, Frank and Olgivanna Wright were not invited to Phoenix to "... assist in design-ing and building the hotel," but arrived on their own and, because of his financial dis-tress at that time, Frank was permitted to associate himself with the architect's office for a short period of time. As a result of Frank's persistence he was given the assign-ment of designing one of the lounges near the lobby. However, the design of the main structure and cottages including the patterns of the blocks used, the site planning and total architecture were exclusively the work of Albert Chase McArthur.

If Ms. Thomas had more thoroughly researched her article she would have found a 1929 issue of ARCHITECTURAL RECORD which is entirely devoted to The Arizona Biltmore Hotel, clearly puts forth Albert McArthur as the architect and accurately assesses Frank Wright's minor involvement in the project. While it is undoubtedly true Olgivanna Wright and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation were extremely helpful in the restoration of the hotel after the fire in June of 1973, that con-tribution many years after Frank's death, was far more than any he had made during his lifetime or during the original design and construction of the hotel.

The world recognizes Frank Lloyd Wright as one of the most important architects that this Country has ever produced. It seems sad to me, therefore, that Mrs. Wright or Ms. Thomas, judging from your article, feels com-pelled to give credit to Frank Lloyd Wright for the work of others. Such credit is cer-tainly unneeded for further affirmation of Mr. Wright's great genius.

My father who passed away in Phoenix a year ago had in his possession a letter from Mr. Wright in his own hand disclaiming any credit for The Arizona Biltmore as part of his work. I do not think history should be rewritten by Ms. Thomas or Olgiyanna Wright at the expense of another great talent, the architect for The Arizona Biltmore, Albert Chase McArthur.

Among the many notable potters of the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, are Margaret and Luther Guiterrez (sister and brother). They combined their talents of pottery making and design to create these masterworks. Insert is a ceremonial pot by Lela and Luther (mother and son).