It’s quiet season at the Pueblo.
It’s tradition, in these days of transport via wheeled boxes that run seemingly on their own, to take the last month of the year off from the cacophony of modern life. Beginning the first week of December, vehicles are not permitted within the walls of the old village, despite being allowed most other times of the year. It’s a call to tradition, to an older time and way, a reminder.
There was a time when the plaza and the all the old homes would themselves be wrapped firmly in winter’s blanket by now; a few inches whitening the red earth on either side of the Rio Pueblo and frosting the tops of the multi-story homes, the pine ladders, the arbors; its insulating qualities both sharpening and softening the stillness of the season.
Climate change makes the presence of the snow less sure now, although it’s there this morning. Quiet season, however, remains.
Ceremonial events are just around the corner. Much of the dominant culture’s winter holiday celebrations have long since passed within the Pueblo’s walls, and locally, its Christmas Eve celebration is a popular public ritual. Amidst the bonfires, the people wear traditional dress, as they will on many occasions during this end-of-the-calendar-year season, wrapped in blankets not only for warmth, but out of tradition and respect.
Today’s featured item, shown in the photo above, is a beautiful expression of a man in traditional dress and wrapped in a blanket. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
This representation of a Pueblo elder in traditional dress, complete with blanket, jewelry, and eagle feather, is the work of master carver Ned Archuleta (Taos Pueblo). This one really shows Ned’s ability to coax spirit from stone by following its immanent form, and features great attention to detail: the lines of the blanket, the strands of beads, the markings on the eagle feather in the hair. Formed out of a pink alabaster, it sits atop a pine wood base. Stands 12.25″ high including base (sculpture, 11.25″; base 1″). The sculpture is 6.25″ wide by 1.75″ deep; the base, 6.5″ wide by 3″ deep (all dimensions approximate).
Pink alabaster on pine base
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We’ve highlighted Ned’s work here many times already — most recently, in last week’s Friday Feature. His specialty ranges from fetishes to small carvings to tabletop-sized sculptures like this one to life-sized installations, but he particularly excels at traditional themes. Whether his figurative subjects are Native people or our animal relatives, he brings a sense of history to every piece, even as he gently draws the image out of the very stone.
Alabaster has long been one of his favorite media, and we’ve talked on several occasions already about its unique susceptibility to carving. We’ve talked about its colorful beauty, too, ranging from brilliant, vibrant bands of red reminiscent of agate and onyx to sherbet-like swirls of peach and green to snowy whites, sometimes shot through with siltstone spiderwebs in colors from soft gold to espresso. But one of Ned’s preferred shades is the pink alabaster shown here: cool, silken, a soft and gentle color that settles seamlessly into the folds of winter’s snowy blanket. And, as always, the flowing matrix lines of the stone itself form some of the elegantly draped folds of this elder’s blanket, too.
This piece is seasonal for me, not merely for the style of dress but for the stone itself. It’s the color of the snow in the soft glow of dawn.
It’s the glow of tradition taking corporeal form, wrapping the season in the warm blanket of its gentle light on these cold and gray winter’s days.
~ Aji
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