Nancy Youngblood
Santa Clara
Miniature
Vase
2 1/4"
H x 1 3/4" D
Nancy Youngblood (native name
Yellow Aspen) was born at Fort Lewis, Washington in 1955 to Mela
and Walton Youngblood. Mela Tafoya had met and married Walton
in Colorado Springs, CO., where he was in the army. Nancy spent
her early years on army bases in the United States and Europe,
but came to the Santa Clara Pueblo with their mother in 1968
when Walton was sent to Vietnam.
Mela began making pots again,
and Nancy was surrounded by her family's work and that of her
grandmother, Margaret Tafoya, by now the matriarch of pueblo
pottery. She learned traditional family ways to gather clay,
refine it, shape it, carve and polish pots by watching her mother
and grandmother at work. As a young teenager, Nancy was determined
to make her own pots by trial and error, and many failures contributed
to her learning process. Her first piece for competition was
a miniature with a sgraffito serpent design which won a second
prize at Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial in 1972.
Nancy enrolled in studio art
courses at the University of New Mexico in 1975 to study art.
Although she was already gaining a reputation and a following
among collectors as a unique miniaturist, carver, and innovative
designer. After a year, with a heightened awareness of her creative
spirit, Nancy knew to become an artist she had to devote all
of her time to mastering her craft.
By 1976, at age 21, Nancy
had her first major exhibition at Gallery 10 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In time, owner Lee Cohen was to become a caring mentor and good
friend, and Nancy considers him to have had the greatest business
influence on her career. From the beginning Lee made her feel
that her work was special, and he respected her opinions as well
as her talent. For the first time Nancy realized the significance
of her work and that she could stand on her own as an artist.
Their working relationship and friendship lasted for 19 years
with Nancy's pots exhibited regularly at Gallery 10 in Scottsdale
and Santa Fe with various shows in Beverly Hills, Ca. and New
York City. Since his death in 1995, Nancy has marketed her own
work.