# @virgilortiz on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DNwAvKJZCqK
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/61701138-virgilortiz-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/c4ce6074c0.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-08-24T19:57:47.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Virgil Ortiz (@virgilortiz) — https://gondola.cc/virgilortiz

## Caption

Seeing these pieces wheelwrightmuseum in #santafe created by our mom Seferina Ortiz brings back so many happy memories and inspiration. We miss you mom!🫶🏼🙏🏽
Bathing Beauties, circa 1980-90
Clay and natural pigment
Wheelwright Museum Collection, Gift of Jim, Alice, Gifford, and Joanne Phillips, and Marjore Phillips Elliot
Around 1870, potters at Cochiti Pueblo began to develop a unique art form.
Using locally gathered clay and traditional methods of construction, they created freestanding, ceramic caricatures of acrobats, sideshow performers, Anglo cowboys, Mexican merchants, and other denizens of New Mexico. Sometimes standing more than two feet tall, these material figurines are masterpieces of engineering and craftsmanship.
Born at Cochiti in 1931, artist Seferina Ortiz began her journey to becoming a great matriarch and a well-respected ceramicist of her generation. Her lineage of renowned and equally innovative ceramists included her son, Virgil Ortiz, daughter Janice Ortiz, and granddaughter Lisa Holt, to name a few. Like many potters before her, she learned the fundamentals of traditional pottery making from her mother Laurencita R. Herrera (1912-1984) who was an important Pueblo artist specializing in traditional Cochiti figurative pottery and whose practice occurred from the 1930s through the 1970s. She is known as one of the most important Cochiti potters of that time. Ortiz followed her mother’s lead and created mostly traditional style Cochiti storytellers, vessels, animal and human figures, but also expanded beyond the more conventional style of work.
The Bathing Beauties on display offer a narrative in which Ortiz reveals and comments on contemporary subjects, using humor to engage her audience, express herself and reflect on others. In doing so, humor becomes a form of resilience. She is represented in many museum and private collections including the Peabody Essex Museum at Harvard University. Ortiz won numerous awards for her works at the Santa Fe Indian Market. #ceramics #reel #clay #indigenous #art #MadeInNativeAmerica®️

## Stats

- **Views:** 1,505
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## Tags

art, reel, santafe, ceramics, indigenous, madeinnativeamerica, clay

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