Don Goodrich on wed 1 may 96
In August of 1991, a 10-day workshop was held in Chaco Canyon, sponsored
by Idyllwild School of Music & the Arts (of Idyllwild, CA) as part of their
On-Site Native Arts program. It was taught by Lucy Lewis's daughters Dolores
Garcia and Emma Mitchell, with assistance from several other family members.
Lucy herself was there, too. Although frail and blind, her expert fingers
were able to evaluate our pots. When her judgement "Nice and thin!" was
pronounced regarding a student's pot, you'd have thought it was the
benediction of a goddess. The surroundings at Chaco are magical and indeed
transforming. The Anasazi ruins inspire wonder at what it must have been like
to grow up in an environment with so much wild stone everywhere. We learned
where the native clay could be found and dug it, then carried it back to
camp, slaked it and spread it out on a cloth to dry to plastic consistency,
then wedged and worked with it. The arid climate allowed this all to be done
in one or two days. The rest of the class days were spent learning native
handbuilding and decorating techniques, and how to build and fire a kiln of
cow dung. (Range-fed cattle dung is preferred, since it contains more grass
fiber and burns better. Gathering it is a job Indian kids get assigned by
their parents, as is stone burnishing of dry greenware.) Outside of class,
sources of wonder included the huge ancient apartment buildings and kivas of
the Anasazi, spectacular fossils lying about the mesa, rainbows made by
moonlight, and forty miles of washboard roads leading in and out of Chaco
Canyon. At the end of our stay, we convoyed many miles south to the Acoma
Pueblo and visited with the Lewises in their home. It was an enriching
exposure to a way of life I wouldn't have guessed at from the backwaters of
Illinois, and well worth the $800+ that Idyllwild charged: the memories are
priceless. Lucy died the following April, I believe, and the on-site native
arts programs are no longer offered by that school. It's good to read that
there are classes being taught at Acoma. I heartily recommend it to anyone
who needs their horizons broadened. --Don Goodrich
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