Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kathleen Nez

Potter -- via News from Indian Country.

1 comment:

  1. “She guided the earth on the wheel and always things came around …” is a phrase taken from Poem for Nez, written by T.V. Handloser (see below) on the eve of Katheleen’s passing.

    I was distinctly honored to be drawn close to Katheleen and her immediately family the last year of her life. I’ve been very fond of Native American fine art my entire life. For several years I served as a volunteer art director at the annual La Quinta Arts Festival held in Coachella Valley, California. But I didn’t need to be an artisan or an art director to appreciate Katheleen’s creative gift as a master potter.

    Her independent, masterful style reflected her legacy – no doubt – was strongly influenced by the breadth of her broad cultural experience which reached far beyond the Navajo Reservation.

    During the month of May 2011, Robert Nichols Gallery, 419 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico plans to recognize Katheleen’s distinctive style with a showing entitled, “Retrospective of Nez”.

    She has left us with her masterful pots as a living legacy of her spiritual essence and we’ve become the eternal memories of her rich intellect, quick wit, dry sense of humor and human kindness. It was fitting that we sent her along into the afterlife on such a beautifully clear January winter day in Flagstaff, Arizona. In the season of the year when some things are just ending and others are just preparing to begin.

    With My Loving Regards to Katheleen and her beloved family, FJT

    POEM FOR NEZ
    By Thomas Vorce Handloser

    An early spring beginning sooner that the falling leaves can fertilize the ground.

    Down I say, Down.

    Lower than the years before when the course of uplift was in the seasons.

    She guided the earth on the wheel and always things came around,

    around until there was only a whisper left.

    And a full-fledged universe at night,

    Eclipsed by silence.

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