Louise Goodman was from Cow Springs on the Navajo Nation.  She began her pottery career-making utilitarian pottery.  In the 1980s, she began making animal figures.  Her stylized bears are notable for their small heads and legs and substantial torsos, as well as surface textures that mimic a bear’s thick fur.  At the same time, she also began making her iconic “rope” pots.  She worked in a ​“closet-sized studio” in her house in Cow Springs, Arizona, at the end of a trail leading from an abandoned trading post.