Mary Calengor is known for her highly detailed realism painted in oil on linen and canvas.  There is amazing detail in her art, along with an intuitive sense of how she captures the light on her subjects.  This painting is entitled “The Gourd Jar“.  The subject is a weaving and a Santa Clara Pueblo jar.  I’m not sure the photos capture how beautifully she painted the reflection of the weaving on the surface of the jar.  Or the detail in the weaving itself.  It’s exceptional!

Mary says of this painting:

At King Gallery, where my work is represented, there is the most impressive collection of Native American pottery.  Every piece is incredible but I am very drawn to the pots and jars that are fired to a black finish.  I found this gourd jar there by artist Sharon Naranjo-Garcia and fell in love with it for its graceful form and stone polished glass-like finish.  I decided this beautiful piece of art should be captured as the main focus of a painting and I knew the polished finish would be a very interesting challenge.  That proved true.  Getting the black color just right took some experimentation and capturing the reflection of the blanket really brought it to life.

I was in the midst of the painting when I visited Indian Market in Santa Fe.  I saw that Sharon was going to be there with her work and I set out to find her amidst all of the artists.  I found the booth where her work was being shown and a family member said she was sitting in the shade across the street.  I asked around and finally found her.  It was such a lovely thing to meet her and tell her that I owned a piece of her work and wanted to honor it in a painting of mine.  She was so thrilled and told me several times to be sure to send her a photo of the painting when I completed it.  It is these connections with the artists, between artists, with collectors, gallerists that make the art world such a joy to be a part of.

The gourd jar, Sharon told me, was formed using gourd shards to smooth and shape the interior of the pottery.  This jar has 8 gourd indentions around the shoulder.  In the book Born of Fire it reads:  The Story of the Gourd Pot “Remember the story about the gourd.  The gourd was asking Mother Clay, why she was just used for shaping the pottery.  Why was she not given her own design?  So she was allowed to create her own design.  That’s why we have this shape, with the flat sides.”  Mary Esther Archuleta, Born of Fire