Artist

Louise Goodman

born Cow Springs, Navajo Nation, AZ 1937

Also known as: Louise Rose Goodman
Active in: Cow Springs, Navajo Nation, Arizona, United States

Biography: A contemporary exponent of a longstanding Navajo pottery tradition, Goodman has produced simple vessels and utilitarian objects. When the demand for functional works decreased in the 1980s she turned to 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. Goodman's choice of the bear reflects the important role this animal has played in the lives of the Navajo and other Native American communities. A key source of food and of materials for clothing, shelter, and ceremonial objects, they are also important as emblems of power and plenitude.
Lynda Hartigan Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999)
: Luce Artist Biography
When Louise Goodman realized that the demand for functional pottery was falling, she began making decorative rope pots, wedding vases, and animals. She works in a "closet-sized studio" in her house in Cow Springs, Arizona, at the end of a trail leading from an abandoned trading post. All seven of Goodman's children helped her with her pottery while they were growing up and one of her daughters, Virginia Shortman, is now a potter (Chuck and Jan Rosenak, The People Speak: Navajo Folk Art, 1994).

Works by this artist (2 items)

Louise Goodman, Bear, 1990, fired clay with piñon pitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock, 1997.124.154

Artist

Date1990

fired clay with piñon pitch

Louise Goodman, Coiled Pot, ca. 1986, fired clay with piñon pitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock, 1997.124.155

Artist

Dateca. 1986

fired clay with piñon pitch