artists from around the world for an
exhibition in Paris.
But it is Ortiz’s ability to absorb cultural influences – both inside and outside the pueblo – and strategically incorporate them into his
own vision that sets him apart from other
artists, whether he is working as a traditional potter making vessels and figures or making
models for fashion, video, or film. Virgil’s innate sense and willingness to engage both history
and contemporary events has allowed him to
create and weave a storyline of art and design through his creations across time. This
storyline, introduced through creations evoked
through ‘ancestral memory’ and now being fully realized through the completion of the video and film invoking the Pueblo Revolt 1860/2180
sets Ortiz apart from so many artists whose work simply represents a “point of view.”
Robert Gallegos, a major collector of Cochiti pottery since 1975, was among the first to see that Virgil was a unique talent. He had first seen Virgil when he was six, at the Santa Fe Indian Market, where he was making little animals. But
it was when Gallegos ran across Virgil’s work as
a 15-year-old, producing figures standing with
raised arms, that he had to learn more. As Virgil told American Indian Magazine during an interview:
He asked my parents, “Who’s teaching this kid how to do these really different figures?” Gallegos asked because he had seen something like them in his own collection. He invited Ortiz and his family to visit the collector’s showroom, which had one the largest collection of these [monos] pieces from the 1800s. “We flipped out,” said Ortiz. “We walked in and looked up on his shelves and everything that I had been experimenting on were almost exact replicas of what he had.”
“My parents pulled me out of the showroom. They took me outside and they said, ‘Remember this day because this is something that we didn’t teach you. We didn’t even know these pieces existed,’ Ortiz said. “It’s ancestral memory. There’s no other explanation for it.”6
Virgil was effectively working back through his family into the ancestral beyond of the Anasazi, to then return to the monos and move into a
futuristic world that had yet to be created. It was a method and process that has continued across his career. In fact, time itself takes on a
different characteristic with Ortiz, as all his thinking and work blend into a continuum that moves back and forth, across and within
projects that he has done, is doing, or will do.
It is Ortiz’s ability to absorb cultural influences – both inside and outside the pueblo – and strategically incorporate them into his own vision that sets him apart from other artists.
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Opposite:
Three generations of Ortiz Family potters. The figure in the center by Virgil is one of his first pieces with a woman wearing a bow tie.
Left to right:
Seferina and Guadalupe Ortiz, Virgil Ortiz, and Laurencita Herrera.
Photo Courtesy of:
Virgil Ortiz