“Born of Pueblo heritage, pottery runs in my DNA. Pueblo-Tewa pottery is my family’s past, present and future. It is our life — personal, home, social and career. Children begin their lives with an Indian name and a naming bowl. Many pots of all types pass throughout our lives. Some were made by us; some were made by aunts, cousins, grandmothers, other family members or neighbors, or at times from another Pueblo. At the end of our lives, after death, we have another pot. We begin and end with pottery. Some are polished, some are unfired, some are cracked or broken, some are painted and/or carved, but they are always made with the connection of the past, the touch of the present and a story to tell the future. This is who I am, a small part of a great whole. And maybe I can become a great part of a small whole, all because of pottery in my DNA.”

Polly Rose Folwell, Santa Clara Pueblo, b. 1963, is the oldest of Jody Folwell’s three children. Like her sister and the relatives in her larger extended family, Folwell grew up seeing her mother, grandmother, aunts and cousins making clay in a variety of forms. Her mother’s bold foray into contemporary imagery and messages, expressed at a time when traditional American Indian pottery was the norm, paved the way for Folwell, her sister and others to follow. Like her mother, Folwell is comfortable making high-polished jars using a well-worn polishing stone in a centuries-old technique or making more abstract acrylic-painted ones.

Folwell attended New Mexico Highlands University and she also studied cinematography, which increased her sense of looking at and examining the world around her. She has received accolades for contemporary works including receiving the Best of Classification in Pottery Award for the commemorative work Nine-Eleven at the 2003 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. She is credited with developing one of the signature Folwell family designs that the three women call the “melted rim.” This uneven and darkened surface gives the rim the appearance that a traditional water jar acquires after years of use and wear.