Mineral Earth Painting of Swimming Mimbres Turtles [SOLD]

Pablita Velarde (1918-2006) Tse Tsan - Golden Dawn of Santa Clara Pueblo is best known for her earth paintings, where she used mineral and rock elements, which she would grind on a metate and mano until the result was a powdery substance from which she made her paints. This is an earth painting illustrating five Mimbres turtles swimming through some plant materials.  Pablita made a varied color and varied shape background to provide visual contrast to the painting.

Pablita worked in water-based paints from time to time, mostly casein, but she is best known and internationally recognized for her paintings rendered in her own hand-made paints from mineral sources. She would first draw her designs on Masonite panels that were treated with a coat of pumice. She then used her ground-up minerals as paint to fill in the areas she had drawn. To mix her paints, she combined the pigment with water and glue, and then painted with paintbrushes. She would paint each color up to seven layers to gain the consistency she desired. She then would outline the images, once again as many as seven or so times, to insure they were strong in color.

Condition: original condition in the original frame

Provenance:  from the estate of a gentleman collector from New York

Recommended Reading:  Woman's Work: The Art of Pablita Velarde by Sally Hyer