Dirt for Making Things: An Apprenticeship in Maricopa Pottery [SOLD]

Dirt for Making Things: An Apprenticeship in Maricopa Pottery

As told to Janet Stoeppelmann by Mary Fernals

Northland Publishing

First edition, Softcover, 1995. 98 pages illustrated with photographs in color and black and white.

From the back cover:

Dirt for Making Things: An Apprenticeship in Maricopa Pottery is a combination of scholarly detail about how Maricopa pottery is made and the heartwarming narrative of an Anglo woman's relationships with Maricopa potters. It is also the only account of its kind about Maricopa pottery making. As less than half a dozen Maricopa women are making pots today, Dirt for Making Things is a timely and important contribution to the preservation of this vital art form.

Told to author Janet Stoeppelmann by Mary Fernald, who learned Maricopa pottery making while working on her thesis in the early 1970s, Dirt for Making Things interweaves the details of pottery making, from clay gathering to decoration and firing, with an outsider's experiences, frustrations, and rewards in the process. It is the definitive work on modern Maricopa pottery technique and its history.