Christopher Lewis is a fiber artist, basket and textile scholar who lives in the village of Zuni Pueblo in Southwestern New Mexico. He is a member of the Badger Clan and a child of the Corn Clan. For more than a decade, Lewis has worked to revive basketry in Zuni, and has worked with other Pueblos to revive their textile arts. He has studied ancient perishables such as baskets, textiles, wood, and feather work in museum collections across the Southwest. Lewis produced many of the pot rests featured in the exhibition Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery.
Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery was curated by the Pueblo Pottery Collective, a group of more than 60 Native American community members convened from the 22 Pueblo communities in the Southwest. The Collective was established in 2019 specifically to develop an exhibition that centers the voices of Native American people in the curation and display of Native American art.
Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery will open in New York City (Lenapehoking) at the Vilcek Foundation and the Metropolitan Museum of Art from July 13, 2023 to June 2, 2024. The exhibition features works from the Vilcek Collection and from the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research.
The Vilcek Foundation is based in New York City, which is located on the ancestral land of the Lenape people, known as Lenapehoking. The Lenape are a diasporic people that remain closely connected with this land. We support Native American sovereignty. Awareness of historical and contemporary Indigenous exclusion and erasure and the associated traumas is critically important, and we are working to overcome the effects of Indigenous exclusion in our operations and programs.
Produced in collaboration with the School for Advanced Research (SAR), O’gah’poh geh Owingeh/Santa Fe, New Mexico.
