Acoma Pueblo

Charmae Shields-Natseway is a full blooded Native American Indian, she is a member of the Yellow Corn Clan from the Acoma Pueblo.

She was born in 1958 and has been working with clay art since 1977. She learned the art of working with clay from Dolores Sanchez, her grandmother, and Ethel Shields, her mother. They taught her all the fundamentals of constructing pottery using the ancient traditional method of hand coiling and pinching that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Charmae is noted for her superb quality of lidded pottery cylinders, boxes, and pyramids. She gathers her natural clays and slips from within the Acoma Pueblo. She breaks the clumps of clay down to a fine powder form and them mixes it with water and other natural pigments to a fine medium. Then, she begins to hand coil her vessels. When the raw formed vessels are dried she sands off the excess to give her vessels a smooth finish. She hand boils all her colors from natural plants and vegetation and begins to hand paint her designs.

She signs her pottery as: Charmae Shields Natseway, Acoma, N.M., followed by a corn stalk to denote her family origin.

Publications:
-Southwestern Pottery Anasazi to Zuni
-Southern Pueblo Pottery 2,000 Artist Biographies
-Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery
Awards:
-Santa Fe Indian Market numerous years
-New Mexico State Fair numerous years
-Gallup N.M. Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremony
-Phoenix Heard Museum Show