Daryl Candelaria

San Felipe Pueblo

Daryl Candelaria

Daryl learned pottery making from his mother, Sara Candelaria. He says that shortly after he finished high school she got tired of seeing him planted in front of the television and doing nothing. One day she handed him a lump of clay and said "Make something." That started his journey: he learned from his mother, who had learned from her mother, Juanita Toledo. Juanita Toledo was a Jemez woman who worked with Evelyne Vigil to revive the old Pecos pottery style (in the early 1800s the last few people of Pecos Pueblo abandoned their pueblo and moved to land at Jemez Pueblo granted them by the Governor of Jemez). There are still potters working at Jemez in the Toledo family lineage.

Daryl's skill grew as he researched pottery styles and designs of all the pueblos and of other tribes across the Southwest over the last thousand years. His style has always been an innovative mix of contemporary and historic motifs, shapes and designs. He is known for a technique in which he depicts numerous pottery designs from other pueblos and cultures on a single pot. Then he deep carves the parts of the pot between the designs and creates the illusion of a single pot made up of miscellaneous shards.

Some Awards Daryl has Earned

• Santa Fe Indian Market, 1999: First in Class and First in Division
• Daryl has earned numerous awards at the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show
• In 2001, Daryl was invited as one of two Pueblo artists to participate in a month-long ceramic exposition hosted in South Korea. He received quite a boost in his career from that

Where Daryl's Work is Shown

• Denver Art Museum
• Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM
• Mint Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC
• The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, NM
• The Museum of Ceramics in South Korea