Glendora Fragua

Jemez Pueblo

Glendora Fragua [Daubs] was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1958. She spent some of her early years in California before her family moved back to Jemez Pueblo in the 1970s. Her mother, Juanita Fragua, taught her the fundamentals of the traditional Jemez way of making pottery and by the age of 16, she was engaged in learning sgraffito techniques, working to develop her own style. Her grandmother, Benina Medina Madelena, had married into Jemez Pueblo from Zia Pueblo and has been credited with helping to revive the pottery making tradition at Jemez.

Glendora characterizes her work as contemporary but made the traditional way: hand-gathered-and-processed clay, volcanic ash for temper, paints from the Earth and plants, everything is done by hand the ancient way... the only modern technology she uses is an electric kiln to fire her pots in. The designs she uses are her own, carved into her pots after they've dried and been polished but not fired yet. After carving she might add a red or buff or micaceous slip, then she adds her trademark cornstalk to the bottom and signs the piece before firing it.

Glendora Daubs is a name many collectors recognize her by as she used that during the time she was married. Over the years she has earned pretty much every Blue Ribbon awarded for pottery at the various Indian Markets and Fairs in the Southwest at least once. Her sister is BJ Fragua, her brother Cliff Fragua (famous for his statue of Popé in the Statuary Hall at the US Capitol). At least one of Glendora's pieces is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian.