Autumn Borts-Medlock

Santa Clara Pueblo

Born in 1967, Autumn Borts-Medlock grew up learning to make pottery from her mother, Linda Cain, and grandmother, Mary Cain. Her first creations were animal figurines and small pots. As she grew, so did her styles and designs. She says Nature has provided her greatest inspiration but there's also an old Georgia O'Keefe poster in her studio that jogs her inspiration when nothing else is working.

Autumn learned to work with different colors of clay and her pieces now often have four or five different colors accentuating her intricate carved designs.

Tammy Garcia is Autumn's sister.

In 2001, Autumn earned the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Collectors Choice Award. She earned ribbons at Santa Fe Indian Market in the years 2001-2004, 2006-2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, and in 2019 she earned a Best of Division ribbon and a First Place ribbon, both for her pottery. At the Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Fair & Market, she's earned ribbons in the years 2004, 2006-2009, and 2012. I'm sure there's more I don't know of.

Her work has been featured in exhibits at the Peabody Essex Museum of Harvard University, the American Craft Museum in New York City, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2019 her work was featured at the 2019 Yale University Art Gallery exhibition Pueblo Women's Ceramics from the Patti Skigen Collection and at the Crocker Museum exhibition Pueblo Dynasties: Master Potters from Matriarchs to Contemporaries.