Helen Cordero

Who was Helen Cordero?

Helen Cordero was a Cochiti Pueblo potter from Cochiti, New Mexico. She was renowned for her storyteller pottery figurines, a motif she invented,based upon the traditional "singing mother" motif.

She was a lifelong resident of Cochiti Pueblo. She "followed a traditional way of life including digging her own clay and preparing her own pigments." After 1964, her family members joined her in making Storyteller figurines.

She would

"work outdoors in warm weather and at her kitchen table in the winter. Her husband and son drove one hundred miles to bring home the cedar wood she used to fire her pieces ... on an open iron grate behind her house."

Alexander Girard supported her by purchasing her early work.

Helen Cordero was honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure in 1985. In 1986 she was made a National Heritage Fellow.

Helen Cordero Primary School, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is named after her.