Gerald Pinto was born and raised in New Mexico on the southern edge of the Navajo reservation. As a member of the Navajo-Diné tribe, he has drawn on the richness and depth of his ancestral culture and combined it in new and exciting ways with other artistic traditions to produce pottery that is unlike any other. He is well known throughout New Mexico for his classic-style smoke pots, terracotta vessels and blackware pottery, which all represent different facets of Navajo history and culture. Most recently, he has begun making Rakú style pieces, which fuse Navajo and Japanese techniques to produce a range of striking finishes.
Gerald's "Elemental" line of smoke pots are similar in many respects to his earlier terracotta pieces, but incorporate a more contemporary style derived in part from the Japanese Rakú tradition. The product of a long and often frustrating process of experimentation with various clays and slips he found near his home, Elemental pots like the one the artist is shown holding above are made from a gypsum base and coated with an iron-based slip. They are burnished with a polisheed amber stone and given an initial firing using either cedar wood or an electric kiln during cold or windy conditions. A second firing, using cedar, piñon, pine, dry sage and other fuels that the artist prefers to keep secret, brings out the unique metallic color of the Elemental pieces, creating a mix of bright gold and darker, smokier tones. The elemental pots are accented with copper and turquoise to achieve a final, striking aesthetic balance. These pots bear motifs that connect them with the ancestral Native American past, such as Navajo creation stories.
On August 13 and 14, 2009 Gerald showed his new "Equinox" line of Navajo-Rakú style pottery at Nativa's Old Town store. Guests had a unique opportunity to learn about this unusual technique, which the artist developed himself in 2007. Equinox is the time of year when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of precisely equal length. The Equinox line represents this state of balance and harmony, juxtaposing a matte black lower surface with a shiny white antique crackle finish on the upper surface where he has applied the glaze. Each piece is finsihed with Kingman green turquoise and copper wire inlay. The artist is pictured below during the Nativa exhibit demonstrating his craft surrounded by a collection of Elemental and Equinox pieces.
