O' Powa O' Meng

Celebrates five decades of the Pueblo potter's career through iconic works and personal stories

Jody Folwell (b. 1942), a contemporary potter from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, is widely considered among the most significant and influential clay artists of her generation. This tightly focused career retrospective, long overdue, presents iconic works that demonstrate the arc of her groundbreaking artistic output. O' Powa O' Meng showcases Folwell's remarkable contributions, integrating the trailblazing Native American artist within the wider canon of contemporary American art.

This fully illustrated exhibition catalog, with contributions from the co-curators and leading Native artists, reveals how Folwell has revolutionized Pueblo pottery, and Native art more broadly, by pushing the boundaries of traditional form, content, and design. She was one of the first Pueblo artists to use pottery for political commentary and advocacy of social justice, and she singlehandedly set a trend, now widely used by younger clay artists, for using writing and designs as direct narrative.