“Primitive Potter” Travels into the Backcountry for 10 Days with Only a Knife & Buckskin and Makes Anasazi Pottery

in Art | April 13th, 2017 3 Comments

From film­mak­er Steve Olpin comes a short doc­u­men­tary (a “doc­u­men­tary poem”) called Earth and Fire, about artist and prim­i­tive pot­ter Kel­ly Magle­by. The film fol­lows Kel­ly as she trav­els into “the back­coun­try of South­ern Utah with a knife and a buck­skin for 10 days to try to learn about Anasazi pot­tery by doing it the way the Anasazi did it.” On her web­site, Kel­ly writes “My desire to make Anasazi pot­tery start­ed with my inter­est in prim­i­tive and sur­vival skills. I love the fact that you can go into the wild with noth­ing and get all you need to sur­vive and even flour­ish from the earth. The idea that you can go out and dig up some ‘dirt’, shape it, paint it and fire it all using only mate­ri­als found in nature is amaz­ing to me.” On her site, she details her method for mak­ing the pot­tery. Find more info about the Anasazi and their pot­tery here and here.

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Comments (3)
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  • Beverly Fry says:
    April 18, 2017 at 11:10 am

    As far as I am con­cerned the only mis­take this lady made was in label­ing her work as Anasazi. Know­ing the prob­a­ble method and pur­pose of mak­ing pot­tery “from scratch“is not a sin. It is ille­gal and a defama­tion to a cul­ture to claim that her pot­tery is Anasazi or Aco­ma or Mound Builder. It is Olga Alexan­der pot­tery and shares method to a degree with all oth­er pot­tery.

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  • John Dobbs says:
    April 14, 2020 at 9:28 am

    Hey Bev
    Well if you read the descrip­tion right it is nev­er stat­ed that she is mak­ing Anasazi Pot­tery. It is states it as Anasazi Style pot­tery. Kin­da like The Sur­re­al­ists did Dali Style Paint­ings. She nev­er claims to be Anasazi.

    Reply
  • Anthony says:
    June 27, 2020 at 10:42 am

    Hey John, well if you read descrip­tion right above the YouTube link on the open­cul­ture page it states quite clear­ly “Anasazi Pot­tery”.

    Reply

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