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Maria Martinez: Notable New Mexican
Maria Martinez: Notable New Mexican
A look at the life and art of Native American craft artist and potter Maria Martinez (1887-1980 through the memories of her grand children. Orginally broadcast on New Mexico PBS station KNME-TV.Maria Martinez, a Native American artist, was from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a community located 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico and was known for her traditional Pueblo pottery.
An excavation, in 1908, led by Edgar Lee Hewett, a professor of archaeology and the director of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, discovered examples of black-on-black pottery.
Maria was asked to recreate the black-on-black pottery style for Hewett. As almost all clay found in the New Mexico desert was red, one specific challenge was to figure out a way to dye the red clay jet black. Maria discovered that smothering the fire surrounding the pottery during the firing process caused the smoke to be trapped. The carbon in the smoke caused the pottery to turn to a black ash color (Hyde 20-23). She experimented with the idea that an unfired polished red vessel which was painted with a certain paint on top of the polish and then fired in a smudging fire at a relatively cool temperature would result in a deep glossy black background with dull black decoration. Shards or sheep and horse manure placed around the outside and inside of the outdoor kiva-style adobe oven would give the pot a slicker matte finished appearance. After much trial and error, Maria successfully produced a black ware pot. The first pots for the museum were fired around 1910.According to Susan Peterson in The Living Tradition of Maria Martinez, these steps include, finding and collecting the clay, forming a pot, scraping and sanding the pot to remove surface irregularities, applying the iron-bearing slip and burnishing it to a high sheen with a smooth stone, decorating the pot with another slip, and firing the pot . The first step in creating a pot is gathering the clay. The clay is gathered once a year, usually in October when it is dry and stored in an old weathered adobe structure where the temperature remains constant (Peterson 164).
When Maria is ready to begin molding the clay to form a pot, the right amount of clay is brought into the house. A cloth, laid upon a table, holds a mound of gray pink sand with a fist hole in the center filled with an equal amount of blue sand. A smaller hole is made in the blue sand and water is poured into the hole. The substances are then all kneaded together, picked up within the cloth, washed, and covered with a towel to prevent moisture from escaping where the clay will sit for a day or two to dry. The pukis or “the supporting mold, a dry or fired clay shape where a round bottom of a new piece may be formed" builds the base shape of the pot looking like a pancake (Peterson 167).Angel''s Nest is a sustainable home in Taos, New Mexico made from straw bale, tires, pop cans and bottles. The electricity is generated through wind and solar technology. Rain water is captured as culinary water and there is a bio-diesel/hydrogen fueling station outside.
Earthships
Comfort in Any Climate by Michael Reynolds is an introduction to building your own home using passive solar techniques.
Earthships 101 part I
Earthships 101 part II
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skul
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" TRAILER Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull looks to be an exciting movie. There is a rumor going around that the movie was based on the legend of the 13 skulls that are supposed to prevent the end of the world Dec. 21, 2012. Since the storyline is a secret, we'll have to wait until it's release to see if the plot resembles the rumor.
The filming of Indiana Jones was done in my favorite town of Deming, NM. They don't have a theatre in Deming NM yet but will soon be building one.
Part of the movie was filmed in Deming, at a former World War II Army Air Force base. The film is supposed to take place in 1957 in a Cold War-era.About 6 days of filming was done just outside of Las Cruses on the 180,000-acre Corralitos Ranch, where a concrete slab and a track for a rocket sled were constructed for some night scenes, on which explosions and other pyrotechnics lit up the sky.
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Free Google Keyword Tool
Brad Callen has done it again! This is one of the best google keyword tools I've seen in a long time. It gives you the ability to analyze the google adwords campaigns listed to the right side of your browser window. Before you would read the ad and then if you were interested in knowing more you'd have to click on the link to go to the offer page and in the process the person bidding on the adwords would be charged so much money whenever their link is click on. This keyword tool actually shows you the link of the offer page and the person paying for the ad is not charged!
As a side benfit after you click on the View keywords box under the ad, on the right side at the top of the screen the PPC Web Spy tool lists the keywords the person is using in his campaign, the position of his ad, the average cost per click (CPC), the number of clicks per day and the cost of the ad. Another great feature is if you click on the underlined keyword it will show you another ad with the keyword in it that the person is using in another google campaign. This is a great tool as you can see the many campaigns a particular person is using.
There is also a suggest tool for an even greater number of keyword ideas. This tool is viral because it is a free tool and you can give the link to many people. It has benefits for the marketer also as if you buy the upgrade you can advertise your affliate links in the top 2 positions of the Firefox web browser. Check it out at http://www.ppcwebspy.com/downloads/?buddy13
To Your Success!
