Featured Storyteller Figure

Since everyone is doing so well and being super helpful!

The figure portrays a seated woman holding two children, with two additional children seated on her legs. The underside is signed:

Phyllis Tosa
Jemez
8-31-85

We would appreciate any information about Phyllis Tosa, her work, and the appropriate way to describe this particular storyteller figure.

 

modern storyteller...??

the watch....and white mans dress clothes...

 

There's a
Phyllis Madalena Tosa
https://nativeskiesgallery.com/prod...1Eo-_OQAeu_-GKgvDibAUk2A-WnB5_NxyU5e_Mb7so3Ai
"Chief pottery maker and master artisan. Her designs seamlessly blend the ancient and the new, and may include the people, flora and fauna, the weather, the four seasons, and/or the cardinal directions.

Each clay craft is hand-built slowly, using meticulous methods of coiling and pinching. She fires her Jémez artworks in traditional ways. Every striking design and fine line is then hand painted. Smooth accents are vigorously stone polished."

Not sure if it's the same Phyllis, as the Phyllis M works, look more like this.


But her style and skills might have evolved a bit since 1985...

 

The coloring looks similar, but yeah, I would guess it would have to be an early piece for it to be the same artist.

 

The Storyteller figures were originated by Helen Cordero of Cochiti Pueblo in the mid 1960's. The style became so popular that potters in other Pueblos started creating Storytellers in their own styles.

"Jemez has long been noted for 'tourist trinkets' and small figurines, and several of the older potters reported making Singing Mothers painted with poster paint in the 1950s, but it was only in 1968 that Marie Romero and her mother Persingula Gachupin made the first Storytellers. After the mid-1970s, there was a dramatic increase in Storyteller production, and by the mid-1980s, there were over sixty potters in Jemez, in addition to seven Jemez potters in other Pueblos, making figurines."
Barbara A. Babcock, Guy and Doris Monthan: The Pueblo Storyteller. University of Arizona Press, 1986.

The authors also note that: "Since the 1920s, there has been considerable experimentation at Jemez with various decorated styles, materials, and techniques, including kiln-fired commercial colors and glazes and painting after firing with poster paints and acrylics."

Given that there were over 60 Jemez potters at work by the time period of your figure, it is not surprising that there may not be specific mention of Phyllis Tosa. However, in an extensive survey of potters documented as making Storyteller figures, the authors list Persingula Tosa (b. 1924) and her daughters Mary Madalena and Dora Tosa, as well as Sefora Y. Tosa.

Your figure is a typical Storyteller in its form, a seated woman with open mouth, surrounded by several children. It appears to have been painted after firing, with acrylic paints. The surface is quite shiny, unlike the matte surfaces created by the more traditional use of colored clay slips applied before firing, and the thin detail lines on the hands are more characteristic of acrylics. You can see the difference in comparison with this Storyteller signed by Jemez potter M. Tose, currently listed on etsy -


https://www.etsy.com/listing/1658630753/m-tosa-jemez-pueblo-pottery-storyteller