Elizabeth Manygoats

Navajo

Born in 1973, the daughter of Betty Manygoats, Elizabeth Manygoats is a Navajo potter from the Kayenta-Tonalea area. Like her husband, Jonathan Chee, most of her work falls in the "Navajo Folk Art" classification.

She says she is mostly self-taught but her mother and nine sisters are also potters. Elizabeth is the only one of them who makes pottery full-time.

She says she is inspired by the life around her and one of her favorite shapes to make is a jar with a Navajo family scene wrapped around it: appliqués of sheep, dogs, women, horses, trees, mesas, hogans. She calls those "Lifestyle Pots."

Elizabeth also adds repoussé horned toads, prickly pear cacti and ears of corn to some of her pieces. Elizabeth also makes chickens wearing sneakers. And Navajo nativity sets where the wise men bring sacks of flour... One piece Navajo yard scenes where the woman is working and the man just laying around. I also remember seeing a nativity set with no Baby Jesus in a manger (yet) but Joseph and Mary were praying. Folks were calling it "The Night Before." I've seen so many people smile when they see her work and that's what it's all about for her.

She usually signs her pottery on the bottom with "EM Dineh".