Juanita Gonzales

San Ildefonso Pueblo

Juanita Gonzales was born in Taos Pueblo in 1909. After she finished high school she was working at a hospital where she met Louis Gonzales. He was a promising painter just getting into the limelight with his career when a hunting accident cost him his right arm. They fell in love and got married in 1933. They moved to his home at San Ildefonso. She learned the fundamentals of making pottery from Rose Gonzales, her new sister-in-law.

Juanita generally produced carved blackware and redware wedding vases, bowls, jars and plates. She made pottery from 1933 until 1982 and shared a booth at the Santa Fe Indian Market with her daughter, Adelphia Gonzales Martinez, from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s. She passed on in 1988.

Juanita signed most of her pieces "Juanita Wo'peen" as her husband's Tewa name was "Wo'peen."