Paul Speckled Rock

Paul Speckled Rock was a painter, potter and sculptor. His parents were Tonita and Paul Tafoya, he was born into Santa Clara Pueblo in February 1952. When he was 19 he decided he would be a painter. Self-taught all the way, he began with watercolors and progressed into bold and bright acrylics. Then he went into making bronzes in 1977. In 1979 he added lithographs to his repertoire. Then he went to his grandmother, Severa Tafoya, and learned to make pottery.

Paul's first pieces of pottery appeared in 1983 and in 1984 he earned First, Second and Third Place awards at the Gallup InterTribal Ceremonial. He also earned a First Place award that year at the New Mexico State Fair.

Paul was most known for his pottery bear figures. He experimented with micaceous slips and mixed media, adding bronze lids with dancers to the tops of his pottery jars and matching the incised designs.

Paul passed on in 2017.