Otellie Loloma (December 30, 1921 — January 30, 1993) was a Hopi Native American artist, specializing in pottery and dance. Additionally, she worked with her husband Charles Loloma on jewelry design.
Early life and education Otellie Pasiyava was raised on a Hopi reservation at Second Mesa, Arizona, and educated in schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She made clay objects from childhood, but began formal training in pottery at age 23, when she was invited to study on a scholarship at the School of the American Craftsman at Alfred University.Liz Sonneborn, A to Z of American Indian Women (Infobase Publishing 2007): 134–135. She also attended Northern Arizona University and the College of Santa Fe.Patricia Janis Broder, Earth Songs, Moon Dreams: Paintings by American Indian Women (St. Martins Press 2013): 51–52.
Career Otellie Loloma ran a shop at the Kiva Craft Center in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband in the 1950s. She was one of the first instructors hired for the Southwest Indian Art Project in Tucson, Arizona, a summer institute funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1960 to 1961.Diana F. Pardue, Contemporary Southwestern Jewelry (Gibbs Smith 2007): 17. John Riddick, "20 Indians at UA Try to Resolve 2 Worlds of Art," Tucson Daily Citizen (July 23, 1962): 19. via Newspapers.com
She joined the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when it opened in 1962, a position she held until her retirement in 1988. One of her notable students was potter Robert Tenorio (Kewa Pueblo). In 1991, she was honored with a Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.James McGrath, "Otellie Loloma: Gifts from Second Mesa," Santa Fe Reporter (February 13, 1991): 28. via Newspapers.com
In addition to her expertise in pottery, Loloma taught Native American dance with colleague Josephine Myers-Wapp (Comanche); they performed at the White House and at the 1968 Summer Olympics with their students. In 1970, she was one of two women among eight diverse artists featured in an ABC documentary, "With These Hands: The Rebirth of the American Craftsman," along with Paul Soldner, Peter Voulkos, Dorian Zachai (the other woman artist), Clayton Bailey, James Tanner, Harry Nohr, and J. B. Blunk.Television listings, Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph (May 2, 1970): 43. via Newspapers.com "American Craftsmen Focus of TV Special," Sarasota Herald-Tribune (May 4, 1970): 13.
Personal life Otellie Pasiyava married Hopi jewelry designer Charles Loloma in 1947, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1965. Otellie Loloma died in 1993, age 71.
Public collections Works by Otellie Loloma are included in the permanent collections at the Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the Philbrook Museum of Art, among other institutions.Laura Graves, "Otellie Loloma," in Gretchen M. Bataille and Laurie Lisa, eds., Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (Routledge 2003): 188–189. Otellie Loloma, "Desert Bird" (1965), National Museum of the American Indian collection.
Her nephew Nathan Begaye became an artist in pottery after his aunt.Robert F. Nichols, "Beautiful...as possible: The Pottery Art of Nathan Begaye," FOCUS Magazine (June/July 1993). Her other notable students included painter Dan Namingha.Thomas Hoving, The Art of Dan Namingha (Harry N. Abrams 2000): 27. Susan R. Ressler, ed. Women Artists of the American West (McFarland 2003): 110. Her friend and IAIA colleague, poet James A. McGrath, wrote a book of poems about (and dedicated to) Otellie Loloma, titled The Sun is a Wandering Hunter (2014).James McGrath, The Sun is a Wandering Hunter (Sunstone Press 2014). James McGrath, At the Edgelessness of Light: Poems (Sunstone Press 2005): 38.
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