Senora Lynch became interested in making pottery at age fourteen, when she assisted the tribe’s elders with a pottery class. She made some pottery herself, but after the class ended, she had neither the opportunity nor the materials to continue. Twenty years later, Lynch met a potter who agreed to teach her the craft. She’s been a potter ever since.

Lynch creates her pottery at home using the hand-coiling method, an exacting process. First, she pounds red clay and rolls it into long ropes. Next, she coils the ropes and stacks them to form the desired vessel shape, pressing them together. She then smooths the clay with her fingers and scrapes it with a tool to make the coils stick together. She continues to smooth and stretch the coils with her fingers, finally polishing the vessel with a rock to make it even smoother and shinier. To make a design, Lynch places white clay on top of the red clay and etches patterns in it with a fine tool. The vessel then goes into a kiln near Lynch’s home and is fired for four to eight hours. This process results in exquisite pottery that has been exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of History, 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, and Smithsonian Institution.

Superstitions, sayings, and stories from the Haliwa-Saponi inspire Lynch’s unique designs, as does the natural environment. She uses the dogwood flower because it is a sign of spring, its appearance signaling that the time to plant corn has arrived. Tobacco, the spirit of life, and corn, the staff of life, are sacred plants to the Haliwa-Saponi and also appear in her designs. “My designs are my descriptions of tradition,” Lynch explains.
 

Dogwood and Corn bowl

Grouping with turtles and dogwood bowl

Lynch is also an educator who teaches students about American Indians and works to overcome racial stereotypes. In her school programs—for kindergarten through twelfth grade, focusing on fourth grade—Lynch uses art to teach the history and culture of her people and other North Carolina tribes. Children, she observes, respond positively as she dispels the image of Indians as feather-wearing hunters on horseback. Lynch urges teachers to learn more about Indian history and culture. She was nominated for a 2001 North Carolina Folk Heritage Award for her work in promoting and preserving the culture of the Haliwa-Saponi people.

Visit http://www.possibilities4.bizland.com/senoraweb.html to read more about her and to see an on-line gallery of her work.
 

Assignment 5

Complete one of the following options:

Option 1
Create a list of American Indian art resources appropriate for your curriculum. Include a brief notation on how you can use each resource. Resources may include, but are not limited to, secondary sources, museums, photographs, music, videos (theater, movies, dancing, etc.), slide shows, lesson plans, literature, paintings, sculpture, pottery, and Indian artists themselves. 

Option 2
Create a virtual field trip of Web sites about American Indian arts. You may survey various art forms and tribes or concentrate on one genre, time period, tribe, or region. Use an outline or a narrative form. Include the following elements:

• a brief description of each Web site
• questions the students should answer after visiting each site
• assignments based upon the material
• other details you wish to include

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