Carl Gray Witkop began working with clay as a child. His mother was a sculptor, painter and ceramic artist. He taught himself techniques based on Native American and neolithic European traditions beginning in 1968 after seeing Highland Maya potters working in Guatemala, while majoring in anthropology at Colorado State University. Accidental effects during pit firing led to the first horsehair firing in the early seventies. With his first wife, Mary Blake Witkop, he devised a variation of coil-building stemming from the Pueblo use of a puki for forming vessels. Introduced to Taos / Picuris micaceous clay in the late seventies, Carl and Mary worked with Bernadette Track, some of her family members, and with other potters to learn the magical properties of that clay. Since then, Carl has continued to develop traditional and novel firing methods.

Bernadette Track learned the art of potting from her grandmother. She studied potting at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Bernadette was thinking of taking up potting as a serious endeavor when she chanced to meet Mary in 1976, who encouraged her. As her work progressed, Bernadett became one of the principals in the revival of Taos Pueblo potting along with family members, a friend, and other artists. As Pueblo culinary traditions were one of Bernadette’s passions, she found that micaceous clay vessels were indispensable, so she followed the tradition of creating bean pots and other items from that clay. Bernadette, with sisters Soj, Doll, and Maxine, her mother sculptor Geronima Track, her aunt Juanita DuBray, and friend Henrietta Gomez, worked to introduce the idea that micaceous clay could be used as an artistic medium, not limited to functional ware. Bernadette taught Pueblo pottery at UNM for several years. The extraordinarily generous sharing of her knowledge of Pueblo potting has inspired artists of various backgrounds.