Wedding Jar (Double Spouted Pitcher)

Label

Robert Marcus’s glass work has grown out of the traditional pottery-making he learned from his mother and grandmother in Ohkay Owingeh. Drawing on the forms and designs of Ohkay Owingeh pottery, Marcus experiments with glassmaking techniques. The color, transparency, and texture he achieves are unique to the medium of glass—which, when carved, adds multiple layers of complexity to Marcus’s reinterpretation of Pueblo stylistic traditions.

From the 2022 exhibition Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design, curated by Dillen Peace '19, Native American Art Intern and Sháńdíín Brown '20, Native American Art Intern 

In a Pueblo wedding ceremony, each spouse takes turns drinking sacred water from a vase, like the large black one seen here. The dual spouts are connected by a central handle, representing the joining of two individuals and their lifelong dedication to one another. The shape of the smaller vase was likely based on the wedding jar form, but the deer and floral motif suggests that it was made to be sold to white consumers.

Drinking rituals are shared across different cultures, whether in religious ceremonies or in sipping a daily cup of tea. The vessels in this case all hold special importance for the people who owned and used them.

From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Sienna Craig, Winter 2022

Writing Program 5.24, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2023

Writing Program 5.25, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2023

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Art History 40.01, American Art and Identity, Mary Coffey, Fall 2023

Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023

Geography 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Emma Colven, Fall 2023

Geography 2.01, Introduction to Human Geography, Coleen Fox, Fall 2023

Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023

English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024

Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Exhibition History

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-November 24, 2024.

Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 22, 2022-March 12, 2023.

Publication History

[Tamara Northern], "Native American Art". Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, page 44. (Published in conjunction with Gutman Gallery opening exhibition)

Beth Michelle Schrift, Pueblo Pottery of the Churchill Collection at the Turn of the Century: A Representation of Changing Times, 2004, pp. 1-102, ill. p. 47, fig. 9.

Provenance

Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, New Mexico, 1903-1907; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.

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