Cora Durand
{{Short description|Picuris Pueblo potter}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Cora L. Durand
| birth_date = {{birth date|1902|08|23}}
| birth_place = Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1998|01|23|1902|08|23}}
| resting_place = Picuris Cemetery
| resting_place_coordinates =
| nationality = American
| known_for = Ceramic
| image = 196508 Picuris BW neg 0303 4085 011 2.jpg
}}
Cora L. Durand (August 23, 1902 - January 23, 1998) was a Picuris Pueblo potter. Durand started working as a potter later in life, beginning in the 1950s. She helped maintain the traditional hand-built method for creating micaceous pottery. Her work is utilitarian and was meant to be used.
Biography
Durand was born on August 23, 1902, in Picuris Pueblo, where her father, Miguel Lopez, raised her.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34905053/|title=Durand, Picuris Potter, Keeps Traditions Alive|date=10 October 1991|work=The Taos News|access-date=14 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}} Durand married Roland Durand in the 1920s and the couple had four children. Before she started working as a potter, she held many different kinds of jobs, including working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Picuris Pueblo Day School, the Taos Pueblo Indian Hospital and in two different boarding schools in Towaoc, Colorado and Holbrook, Arizona. Her husband died in a car accident in the 1950s, which brought her back to Picuris. In Picuris, she began to work as a potter. Durand stayed active in the community, volunteering at the Picuris Catholic Church and involved in the Picuris Valley Home Extension Club.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34960183/|title=Picuris Club Elects Officers|date=18 January 1966|work=The Taos News|access-date=16 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}}
Durand died on January 23, 1998.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34907399/|title=Cora L. Durand|date=29 January 1998|work=Rio Grande Sun|access-date=14 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}} She was buried in the Picuris Cemetery. A historic marker in New Mexico celebrates her contribution to preserving traditional pottery methods, alongside other Picuris potters Virginia Duran and Maria Ramita Martinez.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nmhistoricwomen.org/location/maria-ramita-simbola-martinez-cora-durand-and-virginia-duran/|title=Maria Ramita Simobal Martinez, Cora Durand, and Virginia Duran|website=New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-16}}
Work
Durand's pottery was intended by her to be used and was therefore utilitarian in design.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lostfoundtraditi00coer/page/193|title=Lost and Found Traditions : Native American Art 1965-1985|last=Coe|first=Ralph T.|publisher=University of Washington Press|year=1986|isbn=0917418786|editor-last=Gordon|editor-first=Irene|location=Seattle|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lostfoundtraditi00coer/page/193 193]|via=Internet Archive}} She follows the tradition of the creation of hand-built, micaceous pottery which had been made for many years in Picuris and Taos.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34960183/|title=Micaceous Clay Sparkles|last=Greenwood|first=Phaedra|date=30 May 1996|work=The Taos News|access-date=16 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}} She sourced her own clay in the Picuris area. Durand's work had been influenced by potter, Juanita Martinez.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34960070/|title=Exhibit Opens At Bond House|date=2 April 1987|work=Rio Grande Sun|access-date=16 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}} Durand was part of a 1974 Smithsonian Institution exhibition, representing the Picuris Pueblo pottery tradition. She also exhibited at the Bond House Museum and Cultural Center in 1987. Durand's pottery was featured at the Arizona State Museum's 1994 American Indian Pottery Fair.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nKitBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA94|title=Arizona State Museum|last=Ferg|first=Alan|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|year=2014|isbn=9781467131629|location=Charleston, South Carolina|pages=94|language=en}} Her work was featured in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in 1996.
By the 1990s, Durand was one of the last of her people working as a potter.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34904981/|title=Potter's Classic, Elegant Forms Are Shaped by Nature and Tradition|last=Miro|first=Marsha|date=2 August 1992|work=Detroit Free Press|access-date=16 August 2019|via=Newspapers.com}} She passed on her skills to her grandson, Anthony Durand, who started learning from her when he was seven years old.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://www.clayhound.us/sites/picuris.htm ClayHound Web - Picuris Pueblo]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durand, Cora}}
Category:20th-century American women artists
Category:20th-century American ceramists
Category:American women potters
Category:Ceramists from New Mexico
Category:Native American women potters
Category:People from Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico