Pueblo artist Les Namingha creates pottery using his ancestors’ techniques and materials often modified with a contemporary design. “Off Course” is a hand-coiled jar made of clay dug from the earth and painted with mineral pigments from the artist’s New Mexico/Arizona homelands. Dark-brown swirls of scattered amorphic shapes form an abstract design on the wide, flat bowl that tapers to a narrow base. The surface design and title “Off Course” reference the artist’s disdain for what he sees as a misguided use of life-giving water to create resort golf courses in the desert Southwest, says Lucy Fowler Williams, associate curator-in- charge in the American Section at the Penn Museum. Artworks by Namingha, born to a Zuni Pueblo mother and Hopi Pueblo father, can be found in museums and private collections.
Fowler Williams selected the artwork for the Museum to purchase in 1999 for its American collection.
“I chose this incredibly beautiful jar by Zuni-Tewa-Hopi (Pueblo) artist Les Namingha, for several reasons. The Penn Museum houses similar jars made by Namingha’s ancestors over 800 years ago, so this work compliments those older collections and teaches Penn students about the enduring legacies and artistic genius of Pueblo and Native American people everywhere. Les comes from a renowned family of Pueblo artists. This work so elegantly expresses his technical skill, deep knowledge of and relationships with his environment, and his abiding concern for the care and stewardship of water in his desert homeland, Fowler-Williams says.
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Rashi Sabherwal, a doctoral student in political science, explores how women engage politically in society in informal roles through her research in India.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
