Pendant and pottery

When we were in Albuquerque visiting my grandma last month, we went into Old Town. Albuquerque's Native American influence is evident all over the city, with adobe and faux-adobe buildings everywhere you turn. Old Town is a particularly great place to experience the city's rich cultural history.

We stopped in a great shop full of Native American pottery and jewelry. The owner was wonderful. "It's okay for your kids to come in!" he assured us, when he saw that we were trying to leave them outside with my relatives. "Would they like some chocolate milk? Don't worry, I have kids of my own, it's okay if they touch things. If they break anything, don't worry about it."

Well, I most certainly would have worried if they'd broken something, but his attitude definitely made us feel at home, and gave us the time we wanted to really look at the lovely wares! It also helped that they let Chickie play with packing materials....



They were having a big sale, so we ended up deciding to bring home a couple of pieces of Native American artwork. The first was this lovely piece of pottery. (It was a very cloudy day when I took the photos yesterday, so you get two pictures--one taken in drab natural light, and one with a camera flash reflection on it.)





I love this handmade, handpainted pot (about 8 inches tall), and I hope it'll be a special item in our family for a long time!

I also got a little piece of wearable artwork, this beautiful silver pendant with different colors of stones all around its cylindrical surface:



It matches most of the shirts in my closet, and I love it, so my biggest problem is going to be convincing myself not to wear it every day! I don't have much expensive jewelry--to me, handmade, unique pieces like this are more interesting than most mass-produced, pricey pieces...and this didn't cost an arm and a leg.

New Mexico's Native American heritage is rich and beautiful. We couldn't bring home an adobe house, but I think the items we chose were good substitutes!