Brandon, our sister Allysa and I were lucky to grow up with two amazing parents, though young and relatively poor ( 16-17 years old ). We spent many of those early years moving from house to house. We lived in low income housing projects, mobile homes, in grandmas house, the women's shelter, and my grandfathers house on Taos Pueblo. My parents were together 12 years, and for my later childhood years we split the week between the two of them. All three of us were four years apart so in a way we were all close but also independent.
I'm fortunate as the oldest to have witnessed the golden years of my parents relationship. Brandon being the middle child had a slightly different experience than I. Looking back, it has always felt like he liked being in the middle. He has always been the the empathetic one, the peace maker.
I have always been ultra competitive and Brandon unseemly so. He would always keep up with me. When I moved away after high school is when he entered and joined football, becoming homecoming king his senior year. Everyone has always loved his ever present warm spirit.
After leaving Taos I was engulfed in my work in the restaurants I was at and would see my family once a year for Christmas and that was pretty much it, maybe a call or two here and there. Brandon and I pretty much had very little connection after I left. I was around the country working 16 hours a day in restaurants and he was pulling all nighters in architectural school.
I moved back in 2017 and was making ceramics for a year or so before that and when I reconnected with Brandon we realized we were both working with clay. I was working with a friend who specialized in porcelain so that's what I was using and he had taken a class about wild clay so he was playing with micaceous clay which was the clay from our ancestors at Taos Pueblo. It flipped a switch in my brain and I never touched porcelain again.
We both dig from the same terrain, and use relatively the same practice but our work is pretty different. It's so sweet to see how unique his work is to him and how much we have both evolved since then. We love to use his bowls for our dinners, at home, and to now offer them through the 'Mercado' ( market ).
