Our Homes, Ourselves

Our Homes, Ourselves is a biographical articulation of the profound influence mud and the act of creating a home had on me. Our Homes Ourselves is the architecture of my people, the Santa Clara and Tewa Indians of Northern New Mexico. For centuries we have built our own homes out of mud and clay indigenous to this area. I learned a great deal about building with adobes – a sun baked mud brick – when my husband and I built our house. Building a house was challenging however, working with mud reconnected me to the Pueblo building tradition that I come from. Building a home opened a world of realizations about cultural knowledge and my internal sense of direction. There is something unusual and rich about creating a home that you will grow old in. - Nora Naranjo Morse