Leonard Tsosie “Corn Hill” was born in the late 1940’s into the Jemez Pueblo. Leonard was inspired to continue a long lived tradition by observing his wife, Emily Fragua-Tsosie. She is known for hand coiling storytellers and corn maidens. Leonard has been working with clay since the age of 11. However, he didn’t spark an interest in working with clay until he noticed how dedicated his wife was to her art.
Leonard specializes in natural hand molded and hand painted figurines and story tellers. He gathers up his clay from the sacred grounds within the Jemez Pueblo. Leonard cleans the clay, mixes, shapes his pottery, fires the clay, and sand dries the pottery to a nice smoothness, paints with all natural colors and fires it one final time. He enjoys making his horses best of all. He signs his pottery master pieces as: L. Tsosie-Corn-Hill, Jemez.
Leonard is related to the following artists: Joanne Toribio and Irene Hererra (sisters).
