Otellie Pasiyava was raised on a Hopi reservation at Second Mesa, Arizona, and educated in schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

She made clay objects from childhood, but began formal training in pottery at age 23, when she was invited to study on a scholarship at the School of the American Craftsman at Alfred University.

[3][4] She joined the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when it opened in 1962, a position she held until her retirement in 1988.

[6] In addition to her expertise in pottery, Loloma taught Native American dance with colleague Josephine Myers-Wapp (Comanche); they performed at the White House and at the 1968 Summer Olympics with their students.

[13][14] Her friend and IAIA colleague, poet James A. McGrath, wrote a book of poems about (and dedicated to) Otellie Loloma, titled The Sun is a Wandering Hunter (2014).