Stone Polished Red Slip Bear Paw Jar [R]

Virginia Ebelacker, daughter of Margaret and Alcario Tafoya, and granddaughter of Sara Fina and Geronimo Tafoya, was not a prolific potter because she had a full-time job at Los Alamos National Labs.  She worked in metallography and plastics and shaped and refined metal and plastics as a profession and was honored for her scientific contributions on both mediums.

After returning home to Santa Clara Pueblo in the evenings, she worked on pottery briefly until bedtime.  It was only after retirement from Los Alamos in 1968 that she was able to be more productive in pottery making.  She has been a consistent award winner at the New Mexico State Fair and Santa Fe Indian Market every year since 1969.  She won many first prize awards and Best of Division awards on numerous occasions. She has been published in several magazines and her pottery is included in all major collections throughout the country.

This jar was formed in the traditional coil method, sanded, covered in red slip and stone-polished to a beautiful burnish.  There are four bear paw impressions just above mid-point.  The base is flat and has the artist’s name and pueblo inscribed into the clay.  It is particularly nice that she made it in red slip because so many potters at Santa Clara produce blackware and so few produce redware.  I have been told that firing redware is harder than firing blackware because it is more difficult to achieve a clean red firing without fire clouds.

Virginia Ebelacker was certainly deserving of the accolades cast upon her as a truly outstanding artisan. This globular storage jar is testimony to that. Its form and balance are extraordinary, and the burnishing produced a most striking sheen to the finished product.   This is an excellent work of art.

Recommended Reading:  Born of Fire: The Pottery of Margaret Tafoya by Charles King.  This book is currently not available from Adobe Gallery.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from the private collection of a Colorado family