Cottonwood Root Hopi Pueblo Carving of Koshari by Ronald Honyouti [SOLD]

Since the early 1970s, Hopi carvers have mostly carved Katsina dolls entirely from wood. This occurred because of a Federal crackdown at that time on the use of illegal feathers on carvings. Since most dealers were not knowledgeable about distinguishing between legal and illegal bird feathers, most then would hesitate to buy carvings with unknown feathers. This impacted greatly on the sale of Katsina dolls by the Hopi, so they created a solution.

The solution, of course, was to make Katsina dolls from 100% wood—using no feathers or any other materials such as yarn, fabric, leather, etc. This actually resulted in finer carvings and ones that would last longer because there were no feathers to disintegrate.

The Honyouti brothers—Brian, Lauren, and Ronald and their dad, Clyde—were among the first to produce the highest quality of carvings that qualify as fine art. They generally carve from a single piece of cottonwood root and use oils and stains to achieve a mellow look not obtainable with the former use of acrylic paints. The use of oils and stains also allows the grain of the wood to show through.

This carving of a Koshari clown is typical of the high quality of work by Ronald. The clown is lying down and the ice cream has fallen out of the cone in his right hand and is melting on the ground. The clown seems oblivious of this fact.

The carving is an older one but is still in original excellent condition. It is possible that the two protrusions on the clown’s hat have been carved from a separate piece of wood and then glued onto the hat, but it is difficult to determine this because there is no visible point of attachment.