Santa Clara Pueblo Carved Redware Pottery Jar with Kiva Step Designs by LuAnn Tafoya [SOLD]

This carved jar by Santa Clara Pueblo artist LuAnn Tafoya is about as close to perfectly crafted as one can expect of a handmade piece of pottery.  It’s a redware piece with an exceptional polish and a classic design. Its polished red surface, rich and beautiful, rolls over its rim and covers a thin band of its interior.  Two carved framing lines circle the jar—one just above its midpoint, one just below. Linking these two framing lines are seven others, which zigzag across the jar’s midpoint, creating Kiva Step designs.  Further decoration was added with a series of vertical lines; some cross the entirety of the band while others extend just an inch or two down from the top framing line. The interior carved areas are painted with a pigment that results in an off-white color.

The vessel’s shape is lovely. It’s bulbous—from the side, it resembles the bottom two-thirds of a pear.  Its bottom is signed LuAnn Tafoya, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM.

LuAnn Tafoya (1938- ) is a talented Santa Clara Pueblo potter. LuAnn comes from the Tafoya family of Santa Clara Pueblo. Sara Fina Tafoya was a masterful potter as was her daughter Margaret Tafoya and some of her siblings. Margaret, in turn, passed on this artistic gene to nine children and numerous grandchildren.  LuAnn Tafoya, a daughter of Margaret Tafoya, certainly inherited the talent to produce beautifully sculpted jars with outrageously burnished surfaces. She has made jars almost three feet tall—a feat not easily accomplished. She has received many notable awards and a great deal of recognition for her efforts.

Condition: very good condition with a few very small abrasions, which are only visible from a short distance

Provenance: this Santa Clara Pueblo Carved Redware Pottery Jar with Kiva Step Designs by LuAnn Tafoya is from a private New Mexico collection

Recommended Reading:  Born of Fire: The Pottery of Margaret Tafoya by Charles King

Relative Links: Santa Clara Pueblo, Sara Fina Tafoya, Margaret Tafoya, Southwest Indian Pottery, LuAnn Tafoya, Contemporary Pottery