Santa Clara Pueblo Globular Black on Black Pottery Jar by Dolores Curran [SOLD]

Santa Clara Pueblo artist Dolores Curran specialized in miniature pottery since her first piece at age 9. This round ball seed jar was decorated with adjoining eagle feathers around the top of the piece and an Avanyu (water serpent) just below the feather designs. The lower half of the jar was left without decoration and was beautifully finished with a high sheen.

Dolores Curran does not record her designs because she doesn't want to start copying herself. She prefers to fit each design to the pot on which it goes. Many of the pieces she makes are buff on red, so black on black is much rarer.

Dolores’s sister is Geri Naranjo who also specializes in miniature pottery.

*Avanyu:  a deity of the Tewa Pueblos—Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, and Tesuque—and is the guardian of water. He is represented as a horned or plumed serpent with curves suggestive of flowing water or the zig-zag of lightning. He appears on the walls of caves located high above canyon rivers in New Mexico and Arizona and may be related to the feathered serpent of Mesoamerica— Quetzalcoatl and related deities. 

Condition: this Santa Clara Pueblo Globular Black on Black Pottery Jar by Dolores Curran is in original condition

Provenance: from the collection of a client from Texas who purchased this directly from the artist in 1982.

Recommended Reading: Pueblo Indian Pottery 750 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaaf