Santa Clara Pueblo Globular Black on Black Jar with Tall Neck by Dolores Curran [SOLD]

This jar has a globular body shape with an extended tall neck.  There is a band of rain clouds near the top of the neck and an *Avanyu encircling the vessel at the shoulder.  The design was executed in Black-on-black technique.

Dolores Curran, originally from Santa Clara Pueblo, married and moved to Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo around 1977. She has specialized in miniature pottery since her first piece at age 9. She 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.  The majority 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 Jar with Tall Neck 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

Relative Links: Dolores Curran, Santa Clara Pueblo, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, Geri Naranjo, Avanyu, Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, Tesuque