Seated Coyote Storyteller “Cultural Day” [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: The consignor has requested that we offer this at a price of 2/3rd of the original price of $1500 to a new price of $1000.

Snowflake Flower was named Estephanita after her grandmother, Estephanita Herrera, but she is known as Stephanie or Snowflake Flower.  She is a sister to Ada Suina.  She attended the University of New Mexico and received her Bachelor Of Science degree in Education in 1985.  She started making pottery figurines around 1979 and has specialized in storytellers, nacimientos, owls and other figurines.

Snowflake Flower is an exceptional potter and award winner and she is featured in The Pueblo Storyteller book by Barbara Babcock (see reference link below).  She makes storyteller figurines and nacimientos that exude an air of nobility, yet feature a feeling of pueblo life as well.

She places prayer feathers on her figurines, something she started doing in 1983 when her daughter went in to a coma.  She continued to put feathers on the figures as a prayer for her recovery and that her prayer would be spread through more and more people as they purchased her pottery.  Finally, 16 years later, her daughter awoke from the coma.

This figurine is that of a Coyote, known throughout Native culture as a trickster.  Here, coyote is dressed in an elegant vest, beautiful shawl over his shoulder, pueblo moccasins, has a drum, and is impersonating a storyteller.  Maybe he is planning on tricking the children or perhaps just telling them stories.

Condition: very good condition with a slip crack on his left arm

Provenance: from a Santa Fe resident

Recommended Reading: The Pueblo Storyteller: Development of a Figurative Ceramic Tradition by Barbara Babcock Ph.D.