This Santo Domingo (Kewa) Pueblo polychrome jar dates to the 1890s. It has the traditional rag-wiped bentonite slip and a black rim around the top rolling over the edge. There are four pairs of black framing lines throughout the decorated areas. The first pair is at the rim, the second at the lower area of the neck, the third at the shoulder, and the fourth pair at the lower extremity of the decorated area. Ceremonial break lines divide all the pairs of framing lines.

The design at the area of the neck is comprised of black triangles connected to form a chain around the constricted neck. A second band of black triangles forms the decoration just below the neck.

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This early painting (dated 1939) clearly shows the influence of Quincy Tahoma's time at the Santa Fe Indian School.  The style is typical of that established during the tenure of Dorothy Dunn as director of The Studio of the Indian School.  Tahoma later evolved into more three-dimensional painting but this early one is of the flat style. 

Tahoma had been sent by the Government to the Albuquerque Indian School in 1929 from his home in Tuba City, Arizona.  A year later, he was transferred to the Santa Fe Indian School, entering in the 4th grade. Santa Fe contrasted sharply with his home on the Navajo Nation and this must have been difficult for a boy of 12 years of age.  Not only was he taken away from his parents, he was taken away from familiar life of a Navajo on the Indian Reservation.

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   Otto Pentewa is a name any collector of Hopi Katsina dolls recognizes.  They may never have seen him or seen his signature on a Katsina doll, but they recognize his work at a glance.  He was born at the village of Oraibi on the Hopi Reservation at the end of the 19th century.  He was of the Katsina Clan and his Hopi name was Sikovaya, which translates to Pumpkin Flower.

One of the distinguishing designs on his Katsina carvings is the pumpkin flower he generally painted on the loin cloth of the doll.  It was his signature. 

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This is an excellent Navajo Storm Pattern rug-most likely from the Western part of the Reservation. It is a very nice specimen of the Storm Pattern textile. The central square, rendered in white natural wool, represents the Navajo Reservation and the four boxes at the extremities represent the four sacred mountains of the Reservation. The grey design at each end of the rug is defined as a "water bug." The zigzag elements emanating from the central square represent lightning.

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This is a superb nineteenth century vessel, dating to the last quarter of the 1800s. This olla has many distinctive Zuni design elements: the heart-line deer, spiral volute with fine-line embellishments and the "sunflower" rosette. The underbody is concave, as is typical of all ollas, or water jars dating after 1700. The base is slipped in brown, with distinctive flexure at the uppermost edge of the underbody, as well as a black-slipped, unpolished neck interior and rim top. The white slip is stone-polished with mineral-paint designs. The uppermost framing line is worked in black, overlaying the geometric/spiral volute fine-line elements worked in black and red.

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Nampeyo was handpicked by Hopi trader Thomas Keam to make pottery in the style of the prehistoric Sikyatki potters.  He chose her because she was, to him, the best potter at Hopi.  She never disappointed him by producing anything less than wonderful.  She did not copy Sikyatki potter's work but used it as inspiration for her own designs.

This small polychrome seed jar is so typical of Nampeyo's fine craftsmanship.  It replicates the Sikyatki vessel shape with a wide midsection and a graceful slope upward to the rim.  An unusual departure from what one normally sees on jars of this style is her use of only three red triangles rather than four.  It is Nampeyo exercising her creativity.

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The famous Route 66 highway was a financial blessing in the 1930s for Acoma and Laguna Pueblo artisans who found it worthwhile to set up tables on the roadside to sell their wares to tourists traveling between Chicago and Los Angeles.  They also sold pottery to merchants in the area, one of whom was Abdoo H. Fidel (1880-1947), a Lebanese immigrant, who set up a curio shop in San Fidel, only a few miles from Acoma Pueblo.  A 1934 photograph of his shop showed over 500 Acoma pottery items on shelves, stacked atop each other, and scattered all over the floor.  He obviously was a major buyer from the potters, having purchased thousands of potteries from them during the years he operated his curio shop.

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Painted and unpainted drums of all sizes are used in pueblo ceremonies. The drum suggests the thunder that comes with rain. The drum has two heads. Pueblo songs are written to start slowly and then go to a climax. At a certain point of the song, the drum is flipped over to achieve a higher beat. This lifts the dancers and gives them the impetus to continue dancing. 

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There is probably no collector of contemporary pueblo pottery who does not know Robert Tenorio or at least aware of him.  He is the best-known potter from Santo Domingo Pueblo.  Robert makes pottery that is as functional as pottery was a hundred years ago.  He makes it for his own table use and makes functional pottery for many other pueblo residents.

Robert attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) at the time that Otellie Loloma was a teacher and it was she who convinced him to enroll in ceramics class.  She enrolled him in her class and taught him different techniques, including how to make wheel-thrown stoneware pottery.  Robert has made some stoneware pottery in the past. He is best known, of course, for his traditional coil-formed pueblo pottery.

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Angela Baca has long been associated with her ability to produce beautiful red and black jars with melon ribs. Works in the melon style are first coil-formed with a large diameter coil and allowed to dry to a leather-hard state. They are then carved with the distinctive ribs. After carving, the work is slipped in iron-bearing red slip, intricately stone-polished and then fired in either a smothered, reduction atmosphere to achieve the superb black finish or in an oxidizing atmosphere to achieve the red finish.

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In Hopi Journal, Alexander Stephen provided an excellent accounting of spring and early summer Katsina dances that occurred in 1891 in which this katsina participated.  Such dances are pleas for rain at the season of planting.  There is a four-day ritual abstinence, mask preparation and prayer-stick making in the kiva before the dance commences.  Dance practice and song rehearsal occur during these four days. 

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Mark Tahbo visited us again and surprised us with two innovations that were new in his artistic endeavors, but we will get to those a little later. Initially one needs only to take a look at the shape of this seed jar and admire the amazing pictorial designs on the upper portion.  There are four design panels and each is different.

To start from the beginning, that is, the construction of the vessel, we listened to Mark explain where and why he chose the clay for this jar.  Mark has always admired Garnet Pavatea and her production of pottery so he decided to visit the clay source Garnet used and to gather enough of that clay to make this jar.  That clay bed is on the side of the road from the village of Polacca to the top of the mesa where Garnet lived.

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This necklace is comprised of two strands of shell hieshe interspersed with turquoise nuggets and turquoise fetishes.  The fetishes have been identified as having been made by Leo Poblano. There are 30 fetishes on the necklace, some of which are bright green turquoise and some are dark green.  Interspersed between the fetishes are drilled turquoise nuggets.  A pair of jaclas is suspended from the necklace and the green turquoise of the jaclas compliments the green stones and fetishes of the necklace.  The necklace is strung on string with a worn pueblo wrap at the neck.  The necklace appears to be quite old but it is difficult to place a date on it. 

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In the mid-twentieth century, Margaret Tafoya produced many very large pottery vessels and then in the 1960s-1970s, she produced many smaller vessels such as this jar.  Not only was she capable of creating a beautiful vessel shape but she obtained a smooth finish and high burnish and then proceeded to execute a precise carved design.

The design is a stylized Avanyu (water serpent) rotating in a counterclockwise direction.  The small triangle is the eye of the Avanyu and the curved part of the head is the plume on the head. The four wave-like carvings are part of the serpent's body.

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Albert Lujan was an early Taos Pueblo painter who was ahead of his time in painting European-American style art rather than the Santa Fe Indian School style being practiced by most of the other Native American artists of his time. He, along with Albert Looking Elk and Juan Mirabal, was greatly influenced by the Anglo Taos artists of the time.

The work of all three artists was shunned by collectors and the Museum of New Mexico Fine Art Gallery because it was too much like that which the Taos and Santa Fe artists produced. Now they have become very collectible.

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What generally comes to mind when one thinks of Tesuque Pueblo pottery are, first, Tesuque rain gods, then, secondly, garish poster paint tourist wares, and then, finally, very high quality Polychrome pottery.  Potters at Tesuque were very talented and produced some truly outstanding jars and bowls.  Probably the least pottery style from Tesuque, to come to mind for most collectors, would be Black-on-red Pictorial Animal Effigy Vessels.  That's a long descriptive title but it accurately describes this vessel. 

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Mark Tahbo came in during Santa Fe's Indian Market season and beamed with enthusiasm when he unpacked this large and magnificent jar.  He hardly knew where to start telling us what he had in mind as he made it and which elements of design he chose.  He walked us through each design element and I hope I can recall all he said and pass it on in this presentation.

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Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh) was many things to his pueblo of San Ildefonso: he was a farmer, pottery painter, museum employee, painter and silversmith. He was born in 1898 and died in 1955. He was painting before 1917. He was the oldest of the early group of pueblo painters. His formal education had not extended beyond primary grades. He was versatile in his styles of painting. He was equally comfortable with representational, semi-realistic, conventional, and abstract. 

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It was around 1880 when the transcontinental train passed through the Southwest.  The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway teamed up with The Fred Harvey Company to enthusiastically promote the native cultures and the artists of Taos and Santa Fe. They also heavily promoted the Hopi, primarily because of the semi-annual Snake Dance ceremony.   They must be given credit for changing America's attitude toward its native cultures, particularly in the Southwest. 

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This very dainty silver framework holds a significantly beautiful very dark turquoise stone that has a beautiful copper color matrix interspersed within the turquoise stone.  The turquoise is held in place with a silver bezel that is scored every eighth inch.  In the shadow box surrounding the turquoise are raised silver dots.  The outer rim of the silver top is scored on the edges. 

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