For those who like small vessels, this is a must! This is one of the nicest small San Juan Pueblo polished black ollas on the market. Its shape is faithfully reproduced from a large jar down to this size, a size frequently called a Child's Water Jar.   It is the traditional San Juan style with a polished black upper body and polished gray underbody, which has been made for centuries. In these jars, the red slip is wiped over the upper 2/3rd of the vessel body and the lower 1/3rd left without slip.  Both upper and lower portions are then stone polished.  When reduction fired, the red changes to black and the tan underbody changes to gray.  A very fine fluted or wavy rim serves as the vessel's only deviation from a plain surface.  The interior of the neck is matte finish.  It probably dates to circa 1900-1930 period. 

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The Hopi live in a desert and rely solely on rain for their crops and animals.  It is to the Katsinas that the Hopi plea for rain.  In exchange for rain from the Katsinas, the Hopi present them with pahos (prayer feathers).  They do not ask for anything from the katsinas without giving something in return.

Although the Hemis Katsina may appear in any Katsina dance, they are best known for their participation in the Niman Ceremony, a ceremony where a large number of Hemis and Hemismana are the only katsinas represented.  The Hemis Katsina is most frequently selected for the Niman because he is a beautiful impersonation and his songs are popular with the Hopi.

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Several of the early San Ildefonso Pueblo artists often painted wildlife and barnyard animals. Skunks seem to have been a favorite. It is a matter of conjecture as to whether Julian Martinez or Awa Tsireh is responsible for the advent of the skunk in Pueblo painting, but Julian used this highly decorative animal most delightfully in many compositions, thereby establishing it as a fully respectable subject in Pueblo art. The mythological Avanyu (water serpent) is another image favored by San Ildefonso and Santa Clara artists.  Julian used it many times on black pottery.

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Lu Ann 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.  This globular-shaped jar has a beautiful deep red slip that was burnished to a high luster.  There are four bear paw designs around the circumference.

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Santo Domingo artisans are adept at working with materials such as shell, turquoise, jet and others in fashioning jewelry whereas Navajo artisans work more with silver.  This pair of earrings consists predominately of squares of beautiful blue turquoise mounted in mosaic style on a flat shell backing.  The earrings are equipped for pierced ears.

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These Southwest Indian Jewelry earrings from Santo Domingo are comprised of rectangular cut stones arranged in a herringbone pattern over shell backing.  They are equipped for pierced ears.  There is no artist name.  The arrangement of the colors of the stones provides for a beautiful palette. 

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This exquisite mid-20th century Navajo-made bracelet has seven beautiful ocean-blue turquoise cabochons, each mounted in silver bezels on top of the three-wire shank.  The outer two bars of the shank are triangular shaped silver and the middle one is twisted wire rope.  Each bezel is wrapped in twisted wire rope and each cab is separated by a pair of silver drops.  Each end of the bracelet is reinforced with a silver plate.

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It is not unusual for pueblo potters to forego signing their work, especially some of the older women, as it is not an accepted practice to seek fame above others.  Many older potters adhere to this philosophy.  Whether that is the reason we see unsigned contemporary pottery is not really known but perhaps it carries some weight. 

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These two chile bowls have been broken and repaired.  We have chosen to post them together and sell them as a pair for a total of $150.  These are part of a large collection of pottery we received from our client who recently moved from Santa Fe. We would not normally accept pottery in this condition but these were part of a large collection so we accepted them as a favor to our client.  Although they have no significant monetary value, they do have a nice visual appeal and will serve well for someone wishing to display something similar with a modest investment.

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Realistic birds on Zia pottery appeared around 1820 and their use has continued to today. They became much more in evidence by 1870.  The birds on this jar are typical of Zia birds of the early 20th century.  The birds each have a wing that point upward from the body that looks similar to a leaf.  The birds have short legs, red bodies outlined in black, split tail feathers and black heads.  The pupil is a small dot in a round eye and the beak is split as if the mouth is partially open.  The lobes on the head that appear to be ears actually represent feathers.

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Romando Vigil was one of the San Ildefonso self-taught artists in the early part of the 20th century. He was a leader within the San Ildefonso Watercolor Movement, a movement that caught fire during 1915 to 1917. It fostered an art form unmatched in the culture history of the world. These men portrayed tribal culture and local wildlife, attaining a flat decorative character, absent of backgrounds and foregrounds, and free of traditional perspective, with an unerring color sense. Their success in these presentations was due to their understanding the ceremonials they painted because they had participated in them since childhood. They understood the meanings of the symbolism they interpreted.

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Clara Lee Tanner, in her book Southwest Indian Painting, stated that Rafael Medina studied at Albuquerque under Velino Herrera (Ma Pe Wi) and José Rey Toledo.  She does not state that he attended the Albuquerque Indian School but perhaps that is where he studied before entering the Santa Fe Indian School.  Neither Dunn nor Tanner is clear about that.  Medina attended the Santa Fe Indian School after the departure of Dorothy Dunn and during the tenure of art teacher Gerónima Montoya, probably entering school in the early 1940s.  Following high school, he attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. 

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Merina Lujan began life in a mining town in Utah. As a child she spent her summers at Taos Pueblo, her father's home, where she became acquainted with Mabel Dodge Luhan who was married to her uncle Tony Luhan. She also spent time in the village of Taos where she befriended the Taos artist community, many of whom indulged the pretty young girl by allowing her to watch them paint.

She attended the Santa Fe Indian School.  As a student of Dorothy Dunn she perfected her style in which Dunn described her as "...a specialist in minutely decorative woodland scenes of delicacy and sprightliness. Her small alert animals played against a colorful, balanced pattern of leaves, stems, and flowers, as bright-feathered birds darted in and out among treetops."

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Quincy Tahoma had a rather turbulent early life.  He was forced to leave his home and attend government schools where he was forbidden to speak his native language, the only language he knew. He was sent to the Santa Fe Indian School as a young man and mixed in with Pueblo and Plains Indian students with whom he was unfamiliar. 

Although Dorothy Dunn, the art teacher at Santa Fe Indian School, did not overly teach painting styles to students, she did encourage them, and she let them know her desires that they paint items from their culture, not from other cultures. Pueblo students painted pueblo subjects and Navajo were to paint Navajo subjects.

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Unable to find any published information on a painter named Tonita Roybal, I consulted with Russell Sanchez of San Ildefonso because he is extremely well versed in everything regarding the pueblo and its people.  Russell told me that Tonita Roybal is a daughter of Ramos and Cerelia Roybal and a granddaughter of the famous pottery couple Tonita and Juan Cruz Roybal.  It was for her grandmother that the younger Tonita was named.  He said that Tonita is around 60 years old and probably painted this painting while in school as she is not known for paintings.  Perhaps she never painted any others after finishing school.  If she is in her 60s now, she would have been in her 20s in 1970 when this painting was completed.

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Rafael Medina (1929-1998) Teeyacheena painted this image at the age of 23 years.  It represents the first exposure of the newborn to the outside world and might be the day of the naming ceremony of the baby.  It is a watercolor on paper and recently framed using acid-free materials and a dark brown wood frame.

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Quincy Tahoma had only one interest in his life and that was to paint.  He never developed another interest and that is to our benefit as he produced some truly outstanding paintings during his short life.  He had a number of friends in Santa Fe, San Ildefonso and small villages in New Mexico and he frequently visited them, sometimes for several weeks.  He took his paints with him and painted during these visits. 

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Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma (1917-1956) Water Edge soared to fame as an artist from his early school years up to the mid-1940s and then his life took a drastic turn for the worse.  He was still a phenomenal artist and was recognized as such but he was finding it hard to fit into society.  He had not lived on the Navajo Reservation since early childhood, having lived with friends in Scottsdale and Santa Fe most of his adult life.  He was a wanderer who could not seem to settle into a home.  He often visited friends in Taos, San Juan and San Ildefonso Pueblos and sometimes would extend his visits for weeks.  He seemed to be searching for a place to belong.  Unfortunately, he passed away in 1956 at the age of 39.  His loss was the Indian art community's loss as he was an amazing artist who had only begun to be recognized for his immense talent. 

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José Disiderio (J.D.) Roybal [1922-1978] Oquwa - Rain God was an accomplished artist.  He spent a considerable amount of his time painting small notecard size paintings of a single dancer or two, but occasionally he painted a large painting of aCorn Dance or Harvest Dance scene such as this one.  This painting has 16 dancers in a procession line.  The women carry evergreen twigs in both hands and the men have evergreen twigs in one hand and a gourd rattle in the other. It is the summer Corn Dance, a time when the banner carrier does not participate.

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While at Santa Fe Indian School, Quincy Tahoma, Diné-Navajo developed his unique painting style. He was active in sports and set a district track record in 1940. Following WWII, Tahoma established himself as a full-time artist and shared his studios in the Southwest with artists who are now well established. Clara Lee Tanner rightly said he was "...one of the most dynamic, imaginative, and gifted of Southwest artists." During most of his life, he experienced misfortune, and died at the age of [38-39]. - Snodgrass 1968 

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