Zuni Pueblo Jar with Frogs, Butterflies and Plumed Serpents [SOLD]

Jennie Laate was an accomplished potter at her home of Acoma Pueblo. She married a Zuni Pueblo man and moved to his pueblo. Jennie was the art teacher at Zuni High School where she taught the students how to make pottery. She taught them all the traditional techniques of gathering, cleaning and working the clay, and gathering and processing the slip for the paints. The school had an electric kiln so she let the students use it rather than fire their pottery outdoors. She felt that learning to process the clay and form the pottery was sufficient for class study.

Jennie Laate used the natural pinkish clay at Zuni for this jar.  Although a potter originally from Acoma, she used all Zuni techniques once living at Zuni.  The jar has a white slip with designs painted in black.  The bas relief frogs are slipped in red clay and decorated in black.  Also included are butterflies and a pair of plumed water serpents.  The plumed serpent, known as Kolowisi at Zuni, is an important water creature.  Kolowisi is a hero to the Zuni because he saved them from a flood and provided sustenance to them at the time.  After the flood, he stayed at the pueblo and resides underground in a lake.  He can and does appear in irrigation acequias and the Zuni River or any other body of water and serves as a guardian of water sources.

Condition: the jar is in original condition

Provenance: From the estate of Transcendental artist Florence Pierce of Albuquerque who passed away in 2007 at the age of 89.

Recommended Reading:   Gifts of Mother Earth: Ceramics in the Zuni Tradition (SOLD) by Margaret Ann Hardin, Ph.D