Lonnie Vigil Nambe Pueblo Gunmetal Pottery Bowl with Asymmetrical Rim [SOLD]

This bowl, as described by Nambe Pueblo artist Lonnie Vigil, features an asymmetrical rim.  By this, we see that the rim very slightly rises and falls in wave-like form.  It is a very subtle change that would not be noticed without the artist’s statement.  The bowl rolls out from the base and curves inward just slightly as the rim is approached.  

The bowl is thin-walled and highly burnished.  It was fired in a reduction firing, achieving a gunmetal finish.  Mica flakes sparkle on the surfaces.  The bottom of the bowl is signed Vigil / Nambe.

Lonnie Vigil (1949- ) grew up at Nambé Pueblo in New Mexico. He began his career as a financial and business consultant in New Mexico and Washington, D.C. after earning a business degree from Eastern New Mexico University. But by the early 1980s, he began to realize that his life in Washington gave him "nothing to feed his soul." A performance called "Night of the First Americans" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. inspired him to return to New Mexico, where he began working exclusively as a micaceous clay potter.  Like many contemporary ceramic artists in the American Southwest, Vigil preserves the traditions of his culture while pursuing his own creative initiatives. His artworks reflect the style of his ancestors—hand-built forms used for cooking and storage. He attributes his success as an artist to the guidance of his great-grandmother, Perfilia Anaya Peña, and great-aunts, who are also potters. For him, each instance of making a pot is an encounter with Earth Mother and with his Nambe Pueblo ancestors who worked the clay before him. He believes that each pot "speaks to the continuity in the identity of family and community," but is simultaneously an act of connection between the potter, the Earth Mother, and the ancestral spirits that guide them.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: this Lonnie Vigil Nambe Pueblo Gunmetal Pottery Bowl with Asymmetrical Rim is from the estate of Henry Christensen III, attorney at law in New York, who purchased the bowl from the artist at Santa Fe Indian Market in 2004.

Recommended Reading: All That Glitters: The Emergence of Native American Micaceous Art Pottery in Northern New Mexico by Duane Anderson

Relative Links: Lonnie Vigil, Southwest Indian Pottery, Nambe Pueblo, Contemporary Pottery