Santa Clara Pueblo Swirl Melon Jar [SOLD]

Melons were among the earliest plants to be domesticated in both the Old and New Worlds. Early European settlers in the New World are recorded as growing honeydew and casaba melons as early as the 1600s. A number of Native American tribes in New Mexico, including Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Navajo, Santo Domingo and San Felipe, maintain a tradition of growing their own characteristic melon cultivars, derived from melons originally introduced by the Spanish.

It is from the shape of melons that the pottery melon jar evolved.  It resembles cantaloupe with its globular shape and vertical ribs.  The melon jar seems to have developed at Santa Clara Pueblo with the most renown potters Helen Shupla and Angela Baca being the ones who specialized in making them.  Other potters followed the tradition.

Linda Tafoya and several other younger potters modified the traditional melon jar vertical ribs to ribs that swirl around the body of the jar.  Plain vertical ribs were just not complicated enough for the newer generation so the swirl melon jar satisfied the need for more complicated carving.

To clarify the identity of the potter, Linda Tafoya formerly signed her pottery Linda Tafoya Oyenque, now she signs as Linda Tafoya-Sanchez.  Same person, same beautiful pottery.  She is a daughter of Lee and Betty Tafoya and a granddaughter of Margaret Tafoya.  She credits her aunt Mary Ester Archuleta for training her to be a potter.  Sara Fina Tafoya seems to have set the standard for members of her family and their output of black pottery.  All of the family members produce magnificent pottery.

Condition: new

Recommended Reading: Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery by Rick Dillingham

Provenance: from the potter