Jaune Quick-To-See Smith is a contemporary Native American artist whose work is a visual commentary on the past and present conditions of Native people in American society. She uses a variety of media to present emotional images portraying the Indian experience; the consequences of negative stereotypes being juxtaposed against images of continuing strength and courage.

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As collectors of historic Southwest Indian Pottery are well aware, dating pottery is not an exact science.  If one can date within a decade or two, that is considered acceptable.  One manner in which dating can be accomplished is by comparisons with collections in museums that have collection data.  The Stevensons collected several hundred Zia Pueblo specimens between 1881 and 1887 which now reside in the Smithsonian Institution.  The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has collections from Zia made by Winship, Pepper and Spinden between 1889 and 1911.  The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has several examples of Zia pottery that date before 1917.  The Denver Art Museum has some that were acquired as late as the 1930s.  There are numerous photographs of potters with examples of their wares.  From these and other sources, dating of pottery becomes a little more refined.

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The Aguilar sisters were recognized as master potters long before they created the bold black and black and red designs we attribute to them today.  Their early works were traditional Santo Domingo Polychrome in design and layout but were among the finest being produced at the pueblo in the late 1800s and very early 1900s.  Their handling of the design style, their precision with paints, and the overall geometrics were unequalled. 

Both sisters excelled at building a jar to an elegant shape with the body being beautifully round and bulbous and rising to a long graceful neck.  The neck on this jar could be compared to the beautiful long, thin and graceful neck of a Victorian lady as presented in The New Yorker in the 1920s.

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When San Ildefonso Polychrome became a specified pottery type in the 1890s, it did so because red design paint was revived, a change from the previous designated Powhoge Polychrome.  This was a revival of a style from the 18th century.  At first it appears that black paint was fired on and red paint applied after firing.  Around 1910 or a little earlier, the red was also fired on.  In some cases, the red on these early ones was watery.

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Martina Vigil (1856-1916) and Florentino Montoya (1858-1918) have been praised as among the finest artisans at San Ildefonso. Jonathan Batkin has illustrated a couple of their works in his book Pottery of the Pueblos of New Mexico 1700-1940, and he illustrated additional ones in a 1987 issue of American Indian Art Magazine article "Martina Vigil and Florentino Montoya: Master Potters of San Ildefonso and Cochiti Pueblos."

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This small Southwest Indian Pottery jar from Cochiti Pueblo was made in the shape of a storage jar, not in the shape of a water jar so we have selected small storage jar as its description.  The shape is globular with a short neck that rolls outward slightly.  The main body of the vessel is covered in cream slip over which was painted a design in black.  The design is typical of Cochiti designs, each of which floats independently.  The larger design is a mixture of leaves, triangles, and clouds.  The small design is a multi-directional element of arrows.  Around the neck of the vessel is a continuous design chain of triangles, half circles and half-moon elements accented with X markings.  A Cochiti potter once told me that the X marks were called turkey tracks and signified ceremonial use.  There is no obvious indication that this jar has been used.

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If it were my labor that had gone into making this extremely large Hopi Pueblo storage jar, I would have been devastated when I discovered it had exploded in the firing process.  From talking with a number of potters over the past decades, I have found that they do not stress out when this happens.  They have the attitude that it was not meant to be that the pot lived, and they accept that with understanding.  What a wonderful attitude by which to live and pursue one's career.

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  Mark Tahbo is a most enthusiastic promotor of his own work.  He works hard at making the absolutely best pottery possible and then he is proud of his accomplishments as am I.  I know of few potters today who pour their whole heart into their work like Mark does.  We do not purchase items from living artists on a regular basis as our effort is spent on acquiring and selling historic pottery and paintings.  I asked Mark over a year ago to make a large jar for me as we only had smaller ones of his.  He agreed to do so.

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Tonita Roybal was a potter, early at the beginning of the 20th century, who probably started making pottery as early as 1905 and continued until she passed away in 1945.  Her earliest documented pot is 1909, located in the Denver Art Museum.  Many collectors are not familiar with the pottery of Tonita Roybal because she passed away so early, but one dealer and collector was an all-time fan of her work.  Richard M. Howard of Santa Fe believed she was probably the finest potter at San Ildefonso in the first half of the 20th century but was overshadowed by fame bestowed on Maria Martinez.  Over a number of years, he put together a collection of perhaps a hundred pottery vessels by Tonita and his collection was displayed and sold by Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe in 2007 just shortly before Mr. Howard passed away.

Read more about this Roybal pottery here..

Polacca pottery style began around 1740. It did not fully become the predominant type at Hopi until about 1800, and it continued until about 1890. Polacca wares were the predominant utilitarian wares of this time period. This small jar is covered in Polacca slip but is probably later than the 1890s.

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There is little doubt in my mind that this jar is by a member of the Nampeyo family and that member would be either Nampeyo of Hano or her oldest daughter Annie Healing.  The jar has the vessel shape of many Nampeyo jars, has the thinness of wall construction of only the finest potter, and has many design elements seen on Nampeyo-made vessels, including stippling.  The interior of the jar is stone polished and yellow in color.  If I only had the ability to perform a DNA analysis on the long black hair imbedded into the interior slip, I would know who the maker was.

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  Rick Dillingham (1952-1994) is best known for his wonderful pottery vessels that were constructed, fractured, and reassembled in the likeness of broken prehistoric pueblo pottery being discovered in excavations in the Southwest. He was fascinated with pueblo pottery, be it prehistoric, historic or contemporary.

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Nampeyo of Hano, Hopi Pueblo, was probably the finest pueblo potter of all times.  She was skilled in construction of vessels, she mastered the techniques of scraping and surface finishing, she had an artist's eye for vessel shapes and she excelled in design creation and application.  She did all of this at a time when pueblo pottery was not even considered collectible-1880 to 1910, long before Native Art was appreciated.

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Cavan Gonzales grew up around pottery and that is what he is best known for, however, earlier in his life, he produced paintings.  Cavan's mother is Barbara Gonzales, a highly respected potter.  His grandmother was Anita Martinez and his great-grandmother was Santana Martinez and, of course, his great-great-grandmother was Maria Martinez.  How could one grow up in such surroundings and not become a famous and accomplished painter and potter.

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The San Ildefonso Pueblo students were the first painters to appear and they have remained the most important of the pueblo painters to date.  The best known of these early painters are Crescencio Martinez (Táe, 1879-1918), Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh, 1898-1955), Abel Sanchez (Oqwa Pi, 1899-1971), Louis (Luis) Gonzales (Wo-Peen, 1907-1990), Julian Martinez (Pocano, 1885-1943), Romando Vigil (Tse Ye Mu, 1902-1978), Richard Martinez (Opa Mu Nu, 1904-1987) and the only female, Tonita Peña (Quah Ah,1893-1949).  Wo-Peen was the youngest of the group.

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This large black jar is inscribed throughout with beautiful imagery of American Bison.  One image is of two large bulls facing each other as if fighting for control of the herd of females.  Other images are bison in various locations and positions.  There is a row of 8 bison at the rim, all running in line, and a similar row near the bottom of the jar.  There are 26 bison inscribed on the jar.

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As early as high school Hal Penrod won awards for his drawings. Later in life he drove trucks all over the western US and that is when he began using oils to paint and focus on putting the various landscapes of the west on canvas. His favorite subject was the deserts of the southwest including Indians and the old west lifestyle. He was especially noted for the skies featured in his paintings.

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This painting is the work of an artist from Taos, New Mexico, named Art Jacobson who completed it in 1951.  It is an oil on canvas painting of absolutely superb quality and it is a painting of Taos Pueblo Koshare, but it appears to represent spiritual Koshare rather than human impersonators.  The three Koshare are ghost-like in appearance, spiritual in presentation, and appear almost in cloud form.  The landscape surrounding them is mystical as well, appearing as a green haze in which the banner carrier is concealed in the haze with only the top of the banner pole visible.  The sky is black.

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Jan Loco is a member of the Warm Springs Apache tribe.  She began making jewelry in 1988. She has developed a method of making jewelry without the use of hand tools. After cutting the silver to the desired shape (with heavy-duty poultry scissors or something similar), she hammers it with a specially selected rock until she achieves the texture she desires. This is a laborious task, but she feels it honors her ancestry to use items of nature rather than power tools.

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Most paintings by Beatien Yazz reflect the everyday lives of the Navajo. He has always been a master of detail; painting the special nuances that make reservation life unique. In the instance of this painting he is showing the innocence of youth. The young boy is dressed in traditional Navajo style, including moccasins and a headband. He appears to be enjoying the outdoors while daydreaming.

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