Adobe Gallery Blog
Four Color Polychrome Seed Jar by Chakoptewa (Michael Hawley) - C3644A
Category: Pottery | Posted by | Mon, Aug 1st 2016, 2:49pm
Michael Hawley, formerly of Scottsdale, Arizona, who passed away in 2012, was the only living potter creating true Sikyatki Polychrome pottery vessels in the same manner as they were originally made from the 14th through the 17th centuries. Hawley called this pottery Chakoptewa Polychrome-Chakoptewa being his adopted Hopi name.
Hawley used only hand-ground clay dug on Antelope Mesa on the Hopi Reservation and he hand coiled, shaped, polished, painted and coal fired each of these pots in a firing pit he constructed himself. All of his pigments were made by hand from minerals and plants indigenous to the Hopi Mesas and each of his painted designs was original and within the Sikyatki design tradition.