Adobe Gallery Blog
Hopi Small Seed Jar with Punched Rim Design by Nampeyo of Hano - C3776E
It is believed that as Nampeyo began losing her eyesight, she began to make more tactile decorations on her pottery. According to Kramer, "A photograph taken by Emry Kopta around 1920 is the earliest to show a jar with a corrugated neck; several other corrugated jars can be attributed to this period." It was about that time that Nampeyo began losing her sight. She had been treated about 20 years earlier for Trachoma but it began to reoccur in the 1920s and eventually clouded her vision.
Another quotation from Kramer states: "Three decades after visiting the potter during the summer of 1920, Neil M. Judd wrote that 'Nampeyo was already nearly blind.' Nearly five decades after studying pueblo potters in 1924 and 1925, an elderly Ruth Bunzel stated that Nampeyo had been totally blind at that time." So, it is generally accepted that Nampeyo's sight began to fail around 1920 and was completely gone by 1925. She, from experience, was very capable of forming pottery but beginning to lose the ability to paint designs. It was during this time that her daughters Annie and Fannie painted their mom's pottery.