Adobe Gallery Blog

Nampeyo of Hano was an artistic genius who looked at fragments of ancestral Hopi ceramics from a thousand years ago and used that as her inspiration for creating shapes and designs on her pottery which she was making in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  She rarely, if ever, copied designs from the Sikyatki but used those to create designs of her own.

This jar is one of Nampeyo's creations using design inspiration from the Sikyatki potters before her.  Any attempt to define the meaning of these designs would be purely speculative as only the potter from Sikyatki who first used similar ones would know if there was meaning or just personal creativity.  The black design that separates the polychrome ones has been called eagle tail feathers but do we know who came up with that name?  It seems like an obvious description and certainly will continue to be used in the future.  Another design has been interpreted as a Katsina face.  The two half circle eyes would define the face and the pair of orange curved pieces could be horns.

Read more about the pottery here..