Carla Claw Nampeyo (1961- )

Carla Claw Nampeyo is a Hopi-Tewa of the Snow Clan. She is from the First Mesa village of Shungopavi and is the daughter of Thomas Polacca Nampeyo, sister to Gary Polacca Nampeyo, Fannie Myron, Delmar Polacca and Elvira Naha. The granddaughter of Fannie Polacca Nampeyo and the Great-granddaughter of Nampeyo. She has been an active potter since the mid-1970s. She specializes in dark brown slipped pottery and sgraffito carving.

"Mainly my work is kind of different from everybody's I use a dark brown polished slip on plain seed pots done with sqraffito carving like my dad [Tom Polacca] does. It's kind of unique in a way, to me it's modern. That's the outlook now. Things that are different are more accepted, but they're done in traditional form that links us back to who we are." -Carla Claw (Dillingham 1994)

Photo courtesy of Rick Dillingham. (Fourteen Families In Pueblo Pottery).
Reference: Hopi-Tewa Pottery: 500 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaaf.

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