Special Value Offer: Four Color Polychrome Seed Jar by Chakoptewa [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: The owner has requested that we offer this jar at 25% less than the previous price of $2500. The new price is $1875.

Michael Hawley (1948-2012) Chakoptewa, 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in 2012, was the only living potter creating true Sikyatki Polychrome pottery vessels in the same manner as they were originally made from the 14th through the 17th centuries.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.

Michael 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.

Michael Hawley’s pieces are original and unique pieces of contemporary ceramic art inspired by ancient tradition. They are not copies or replicas. It has been stated that Michael Hawley had been given permission by the Hopi to make pottery using materials and inspiration from Hopi.

The design on the shoulder features a pair of Sikyatki-style birds and a series of stylized feathers.  This Four Color Polychrome Seed Jar by Chakoptewa is an early one of his and, therefore, not signed.

From the late 1970s through the 1980s, a series of completely sold-out one-man shows of Michael Hawley’s ceramics took place at the prominent Gallery 10 in Scottsdale and the Elaine Horwitch Galleries in Scottsdale and Santa Fe.

Condition: very good condition.

Recommended Reading: Designs on Prehistoric Hopi Pottery by Jesse Walter Fewkes

Provenance: from the collection of a family from Scottsdale, Arizona