Sylvia Naha created pieces with a white clay polished surface painted with bee-weed (black) and native clay slips.  Throughout the 1980s, Sylvia was considered among the most innovative of the Hopi potters.  Her pieces were classic in form and amazingly intricate in design.  This seed bowl has two of her classic lizards on the top.  The lizards are painted with colorful pottery designs.  Each is a bit different.  The surrounding area is stippled.  The bottom half is fully painted with the black-on-white Awatovi Star.  Awatovi is one of the ruins near Hopi where a white slipped style of pottery was made.  It is a fascinating place as it was where Coronado made contact with the Hopi in 1540.  During the excavations in the 1930s, the whiteware pottery was rediscovered.  It was the imagery from his work that inspired much of Helen Naha’s (Sylvia’s mother) early pottery, as opposed to the more classic Sikyatki-inspired pottery of Nampeyo of Hano.  The bottom of the seedpot is signed with a feather and an “S”.  The piece is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.