WOW!  This is an exceptional bowl by Christopher Youngblood.  The piece is coil-built and has a wide shoulder and sloping side. The top is fully carved with five realistic Big Horn Sheep.  Each has carved horns that are incised and slipped with mica.  However, each of the Big Horn Sheep is fully polished tan (the natural color of the clay).  Tan is always the most difficult coloration to polish, as it is just water added to the surface of the clay and then stone polished.  The faces are painted with black and white clay slips.  Behind each ram is a mountain that is slipped with a mauve-colored clay.  Technically, this bowl combines painted, carved, and incised techniques.  There are four different colors of clay (making it polychrome), and the surfaces are micaceous, matte, and polished.  Few potters are willing to take the time and risks to create such complicated work! The bowl was also traditionally fired.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Chris Youngblood”.  Chris won “Best of Pottery” at the 2021 Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonials and Best of Pottery at Santa Fe Indian Market.

Chris has said of his pottery:

“I’ve had generations of people before me who have had to learn the hard way. I’ve had that information given to me without having to go through all the struggles. But, I would say on the flip side, having someone so technically advanced as your teacher (Nancy Youngblood), let alone your mother, it’s hard. The expectations are a lot higher.  I’ve learned that now, I never think it’s done. I keep going until I cannot find anything I can refine or add to the piece. To achieve an ever-higher level of precision takes a lifetime. ’s not something you learn, it’s something you live.”  Christopher Youngblood, Spoken Through Clay