Rondina Huma has certainly been one of the most influential Hopi potters working today.  Since her two-time “Best of Show” awards at Santa Fe Indian Market, her tight style and intricately painted pottery has changed the face of contemporary Hopi pottery.   Each piece is coil built, fully stone polished and painted with native clays and bee-weed (black), and native fired.  This fully painted jar is from the mid-1990s. Rondina said of this style of her pottery:

“This style is when I first started designing from the bottom to the top. I would get a bunch of sherds and I would put them together and see what pattern they created. Then I would take back the sherds to where I found them. I also polish the inside of all my pottery. People ask how I do it and how I can get so deep inside. I just think it makes a bowl look nicer if it is fully polished.  I do most of the painting freehand. When I look at a pot, I already know what design I’m going to put on there. I can visualize what I’m going to paint, and it is never the same. I don’t really use a pencil—I’m afraid it won’t come off. I try to just measure with my hand to space out the designs.”  Rondina Huma, Spoken Through Clay

The jar has a round body and an elongated neck.  The neck has a plant design. Around the top of the shoulder is a mountain pattern.  Below the shoulder are her classic shard designs.  The designs are painted with bee-weed and highlighted with red polished areas.  The shards are larger than in her later pottery, but equally striking on this shape.   Amazingly, the inside of the jar is also fully polished.  Rondina told me she would always try and make the opening large enough that she could reach her hand in and stone polish the interior. The jar was traditionally fired.  It is lightly signed on the bottom in the clay, “Rondina Huma, Polacca, AZ”.  It is in very good condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.

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