This is a large wedding vase by LuAnn Tafoya.  She is a daughter of Margaret Tafoya and learned to make large vessels from her mother.  This vase is coil-built, carved, stone-polished, and traditionally fired.  The piece has a round body and elongated spouts.  The body has a carved cloud, mesa, and rain design on one side and swirling clouds and lightning on the other side.  The entire carved surface is fully polished.  The area below the carving is stone polished.  Amazingly, the handle and spouts are both fully polished.  There is a high difficulty in polishing such large areas, especially handles. The entire wedding vase was traditionally fired to a silvery black coloration. The shine of the polish on this piece is exceptional!   The wedding vase is signed on the bottom in the clay, “LuAnn Tafoya’.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.

“When I was twelve, I remember one Saturday morning my mom said, “We are going to polish today.” I looked at her, and I said, “Polish today? I’ve never polished a pot.” She put up a table, and I sat on one side and she sat on the other side. She started putting the clay slip on some small pieces. As soon as it was ready for me to polish, she would hand me the small pot. She kept putting the slip onto six small bowls. It was like a rotation of working on it. After she put the slip on then I would start polishing, so we keep on going. That’s where I remember starting to work on the pots.”  LuAnn Tafoya, Spoken Through Clay

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