This is a tall jar by Daniel Begay.  The piece is coil-built, carved, stone-polished, and traditionally fired. This piece is entitled, “Springtime Nears”.  It has Daniel’s stylized avanyu around the body of the piece.  There are carved feathers around the neck and lightning, rain, and water designs near the base.  The piece is fully carved and designed!  The piece was fired a dark brown coloration, and it is stunning!  The designs also contrast with matte and polished areas.  The design, size, and color of the pieces are stunning in person!  The jar is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Daniel Begay”.  It is exciting to see Daniel challenge the boundaries of his creative clay art in size and complexity!

“Smoke Screen” is an original and creative idea by Daniel Begay.  It started as a personal challenge to create large vessels and focus on firing them red.  It is usually enough of a challenge to create a series of pieces over ten inches all.  But there is an added complexity to fire them red.  Red pieces are always more difficult to create in Santa Clara pottery as they are more difficult to polish, and the timing for firing is more exact to get just the right coloration and not overfire.  Over the six months he has been making these pieces, he began to evolve his firings as a means to create additional colorations.  The dark red, browns, and dark brown coloration are all created from the firing.  Together, there is a striking visual gradation of colors and an excitement from the size of the pieces.”