Quotskuyva, Dextra – Fine-Line Flower Design Seedpot (1985-8)
$ 3,200.00
This is a very tightly painted seedpot by Dextra Quostkuyva Nampeyo. She was certainly one of the most influential Hopi-Tewa potters of the last 50 years. Not only did she teach numerous potters (Steve Lucas, Yvonne Lucas, Les Namingha, Loren Ami, Hisi Nampeyo, to name just a few), but her creative designs and forms have dramatically influenced the pottery itself. The seedpot has a narrow base and round top. It is fully polished and painted with bee-weed and clay slips. The fine-line hatchwork is simply breathtaking in person! It was the use of thinly painted lines that made Dextra famous in the 1970s and this is one of the most complex painted fine-lines I have seen. There are triangular “petals” for the flower that are polished brown. The seedpot was traditionally fired to create the blushes on the surface. It is signed, “Dextra” on the bottom with a corn plant for Corn Clan. It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.
Dextra said of her early pottery:
“I was watching my mom (Rachel Nampeyo) all the time, and I was picking up everything she was doing. I found my own polishing stones. I would collect clays. My mother didn’t like it when I did different types of designs. She was different in her ideas. My mother, she went so far as to say that whatever our great-grandmother had reproduced from old designs—those were important designs. We’re supposed to have the basics, she’d say. The big six. Don’t part from that. The six traditional designs. One of them is the migration design, the eagle feather design, the hummingbird design, the horned lizard, the moth design, and parrots. Those are the ones that started with Lesso and Nampeyo. The designs are mainly from Sikyatki people—it was their pottery that was dug out when they were excavating. They were beautiful designs they had used quite a bit.” Dextra Quotskuyva, Spoken Through Clay
Out of stock
This is a very tightly painted seedpot by Dextra Quostkuyva Nampeyo. She was certainly one of the most influential Hopi-Tewa potters of the last 50 years. Not only did she teach numerous potters (Steve Lucas, Yvonne Lucas, Les Namingha, Loren Ami, Hisi Nampeyo, to name just a few), but her creative designs and forms have dramatically influenced the pottery itself. The seedpot has a narrow base and round top. It is fully polished and painted with bee-weed and clay slips. The fine-line hatchwork is simply breathtaking in person! It was the use of thinly painted lines that made Dextra famous in the 1970s and this is one of the most complex painted fine-lines I have seen. There are triangular “petals” for the flower that are polished brown. The seedpot was traditionally fired to create the blushes on the surface. It is signed, “Dextra” on the bottom with a corn plant for Corn Clan. It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.
Dextra said of her early pottery:
“I was watching my mom (Rachel Nampeyo) all the time, and I was picking up everything she was doing. I found my own polishing stones. I would collect clays. My mother didn’t like it when I did different types of designs. She was different in her ideas. My mother, she went so far as to say that whatever our great-grandmother had reproduced from old designs—those were important designs. We’re supposed to have the basics, she’d say. The big six. Don’t part from that. The six traditional designs. One of them is the migration design, the eagle feather design, the hummingbird design, the horned lizard, the moth design, and parrots. Those are the ones that started with Lesso and Nampeyo. The designs are mainly from Sikyatki people—it was their pottery that was dug out when they were excavating. They were beautiful designs they had used quite a bit.” Dextra Quotskuyva, Spoken Through Clay
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Quotskuyva, Dextra Nampeyo (1928-2019)
