Sanchez, Russell – Polychrome Plate with Corn, Seed Designs, and 145 Stones
$ 5,500.00
This is a creative polychrome plate by Russell Sanchez. He continues to be one of the true innovators and revivalists in Pueblo pottery. Each piece is perfectly coil built, stone polished, and etched. This plate has a black micaceous clay rim and back. The front has a polychrome center with a very traditional design. There is a checkerboard corn pattern in the center. Extending out are seed and plant designs. The designs are etched into the clay before firing and highlighted with red and black clay. The plate was traditionally fired and then inset with stones. There are two bands of turquoise hei-shi beads around the rim. There are 111 inset hematite stones on the edge of the design of the plate. The center has inset coral and turquoise. In total, there are 145 inset stones on this piece! The plate is signed on the back “Russell”. We had a museum mount stand made for the plate.
In stock
This is a creative polychrome plate by Russell Sanchez. He continues to be one of the true innovators and revivalists in Pueblo pottery. Each piece is perfectly coil built, stone polished, and etched. This plate has a red polished rim with small black dots. There is a band of jet hei-shi and then a band of black polished clay. There is a single band of turquoise hei-shi beads. In the center, it is polished white and etched with an early style avanyu in the center. The avanyu is highlighted with both black and red clay slips. This style was inspired by the black-and-red lines on the polychrome pottery of Maria Martinez & Popovi Da (see last two photos). The avanyu has a turquoise inset eye. The plate was traditionally fired. The clay colorations of black, red, and white are all seen in San Ildefonso pottery from the 1880s to about 1920. His deep red clay is another recent addition to his clay art starting around 2005. As Russell continues to innovate from historic designs, he says, “Tradition means moving forward and adding to it. You keep moving forward. If we stayed stagnant we would no longer exist.” The jar is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Russell”. It is exciting to see how this imagery is not new but Russell’s reinterpretation of it both modernizes and revives.
