Mark Tahbo

Mark Tahbo was known not just for his painted pottery, but especially for the blushes on his pottery from the firing.  This bowl is from the 1990’s.  It is one of his larger plainware pieces and it is fully polished on the inside and the outside.  Mark polished it in a horizontal manner.  I remember that he had a similar piece but taller which he always kept in his kitchen.  This bowl was outdoor fired to create the coloration.  Mark was masterful at firing and always wanted to achieve dramatic blushes on the surface of his pottery.  When they turned out with variations like on this jar, from white to deep orange, he was the most pleased.   Mark told me about his plainware work:

“My first plainware pieces were done years ago. I was sure that these would be well received and gallery owner Charles King took a chance with them. They were an immediate hit!  I don’t do very much plainware for it has to be flawless.  The surface has to be free of all dips or air holes and the shape has to be elegant on its own, as there is no design to distract the eye.  The colors achieved on the pots are truly amazing.  Each piece is fired outdoors using sheep dung and coals.  I love it!”

The jar is signed on the bottom “Mark Tahbo”.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.  Definitely a classic of his pottery!

Mark Tahbo was renown for his creative pottery shapes, designs, and firings.  He learned to make pottery from his great-grandmother, Grace Chapella.  Each piece reflects the symmetry and thin walls of an excellent potter. The designs are painted using native clay slips and bee-weed (a plant) for the black.  This jar has a refined form with a wide shoulder and slight neck.  Mark hated to make lids for his pottery and made very few.  This is one of the best constructed lids I have seen of his with the clay used to keep it secure on the neck.  While the shape and lid are visually interesting, it’s the design which is the center of this vessel.  The imagery is a series of Hopi-Tewa women and Parrot men.  The women are holding gourds for water while the Parrot men are holding corn pollen.  The idea of the Parrot men was partially inspired by the figures in the Awatovi murals.  However, Mark would often innovate his own creative designs for his pottery.  He said of this:

“For traditional Hopi-Tewa pottery, there are no shortcuts. I feel that the younger people, they aren’t as fortunate as I was. I was born at a time where I was with the elder women who revived Hopi-Tewa pottery and brought it to this level. I learned the old style. From how to get the clay, how to process it, from start to finish. Today, it seems like the storytelling is almost gone. I always tell younger potters that it’s one of the most important foundations we can have as Hopi-Tewa potters. A story. Something to lean back on. If you don’t have that root or that foundation, you have nothing. You are just floating on your own. Soak it all in and listen to all the old stories that you can. There are just no shortcuts. You have to learn the hard way and have patience.” Mark Tahbo, Spoken Through Clay

The eight figures encircle the jar.  They are painted with additional clay slips to give them color and note the little area when he etched designs on the gourds or the hair!  On the bottom of the jar are swirls parrots or birds.  It is almost as if they are the shadow of the figures dancing above.  The jar was traditionally fired which created the blushes on the surface.  It is signed on the bottom, “Mark Tahbo”.  There is a pipe to represent the Tobacco Clan.  It is in excellent good condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.

This is a striking very large wide shoulder jar by Mark Tahbo.  The jar is a classic Hopi or Sikytaki shape, with the wide shoulder and a slight neck. The neck is just slightly turned out, which for Mark, it was the little details in his pottery which were important to him.  The shoulder of the jar is painted with an intricate eagle tail design.  Mark would often try and stylize patterns so that they were not just a repetition of previous work.  Here, the tail feathers can be seen in the center of the design, and then the wings extruding outward and mottled.  The jar was painted with bee-weed (black) and then clay slips.  Note that he used a deep red clay, but also a mauve clay slip in the center areas.  It was only around 1998-9 that he began to use the mauve clay, which he found near Hopi.  It was difficult to use and he didn’t have much, so he used it as an accent in his designs.  The jar is traditionally fired and the blushes are simply amazing!  The color variations range from white to orange almost red!  Mark worked diligently to create blushes on the surface of the pottery so that they would almost function as another design element!  The jar is signed on the bottom, “Mark Tahbo” and dated ’99.  The jar is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair. The owners of the jar acquired it directly from Mark. Finding pieces of his this size, design and coloration is a great testament to his skill as a potter and painter!