Blue Corn - 12.75" Plate with Thunderbird Designs (1970s)
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Blue Corn – 12.75″ Plate with Thunderbird Designs (1970s)

12.75" Diameter x 2" Deep

$ 3,800.00

This is a spectacular large plate by Blue Corn.  She was undoubtedly one of the most creative potters of her time, using a variety of clays and firing techniques to create her distinctive pottery. This large plate is fully polished on the front and the back.  The front has step-style clouds around the rim. In the center is a large Thunderbird. The head has a cloud design with wings on the sides and the tail below.  It is a very complex and striking design!  The small details in each section, which are tightly painted, are what make it so unique!  The overall complexity and creativity of the design is visually striking!  The plate was fired to a glassy black coloration. It is signed in the clay, “Blue Corn”.  It is in very good to nearly excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.

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Brand:Blue Corn (1921 - 1999)

This is a spectacular large plate by Blue Corn.  She was undoubtedly one of the most creative potters of her time, using a variety of clays and firing techniques to create her distinctive pottery. This large plate is fully polished on the front and the back.  The font is painted with a sun design rising over the checkerboard horizon.  Above the sun are stylized birds.  Below the sun is a fan of eagle feathers.  Take a closer look at the design, as the feathers in the sun follow the curve the plate with some longer and some shorter.  The overall complexity and creativity of the design is visually striking!  The plate was fired to a glassy black coloration. It is signed in the clay, “Blue Corn”.  It is in very good to nearly excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.  We had a museum mount made for the plate, which can be seen in the photos.

Brand

Blue Corn (1921 - 1999)

Blue Corn Crucita Calabaza

Blue Corn

Blue Corn was born "Crucita Calabaza" at San Ildefonso Pueblo. She learned to make pottery from her mother.  She attended school in Pueblo in her early years.  She then went to Santa Fe Indian School, 24 miles from home.  While attending Indian School in Santa Fe, her mother and father died, and she was sent to live with relatives in Southern California.  Here she worked as a maid for a short time in Beverly Hills. At 20, she married Santiago 'Sandy' Calabaza, a silversmith from Santo Domingo pueblo.  Together they settled at San Ildefonso, where she bore and raised ten children.  During World War II, Blue Corn worked as a housecleaner in Los Alamos for the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.  She was renowned for her polychrome Blue Corn pottery and her distinctive blackware. She made black-on-black, redware, and polychrome pots during her career.  In the late 1950s, Santiago Calabaza quit his day job and began working full-time with her, carving, painting, and designing.  In 1972 Joseph began working with Blue Corn after Santiago passed away.  Blue Corn is especially noted for her finely polished slips and her experiments with clays and colors, creating exceptional polychrome pottery. In 1981 she won the "Governor's Award," New Mexico's highest artistic honor.  Blue Corn Pottery was so exacting and innovative in her designs that over a decade after her passing, her pottery continues to be influential and highly sought after.  In both a testament to her skill as a potter and a reflection of her creativity, she was posthumously awarded the 2008 "Lifetime Achievement Award" by SWAIA.  Her work can also be found in "Legacy of Generations."
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