Juan Cruz creates complex painted polychrome pottery.  He is a son of noted potter Lois Gutierrez.  Lois made the jar and Juan, who is noted for his illustrations, painted the design using natural clay slips.  This water jar has sloping sides and intricately painted figures.  Juan wrote of the scene he painted as follows:

“For this piece i drew inspriaiton from one of hte Awatovi Kiva murals scenes and employed my own stylistic re-intrepretation to it.”

The jar is truly polychrome (more than three colors of clay).  Note the intricacy of the painted designs and especially the figures.  The figures include some amazing detail along with the birds.  Below the shoulder are stylized parrots.  The description is written on the back of a hand-painted graphic of the four directions.  What a phenomenal addition to this piece and the painting helps to better understand how exceptional Juan is with his art.   While Juan is new to the pottery world, he recently won “Best of Pottery” at Gallup Ceremonials in 2017 and has been featured in articles in Cowboys & Indians Magazine and Native Art Magazine in 2018.