WOW!  This is an exceptional wide-shoulder jar by Preston Duwyenie.  It is coil-built and the neck and base are stone polished.  Around the shoulder, the jar is carved in a natural manner to represent the sand in the desert and its constant movement.  The “sand” sections are matte, as is the remainder of the jar which creates a great texture.  There are ten inset pieces of silver, which have an additional “shifting sand” pattern. They are cut and placed so that they look like pottery shards!  The silver is cast against cuttle-fish bone (a type of squid).  This process creates a similar style of shifting sand design to complement the clay.  The jar is signed on the bottom in the clay with Preston’s hallmark which is a woman carrying a child as the hallmark for his name in Hopi.  Preston is from Third Mesa at Hopi and taught ceramics for years at the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe.

“Why the shifting sand designs? Preston says he remembers watching a smooth pebble caught in sand being shifted by the wind, “there was beauty in its isolation within the sea of sand. It was like an island.  The endless sands of time, and the fact that people, too are tossed about by the wind. There is always rippling in our lives”.