Susan Folwell is one of the exciting innovators in Pueblo pottery.  This new jar is for her current series, “Roads Well Traveled: Route 66”.  This piece is entitled “Badlands”.  The jar is coil-built and has a round shoulder and an elongated neck. The jar has a rim that was wet before firing and then sealed to give it a weathered appearance.  Susan painted the body of the jar with the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona with shadows of the city in the background.  The base is the Road, Route 66, extending into the distance.  Spectacular in color and content.  The jar is signed, Susan Folwell.

Susan says of this piece:

“I’ve been taking trips and traveling along Route 66 in Arizona and New Mexico since I was a kid.  There is so much to see, interpret, and wonder about that past!  Much of the area lends itself to my natural interest in the obscure and unusual.  For “The Badlands”, it’s a reflection of my love for Canyon de Chelly and the mesas of New Mexicio and Arizona that are a visual connection to where we live.  Like the rest of the world, these spaces keep become more inhabited and overbuilt over time.  The shadows of the buidlings in the background are the foreshadowing of the future if we aren’t attentive.  The rim of this jar was left natural.  I wet down the clay and then sealed it after it was fired but I wanted to give the jar the impression of age and weathering, much like the stone structes of the badlands themselves.”