Daisy Hooee Nampeyo is one of the extraordinary Hopi-Tewa women making pottery in the last century.  She was a daughter of Annie Nampeyo Healing and a granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano.  Her daughter is Shirley Benn, and her granddaughter is Cheryl Naha Nampeyo.  Daisy spent many of her formative years with her grandmother and learned how to make pottery at a very early age.  However, she began to lose her vision and had an operation to remove cataracts due to an infection.  She attended the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris through her benefactor, Anita Baldwin. When she returned to Hopi, she married Ray Naha, then Leo Pablano (from Zuni), and finally Sidney Hooee from Zuni.  Her life story is as fascinating as her pottery. This water jar is from the 1980s.  It has a round shape and a turned-out rim. The jar is painted with a traditional migration pattern.  There are eight bird wings on the top and eight below the shoulder, for a total of 16.  The piece was traditionally fired to create the surface colorations or “blushes.”  It is in exellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.  It is signed on the bottom, “Daisy Hooee Nampeyo”.  Definitely a piece of history!

Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo said of  the migration pattern:

“This is the one design that was really stressed for us to use, the migration pattern. Nothing but lines, representing the migration of all the people to all the places, including down below and up above. All the x’s represent life from the bottom and top, telling you the universe is one. The thin lines, I just wanted to paint them real fast and real close to try and include everyone.”  Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo, Spoken Through Clay