Rondina Huma has certainly been one of the most influential Hopi potters working today.  Since her two-time “Best of Show” award at Santa Fe Indian Market, her tight style and intricately painted pottery has changed the face of contemporary Hopi pottery.   Each piece is coil built, fully stone polished and painted with native clays and bee-weed (black), and native fired.  This is one of her pieces from the late 1980s.  it is a shape that shows off her intricate painting.  It has a wide shoulder which then flattens out to the mouth.  The entire piece is fully painted.  Rondina said of her work:

“This style is when I first started designing from the bottom to the top. I would get a bunch of sherds and I would put them together and see what pattern they created. Then I would take back the sherds to where I found them. I also polish the inside of all my pottery. People ask how I do it and how I can get so deep inside. I just think it makes a bowl look nicer if it is fully polished. The burgundy-colored [areas] are the water migration. It’s like a spring with the water coming up out of the earth and soaking back into the ground. It’s a full cycle, so the square has to be complete. I do most of the painting freehand. When I look at a pot, I already know what design I’m going to put on there. I can visualize what I’m going to paint, and it is never the same. I don’t really use a pencil—I’m afraid it won’t come off. I try to just measure with my hand to space out the designs.”  Rondina Huma, Spoken Through Clay

The bowl has four panels of design, and each has different “shard” patterns.  The red areas are stone polished.  Her period in the late 1980s was when she began to first reduce the size of her squares so that they became increasingly small over time.    Rondina says that she tries to not duplicate the same “shard” patterns on the same vessel!  The bowl was traditionally fired, so there are blushes on the surface.  It is signed on the bottom, “Rondina Huma”.  It is in very good condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.  Definitely a classic of her early work in size and design!