Steve Lucas is one of the leading Hopi-Tewa potters working today.  Each piece is coil-built, stone polished, painted with native clay slips and bee-weed (black), and traditionally fired.  Steve has won “Best of Show” at Santa Fe Indian Market, and his work remains some of the most refined and creative.  This jar has a round shoulder and a slightly turned-out rim.  The entire piece is fully polished before it is painted.  Steve said this design is the “Rainbirds”. There is a rainbird on each side.  They are tightly painted with extended wings and tails that extend over the rounded shoulder.  Separating them are multi-color clouds. The clouds are painted with green, red, and white clays that are stone polished.  On the birds, all the dark red and dark brown areas are all stone-polished!  This style is very time-consuming to apply the slip and then polish each of the various small sections.  Steve is one of the only traditional Hopi-Tewa potters to use this deep brown coloration.  Note as well how Steve used the open space of the clay to accentuate the designs and have the eye move around the piece.  Equally, the shape of the rainbirds accentuates the round shoulder and draws the eye to the neck.   The piece was traditionally fired and has a dramatic and rich coloration from the firing.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “S. Lucas” and a mudhead (koyemsi) and an ear of corn (corn clan).  It is a creative design on a classic form.

“When I first learned to make pottery, the red slip painted in the designs was difficult to work with. It wouldn’t take heat very well and would scorch and turn black. The red was also difficult to polish. My aunt Dextra had a deep red clay slip, so I experimented with it. I took some of our base clay and added the red to it, and it polished very well. I then decided to put some mica in there to get that sparkle. That’s where the new red came from, and Dextra liked how it turned out. I introduced them to that. It was nice that for my teacher, Dextra, I was able to share and teach her something.”  Steve Lucas, Spoken Through Clay