This is a classic wide shoulderw jar by Steve Lucas.  He remains 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 wide shoulder and asymmetric opening.  The rim is polished red. The top of the bowl is painted with a checkerboard cornfield along with rain, cloud, and katsina faces.  It is the katinsas who bring the rain for the corn.  Steve said the asymmetry of the opening is the sky and the polished red represents the mesas, with the corn fields below. It is a creative piece that tells a story of Hopi.   The bowl was traditionally fired to create the blushes on the surface.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “S. Lucas” and a mudhead (koyemsi) and an ear of corn (corn clan).  It is an innovative design in 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