This jar by Steve Lucas is an elegant shape with a wide shoulder and a sloping neck.  The jar is thin-walled and stone polished before it is fired.  The top of the jar is painted with a series of butterflies.  Did you know that in Hopi-Tewa, the word for butterfly and moth is the same!  But Steve said he painted them as butterflies.  The wings are polished red and the rest is painted with bee-weed for black, before firing.  The jar was traditionally fired with amazing fire clouds on the surface.  It is signed on the bottom with his name and an ear of corn (Corn Clan) and a Mudhead Katsina. 

Steve said of the deep red clay slip he uses on his pottery:

“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 color clay slip and I decided to experiment 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