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 turned-out rim.  The entire piece is fully polished.  The jar has four “Nampeyo birds” painted around the shoulder.  Steve said he was inspired by a piece by Nampeyo of Hano (see last photo) and wanted to do his own version of this classic bird tail design  The piece is painted with bee-weed (black) and various clay slips. 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.  The neck of the jar has cloud designs with polished brown areas.  Steve is one of the only traditional Hopi-Tewa potters to use this deep brown coloration.  The piece was traditionally fired and has a dramatic 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 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