Steve Lucas is known for his intricately painted designs and thin-walled pottery.  This bowl has a red tail hawk as the design.  There are a series of four interconnected haws with red tail feathers. The red is stone polished and has a bit of mica.  The remainder is painted with bee-weed (black).  For an ancient design, Steve has painted it with a very modernist appearance with sharp angles and minimalist coloration. The jar is traditionally fired and has slight color variations from the firing.  It is signed on the bottom with his name and an ear of corn (Corn Clan) and a Mudhead Katsina (Koyemsi).  

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