Joel McHorse learned to make pottery from his mother, Christine McHorse.  His early work was a combination of traditional Navajo shapes and incised designs along with his own distinctive silverwork that he used to make the finials on the lids. This is a classic Navajo-style melon bowl.  It is coil-built and each of the 20 ribs is pushed out in the clay!  It creates an interesting appearance from both the outside and inside. The bowl was traditionally fired to create the blushes on the surface and then it was covered in pinon-pitch in the style of traditional Navajo pottery.  The bowl won a Second Place at the 1995 Santa Fe Indian Market.  It is signed, “J. McHorse” and it is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.  Not surprisingly Joel is as much an architect as a potter.  He took nearly a decade away from the clay to become an architect.  Joel said of his early work, “The successes of form and composition that I see in my pottery I try to utilize in my architecture.”