Naranjo, Jody – Tall Jar with Flowers and Six Big Horn Sheep (1998)

6"w x 7.5"h

$ 1,500.00

This jar by Jody Naranjo is a classic piece of her work from 1998.  The jar is coil-built, thin-walled, and stone polished.  The jar has a matte band around the center and the areas above and below are polished.  There are six Mimbres-style Big Horn Sheep encircling the jar.  The bodies of each are tightly etched with star and rain designs.  Extending up from the base are flowers.  The same star design is repeated on the neck and base of the jar in the polished areas. The piece was fired to a brown coloration.  The jar is signed, “Jody Naranjo” and it is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.

Jody has said of her work:

“The clay is cathartic. I spend a lot of time carving. That’s my peace. That’s the time I release my energy, any good or bad energy. If I have some issue going on, I focus and the whole world goes away.  I can sit there and build this piece from nothing. It makes me happy. You should do the part you like more. If you like it, you are good at it.  I started carving in the center where the polish didn’t meet and then my polish still looked nice. My carving in the middle was on the matte surface. Before you know it the matte surfaces started getting bigger, and it was less about masking my polishing and more about making my carving larger.  Bigger pieces tend to overwhelm me in the amount of designing I have to do.” Jody Naranjo Spoken Through Clay