This is one of the largest fully designed pieces we have had by Johnathan Naranjo.  The bowl is fully polished and the designs are etched into the clay.  Johnathan says of this bowl:

As the end of Summer approaches, I looked back at my time spent in the mountains during the warmest months. I thought it fun to design some stories where family or I had lived. To the left is a trout leaping out of the water for its food. While fly fishing in Chama NM, I witnessed a fish jump out of the water three times in a row. The third jump was so close to me, I bet I could have taken off my hat and caught myself dinner if I wasn’t so shocked. Stunned because I had never witnessed it before, I also felt taunted by the fish with a fly rod in my hands. The mountain lion to the right was an encounter my uncle had during his evening run descending Puyé Cliffs in Santa Clara Pueblo. 45 feet away from him was a mountain lion yet to notice him near the road. Cautiously my uncle turned back to avoid an encounter with thoughts of flagging a vehicle down. With no car in sight, he turned back to see the lion again and it was gone.

To the left is an image of a hawk catching a fish using the most primal of methods. My grandfather and I were sitting
in a canoe on the lake of Santa Cruz one evening and I was recording our fishing expedition when he asked me how to zoom in with my camera phone. I demonstrated by pinching my two fingers open on my phone’s screen and told him “look gramps, I will zoom in on this hawk flying above us”. Right at that moment, the large bird suddenly stopped and dropped right into a spiraling freefall splashing into the lake. After a short struggle the raptor regained it’s composure and continued to fly on by us. Upon further review and using close up imagery, sure enough there was a fish in the grasp of it’s talons. The irony of a hawk catching our fish and showing us how fishing is REALLY done was too awesome to ingore. To the right is a New Mexico black bear in a patch of raspberry bushes. When trekking in the mountains it’s important to remember that we share this beautiful world with other animals that are much larger than us. My family and I have had multiple encounters with bears living in Northern NM. Although most likely to flee, there is always a risk of curiosity or aggression. My grandmother always told me to be careful when picking raspberries because that’s where the bears like to be. So I thought it would be great to design some of the mountains most amazing creatures.”

The bowl is fully polished and each of the sections is etched with a different animal scene as described above.  Johnathan etches into the clay at varying depths to create his designs.  The lighter etching is more red while the deeper is tan.  There is a difficulty is just etching away the polished surface to create the light red coloration.  Separating each of the animals is an eternity design, which again appears around the shoulder of the piece.  On the highly polished base there are additional light red etched eternity designs.  The highly polished bowl is perfect to reflect the delicate imagery.   It is traditionally fired, which gives it the distinctive coloration.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay.  Johnathan has won numerous awards for his pottery and  Johnathan is definitely one of the young potters to watch!