WOW!  This is a stunning carved water jar by Teresita Naranjo.  Teresita was a daughter of Christina Naranjo and know for her deeply carved pottery.   Each piece was coil built, carved, stone polished and traditionally fired.  This jar is very large in size and fully carved with a water serpent encircling the piece and feathers along the neck.  The body of the avanyu ebbs and swirls around the jar in deeply-carved segments. The feather pattern is carved out of the negative space of the neck. The entire piece is fully polished and fired a glassy black coloration.  It is easy to see how her great-niece Tammy Garcia was inspired by this work of her great-aunt!  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Teresita Naranjo”.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.

“Some of my pieces of pottery are polished inside as well as outside. When we do wrong, we are like my pieces of pottery that I leave rough inside. Even if we polish ourselves outside, we stay rough inside. All my pottery is fired in an open fire, which determines the color. I really do enjoy making pottery, for I know God has given me this talent and the patience to do it.”  —Teresita Naranjo, Spoken Through Clay