This is a simple but creative open bowl by Al Qoyawayma. The bowl has an ear of corn on one side and a Pueblo structure with a key hole doorway on the other side.  The inside is matte and the outside is stone polished.  The piece is made from traditional Hopi red clay.  The contrast of the matte and polished surfaces works to enhance the design and form.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Al Qoyawyama”.

“The earliest corn motif is found on pottery in Ecuador dating to 1900 BC.  The technique was to push out from the inside of the pottery the basic form of the corn ear shape and then sculpt the kernel decoration or relief.  Al and Elizabeth White (his aunt) saw an exhibit of “Ancient Ecuador, CUlture, clay, and creativity” at the Field Museum in Chicago in 1975.  They realized that they were creating a similar technique at Hopi.  Elizabeth began using this motif in the early 1960s.  The corn motif is used in sacred respect of the corn in sustaining Native Americans over at least the last several thousand years.”  Al Qoywayama, Hopi Potter, 1984