This is a large jar by Dextra Quotskuyva.  She is certainly one of the great innovators among Hopi-Tewa potters.  Her work began with more classic imagery and then has evolved over the years to more unique and stylized designs. This jar is coil-built and painted with bee-weed and polished red areas.  It is from 1981.  The jar is a classic eagle tail design.  It is a design revived by Nampeyo of Hano in the 1890s and one that Dextra would often say was “one of her favorite designs”.  The jar has rather a massive shape with high shoulders and a short neck.  The neck and top secion are polished red.  There are four eagle tails extending downward over the side of the jar.  They are painted with bee-weed (black). They are highlighted with bands of polished red.  Note the thin lines on the “backs” of the birds.  The swirls extending outward are meant to represent the bird wings.  The jar was traditionally fired to create the blushes on the surface.  Simply and elegant in person!  Dextra’s early pieces are a marvel of thin lines and precision painting.  The jar is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Dextra Quotskuyva (Nampeyo)”.  It is in very good condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.  Dextra has been the subject of a retrospective of her pottery at the Wheelwright called, “Painted Perfection“.