WOW!  This is a striking and detailed jar by Dextra Quostkuyva Nampeyo.  She was certainly one of the most influential Hopi-Tewa potters of the last 50 years. Not only did she teach numerous potters (Steve Lucas, Yvonne Lucas, Les Namingha, Loren Ami, Hisi Nampeyo, to name just a few), but her creative designs and forms have dramatically influenced the pottery itself.  First, the jar, which is coil-built, is VERY thin-walled!  It is a pleasure to hold it.  The entire surface is fully stone polished and then painted with bee-weed and red clay slips.  The jar has a wide shoulder, and there is a section that is cut away.  The rim and the carved section are polished a deep red.  Around the opening are intricately designed rain and bird wing patterns.  To the left, note the VERY tightly painted hatchure lines.  As the jar is turned, there is a hummingbird face and wing, again with the TINY lines.  There is a deconstructed hummingbird near the back of the jar, and another hummingbird face with a “migration” wing on the side.  I think it is not only the complexity of the design but the lack of symmetry (i.e. the designs all different but cohesive across the surface) that makes it so interesting.  The tiny painted lines are what made Dextra famous in the 1970s, and here they are again, and equally as perfect.  There is creative sophistication to the piece, much like in that of her ancestor Nampeyo of Hano.  The jar was traditionally fired, creating strong blushes on the surface. This piece is signed on the bottom, “Dextra” and an ear of corn for Corn Clan.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair.  Definitely a classic of her creative clay art!

Dextra said of her early pottery:

“I was watching my mom (Rachel Nampeyo) all the time, and I was picking up everything she was doing. I found my own polishing stones. I would collect clays.  My mother didn’t like it when I did different types of designs. She was different in her ideas. My mother, she went so far as to say that whatever our great-grandmother had reproduced from old designs—those were important designs. We’re supposed to have the basics, she’d say. The big six. Don’t part from that. The six traditional designs. One of them is the migration design, the eagle feather design, the hummingbird design, the horned lizard, the moth design, and parrots. Those are the ones that started with Lesso and Nampeyo.  The designs are mainly from Sikyatki people—it was their pottery that was dug out when they were excavating. They were beautiful designs they had used quite a bit.”  Dextra Quotskuyva, Spoken Through Clay

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Quotskuyva, Dextra Nampeyo (1928-2019)

Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo

Few potters have had such an impact on their art as Dextra.  She was a great-granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano, descending through her eldest daughter, Annie Healing.  She was one of Hopi's most creative, innovative, and influential potters for almost forty years.  She is also the mother of famed painter Dan Namingha and potter Hisi Quotskuyva.  She taught Steve Lucas, Loren Ami, Yvonne Lucas, and Les Namingha to make pottery, resulting in Hopi pottery's nearly unprecedented influence.  Dextra used the bee-weed plant for the black and native clay slips for the red.  Dextra's pottery can be found in numerous museums' permanent collections and has been the subject of a book and exhibition at the Wheelwright Museum entitled "Painted Perfection."  Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo uses traditional Hopi pottery methods in hand coil construction, stone polish, paint, and open fire.

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