This is a very detailed jar by Ida Sahmie.  It has the Night Chant Dance with six male Yei-bi-chi dancers and six female Dancers on the jar.  There are two additional figures at the front and back of the line of dancers.  Each figure is incised into the clay and highlighted with clay slips.  The background area is fully painted with bee-weed (a plant) to make it black and there are stars in the sky.  Each figure is also painted with various clay colors and incised in the white areas.  There is an amazing amount of work on her pieces and it is all done BEFORE the piece is fired!  Check out as well the shadows at the bottom and how she even did the feathers.  Ida said of this design:

“The night and day dancers do about the same dance.  It takes me so much time to etch the designs. I etch each figure before the jar is fired.  The skirt on each of the figures has a different design.  After they are etched then I use the slips to create the colors. After all the painting is done, then I fire it outside.”

Ida is a daughter-in-law of Priscilla Nampeyo, and she has won numerous awards for her pottery at events such as Santa Fe Indian Market.  She is the only Navajo potter creating this unique style of ethnographic imagery on her pottery using these materials.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Ida Sahmie.  The last photos are of Ida holding the piece and a photo she sent me right after the firing.