Russell Sanchez continues to be one of the true innovators in Pueblo pottery.  Each piece is perfectly coil built, stone polished and etched.  This bowl is one of his first incorporating a polished white clay slip!  The white is the same white clay used on historic San Ildefonso polychrome pottery when it was stone polished.  This piece has a culturally inspired design with two different old style Sun Faces.  Each sun is different and they are meant to represent the Summer people and the Winter people at the Pueblo.  Each sun is etched into the white clay and they are highlighted with red and black clay.  The rim has a rain design while the base has mountains with the sun rising.  There is a striking degree of complexity in the etched imagery on this piece!  As well, it is a true polychrome with polished deep red, white, black, light red and matte tan, red and black clay colorations.  There are three inset bands of hematite hei-shi beads which encircle the bowl.  As Russell continues to innovate from historic designs, he says, “Tradition means moving forward and adding to it. You keep moving forward.  If we stayed stagnant we would no longer exist.”  The bottom of the bowl is indented, which reflects the historic San Ildefonso pottery with the indented base which would be worn on the head.   The bowl is signed on the bottom in the clay.  The second to the last photo is of the bowl before it was fired. The last photo is of a similar Sun design from a San Ildefonso plate from the 1920s.  It is exciting to see how this imagery is not new but Russell’s reinterpretation of it both modernizes and revives.

Russell Sanchez: Contemporizing the Pueblo Pottery Past