WOW!  This new polychrome lidded jar by Russell Sanchez is complex in design.   He continues to be one of the true innovators and revivalists in Pueblo pottery.  Each piece is perfectly coil-built, stone-polished, and etched.  The jar has a low shoulder and a sloping side.  The bowl is polychrome with an incised bear on one side, then rain clouds, and a band of feathers on the opposite side.  The complexity of the designs and the flow of imagery is exceptional on this jar.  Note as well the little bear paw at the neck of the jar.  Around the shoulder is a checkerboard pattern. Separating each of the rows are four bands of hematite hei-shi beads.  Near the base are classic cloud designs. On the body of the jar, after it was fired, there are inset hematite and turquoise stones.  The jar has a bear lid with a polished base. There is a matching bear paw with the one on the neck of the jar!   The bear has hematite and turquoise hei-shi beads across the back and inset turquoise and hematite stones.  Overall, there are 132 inset stones on this piece!  The polychrome part of the jar is a white clay that is polished and then incised and painted with red and black clays.  It is a very time-consuming process.  All the colors are derived from natural clays and inspired by historic San Ildefonso polychrome pottery (black/red/white), using many of the same clays!  The colorations of black, red, and white are all seen in San Ildefonso’s pottery from the 1880s to about 1920.  His deep red clay is another recent addition to his clay art starting around 2005.  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 jar and lid are signed on the bottom in the clay, “Russell”.  It is exciting to see how this imagery is not new but Russell’s reinterpretation of it both modernizes and revives.

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