This is a creative polychrome jar by Russell Sanchez.  He continues to be one of the true innovators in Pueblo pottery.  Each piece is perfectly coil-built, stone-polished, and etched.  The jar has a wide shoulder and a short neck.  It is a shape that is inspired by his great-grandmother Ignacia Sanchez.  The top half of the jar is polished white.  There are three incised bears and three incised bear paws.  The bears are slipped with black clay and each has a large piece of coral inset into their backs.  The bear paws are all slipped red and each has a large piece of Sleeping Beauty turquoise.  The red color represents the Winter Clan, and the turquoise the Summer Clan.  Below the shoulder is a checkerboard pattern separated by two rows of turquoise hei-shi beads.  The base is fully polished red.  The neck has 21 inset hematite stones, and there are an additional 44 below the shoulder.  Did you know that all the etching and all the clay colors have to be carefully applied BEFORE the piece is fired?  This adds time to the polychrome pieces but also adds to their distinctive appearance.  The stones are inset after the firing and there is a jewel-like quality to the way he inset the stones.  The jar is signed on the bottom, “Russell”.  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.”  It is exciting to see how this imagery is not new but Russell’s reinterpretation of it both modernizes and revives the clay.