This is a highly polished jar by Jennifer Tafoya. The piece is square in shape with an elongated square neck and it is fully polished.  The jar was fired a glassy black and then etched with design.  The top is fully designed with four Anomalocaris. Each is depicted with the body segments.  Jennifer has given them details on the eyes, body, and fins.  Underneath them are carved areas that are then incised with swirling circles that are slipped wither green or with mica.  This gives an added dimension to her work. Then Jennifer uses various clays to create the colorations on the surface of the piece.  All the various colors are derived from natural clay slips.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Jennifer Tafoya”.  Jennifer continues to be one of the leading innovative potters working today!  She most recently won the “Tony Da Award” for innovative pottery at Santa Fe Indian Market in 2019 and “Best of Show” in 2023!

What’s an Anomalocaris?

Anomalocaris (“unlike other shrimp”, or “abnormal shrimp”) is an extinct genus of radiodont, an order of early arthropods.  Like other radiodonts, Anomalocaris had swimming flaps running along its body, large compound eyes, and a single pair of segmented, frontal appendages, which in Anomalocaris were used to grasp prey. Measuring up to 1.25 ft long, excluding frontal appendages and tail fan. For the time in which it lived, Anomalocaris was gigantic.  Anomalocaris propelled itself through the water by undulating the flexible flaps on the sides of its body.