This is a creative jar by Mark Tahbo.  He was known not just for his painted pottery but especially for the blushes on his pottery from the firing.  This jar is from 1995.  It is coil-built and thin-walled.  The jar is painted with two eagle tails connected two spiraling birds.  They are painted with bee-weed and red clay slip.  Below the shoulder are cloud and rain designs painted in two different colors of red. The jar was traditionally fired with exceptional blushes on the surface.  Mark was masterful at firing and always wanted to achieve dramatic blushes on the surface of his pottery.  When they turned out with variations like on this jar, from white to deep orange, he was the most pleased.   The jar is signed on the bottom “Mark Tahbo”.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair. There is a third place ribbon from the 1995 Gallup Intertribal Ceremonials. 

“For traditional Hopi-Tewa pottery, there are no shortcuts. I feel that the younger people aren’t as fortunate as I was. I was born at a time where I was with the elder women who revived Hopi-Tewa pottery and brought it to this level. I learned the old style. From how to get the clay and how to process it, from start to finish. They were simple, maybe even crude ways, but they worked. Today, it seems like the storytelling is almost gone. I always tell younger potters that it’s one of the most important foundations we can have as Hopi-Tewa potters. A story. Something to lean back on. If you don’t have that root or that foundation, you have nothing. You are just floating on your own. Soak it all in and listen to all the old stories that you can. There are just no shortcuts. You have to learn the hard way and have patience.”  Mark Tahbo, Spoken Through Clay