This is a creative wide bowl by Mark Tahbo.  He was known not just for his painted pottery but especially for the blushes on his pottery from the firing.  This piece is from 1994.  It has a round shape and it is vertically polished in what is called an “onion skin style”. The vertical polishing is inspired by the historic pottery of the Southwest. The piece is painted around the side with a bird that is reconstructed in design. There is the head, wing, body, and tail as the bowl is turned.  It was traditionally fired with strong color variations.  It is signed on the bottom “M.  Tahbo”.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair. 

“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