Dominique Toya is known for her intricately carved pottery with sharply ridged melon swirls.  She has created her distinctive style of pottery using native clay and micaceous clay slips for the surface.  This seedpot is fully polished on the top and bottom.  The polished area is a gray-blue clay slip from Jemez that she calls “Frost Gray”.  It is very difficult to polish but the result is stunning in coloration!  There is a band with a single sharp-edged melon rib encircling the piece.  It is slipped with black micaceous clay.  The complement of the black and the frost-gray is stunning!  The natural coloration come together beautifully!   The piece was traditionally fired outdoors, giving the “frost gray” a subtle coloration and depth.  I really like how you can see the color variation from the firing on the bottom.  The contrast of the polished and micaceous areas is visually striking in terms of how the light hits the surface. It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Dominique Toya”.  Dominique has won numerous awards for her pottery and continues to be one of the leading Jemez potters working today!