WOW!  This is a striking large water jar by Lonnie Vigil.  He is known for his use of micaceous clay and is one of a handful of potters from Nambe Pueblo.  He has taken this style of pottery and transformed it from utilitarian into fine art.  This is a classic water jar with a wide, sharp shoulder and a turned-out rim.  The jar is made from micaceous clay and fired to a silvery-black coloration.  It is both an iconic shape and firing coloration for his pottery.   This piece is signed, “Lonnie Vigil” and it is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.  Lonnie’s refinement of micaceous pottery won him “Best of Show” at Santa Fe Indian Market in 1998.

Lonnie said of his pottery:

“The fire clouds are the result of the fuel touching the pottery. When we fire the pieces, we use cottonwood bark. The pottery doesn’t get fire clouded everywhere but just in certain places. It’s serendipitous they don’t happen all in the same place. This [jar was fired right side up].  You can tell because the fire clouding is on the bottom. Often they tell me how they want to sit in the fire. I can fire them upside down or right side up. Some of them are just tottering, so that means they want to be with their mouth to the fire.” Lonnie Vigil, Spoken Through Clay