Pot 2023-07 was part of a three-piece box lot I bought at auction, which reduced the attention I paid to the details of each piece. When I unpacked the pieces and saw the design on this pot more clearly, the energy was so great that it disturbed me. The design is emphatically both peaceful and violent, a contradiction of great impact. It is also extraordinarily detailed.
Form:
The shape is a perfect flying saucer: from rim to waist is 3-inches, the same as the distance from the waist to the bottom. The upper surface is exceptionally-thin; the underside only slightly thicker. I’m not sure how this pot was fired. When its rim is struck with a finger, it emits a “fairly” high-pitched ring, which might be from a kiln firing. King Gallery indicates that Les has been kiln-firing his pots since the mid-1990’s. On the other hand, the bottom of the pot is substantially blushed, indicating an outdoor firing. This effect, however, can be achieved with a blow torch after a kiln firing.
Design:
The pot has a circumference of 20 inches. Most of the design space contains just three elements: birds, dots and linear forms. For a bit more than a third of this space, however, Les has added additional geometric designs.
Two Sikyatki-style birds are placed on either side of the pot’s opening, their tails just touching. Each bird is 5-inches long but one has a wider body and tail than the other. The internal designs of both birds are detailed and complex, but they display different patterns of design. [Note that the geometric shapes mentioned are only approximations since the bodies of the birds are curved.]
Smaller bird:
The smaller bird has a long, black and curved beak that narrows and terminates with a black dot. The subsequent designs, except for the terminating tail, are a series of rectangular segments of varying width. Behind the beak is a rather wide unpainted rectangle (a “one-lane highway”) formed as a linear element crosses the bird. Following is a space filled with black, blue and red pointillism ending with a black “gumdrop.” A “two-lane highway” is next, followed by a rectangular space divided diagonally. The upper triangular half is unpainted, but has a black pyramid at its base and a short one-lane highway as the same (bent) linear element we encountered earlier crosses the design. The obverse lower half is solid black, except it is unpainted where it is crossed by the same linear element. Following another one-lane highway is another rectangle also cut by a diagonal, though this diagonal runs in a different angle. The upper triangular half displays a two-layered gumdrop at its base that is composed of a black layer over a maroon layer. The remainder of the triangle is filled with black pointillism. Following a two-lane highway is a narrow rectangular space with two intact and two half rear-pointing isosceles triangles. This pattern forms three intact forward-facing, unpainted isosceles triangles. Together these two sets of triangles create a pattern of black/foreground reversal. Following a one-lane highway is a rectangle filled with a 7X7 grid. Immediately adjacent is a narrow rectangle filled with blue and red pointillism, followed by a two-lane highway. Finally a long black tail consisting of one isosceles triangle flanked by half isosceles triangles flows from the rear of the bird.
Larger bird:
The internal design of the larger bird is even more complicated. This bird has the same beak as the first, except that a long thin crest indicated by blue, black and red pointillism graces its base. Following a two-lane highway is a rectangle with an unpainted gumdrop against its far wall with two solid black isosceles triangles set on its upper edge. The residual space in this section thus forms one intact and two half isosceles triangles, thus giving this space background/foreground reversal.The base of the gumdrop adjoins a one-lane highway formed when a linear element passes through the bird, followed by a small, crowed, space. This space has equilateral black triangles set against its upper and lower edges. The somewhat hourglass residual space is filled with blue, red and black pointillism. Following a two-lane highway is a totally black space intruded into by a thin unpainted crook with two turns: a three-sided open rectangle. Because of foreground/background reversal, however, this space can also be seen a unpainted with the intrusion of a thick black crook with three turns. A one-lane highway follows, then a narrow band of red and black pointillism, then a two-lane highway.
The next segment is version of a segment we saw on the first bird. A large rectangular space is bisected by a one-lane highway. Above this line a wide black gum drop rests on the diagonal. The residual upper space is filled with more red and black pointillism. The triangular space below the diagonal is entirely filled with red and blue pointillism. A three-lane highway separates this segment from the next. That segment displays a black gumdrop against its far wall, the remainder of the space filled with black pointillism. The same linear form that crossed this bird earlier has made a 90-degree turn and here enters the bird again, passing as a diagonal through the three-lane highway and into the black pointillism and ending. As before, as it re-enters the bird, it briefly has only outline and loses its black coloration. A one-lane highway separates these elements from the tail.
As noted earlier, the boundaries of the bird’s body are not parallel, but fan out slightly. In this last segment of tail feathers, the angled boundaries are most noticeable. Based on the one-lane highway four tall and thin black triangles project towards the rear. The top three are isosceles, the bottom has been cut off by the edge of the design and is a right triangle. Because of their extreme elongation, all four look similar. The points of the tails are crossed by a slightly curved black line. This thin line serves as the base for four forward-pointing triangles that fill the residual space, thus creating another example of foreground/background reversal. These triangles are filled with black pointillism. Except… Based on the curved line that marks the base of these tails, are four tiny right triangles filled with black, red and white pointillism. Because their size is small and their hypotenuses are thin, they are camouflaged in the black pointillism of the surrounding triangles. These tiny triangles are almost invisible. Note that a short linear element cuts into this tail structure, as usual turning unpainted as it crosses two black feather triangles.
Geometric shapes:
The Sikyatki birds cover about two-thirds of the design space. Most of the remaining space is filled with a jumble of geometric shapes. At the center is a complicated circular form consisting of a black oval with a large triangular section demarcated. This wedge is filled with black and red pointillism. Emerging from the black expanse of the oval is a large black swirl that encircles the oval and extends another inch, ending in a point. As it encircles the central oval, the black swirl leaves a C-shaped gap filled with black pointillism. A large, wide, and black isosceles triangle floats in space, its right point resting on the black swirl. From this point a thin black line extends to a neighboring linear element. The side of this wide triangle supports a wiggly red element, a red worm, if you will. A black line marks its upper edge; on all but one curve it is surrounded by black dots. From the point of the central black triangle, a large V-shaped element hangs. Its width is variable, thin at first and growing thicker as it moves down to a point and then up to form its second open tip. This second tip then drops downward and curves, forming a sickle shape, its point touching the head of bird #2. Hanging from the tip of the sickle is a V form oriented like a plow blade and constructed from triangular shapes.
Lnear elements crowd the surface of the pot and penetrate all of the other designs, but this pattern is clustered. Both birds are each skewered three times by two linear elements, but no linear form touches both birds. Similarly the cluster of geometric designs around the oval is bracketed by a squared-off U-shape which intrudes twice, but touches no other elements of design. There is one, slight exception: crossing this squared U is the tip of the line that eventually penetrates bird 2 twice, thus linking the otherwise independent clusters of lines. In short, every group of non-linear designs is penetrated once or twice by linear elements but no linear element penetrates more than one non-linear group.
After all the other designs had been painted, Les added a seemingly random scatter of 23 red dots and 16 black dots across the unpainted surfaces.
Design Analysis:
The black linear elements become unpainted as they cross into the bodies of the two birds or cross other elements. This pattern indicates penetration, a going within. For geometric shapes, such penetration adds visual interest, for the two birds, the penetration seems deadly.
A large number of detailed elements are displayed by each Sikyatki bird. The different sizes of the two birds perhaps suggests a difference in gender.
Linear forms crossing geometric elements is a purely abstract encounter of shape and form. Curious. The impact of the linear shapes on the Sikyatki birds is a different matter altogether. Here there is wounding, tragedy and death; arrows enter bodies. My response is not abstract or intellectual, but specific and emotional. My emotions surge and I am changed by the encounter.
It would be interesting to know what intentions Les has for this design. On the other hand, that information would make little difference. For a short while, at least, the pot exists in my space and the discussion of meaning is between me and the pot, independent of its maker. Friends might look over my shoulder every once and a while, but the relationship between me and the pot is private. And powerful.
As detailed above, internal to the smaller bird are two adjoining rectangular segment, each divided in half by diagonals. The the diagonal in the first segment runs from upper right to lower left and the diagonal in its neighbor runs from upper left to lower right. When seen together, the design is a pyramid topped by wedges.
Given the size of the larger bird, the small triangles of black, red and blue pointillism that sit at the far end of its tail seem unnecessary. Only a compulsive examination of the design brings them to notice. Thus they become one marker of the care and attention that Les brought to the design of this pot. It reminds me of Charles Loloma’s comment that he decorated the inside of his rings and bracelets because much beauty is hidden.
Dots = starey night.
of the larger bird are so small given the size of the bird and complexity of design that they are easily overlooked. Its a measure of the care Les took in painting this design that he took the time to draw them when leaving all of the pointillism around the tail that same color would have worked well.
Smaller bird displays foreground/background reversal of triangles in one segment of design, creating visual energy. This same format is seen less than an inch away as the triangular black tail is set against the unpainted surface of the pot. Larger bird has the same foreground/background reversal in the third segment of design behind its head.
Black linear element drop their color and become hollow/revert to only black borders as they cross each other and other designs. This pattern draws attention to the impact of the linear elements and may be just a visual device. I have seen pattern only once before, on a Mark Tahbo canteen (xxx-yy) where the transition from solid to hollow form represented the transition from this world to the underworld.
Each Sikyatki bird displays a large number of traditional Sikyatki elements. Moreover, many of these elements are filled with detailed stippling that displays four patterns of color. Thus birds seem delicate and peaceful as they float in a sky of red and black dots. Violently interrupting this scene are the angular linear forms that cross cut each avian form three times, like arrows hitting home. The linear forms are not simple, but radically bent as they cover the surface of the pot. Notice that as the linear elements cross other elements, they become empty of paint. These forms are interacting and not just coexisting.
are painted with great detail, many of the
Les Namingha is a descendent of Nampyo through his father’s line, though in a matriarchal society he is not defined by this Tewa-Hopi lineage. His mother is Zuni, as is his wife, and he grew up and lives in that pueblo. When he was about 20 he spent a year serving a Mormon Church mission in England. He visited museums there and on the Continent and became familiar with European art traditions. He was mentored by his aunt, Dextra Quotskuyva, perhaps the best-known Tewa-Hopi potter of her generation. He has had formal academic art training. He thinks of himself as both a potter and an easel painter. That’s an eclectic cultural background and pot 2023-07 displays this mix of influences.
Petipoint is small and detailed, while the forms created are large and emphatic.
The is great linear v curvilinear tension. The great sweep of the two Sikyatki birds seems violated by the cross-cutting linear forms. My eyes want to follow the sweep of the bird forms and yet are transfixed by the insistent angular force of the linear elements. This contradictory struggle is set on a largely unpainted surface, its expanse displaying just those clusters of red and black dots. I imagine eagles flying on a starry night and somehow being attacked by those linear elements. Dramatic struggle in a peaceful sky, the drama reflectin g the massive energy of this small pot.
Two large Sikyatki birds dominate two-thirds of the upper surface of the pot, while abstract linear and curvilinear forms fill the remaining space. Scattered randomly but roughly equidistantly across the upper surface of the jar are 39 dots (23 red and 16 black) that provide a background for the avian and abstract designs. It’s a peaceful Hopi-Tewa starry night.
