This bowl displays a version of the “bird hanging from sky band” design that was central to Nampeyo’s development as an artist. The bowl was likely formed by Nampeyo and painted by a young relative who got it wrong, though this evaluation reflects the limits of my culture.
Form:
The bowl is a section of a perfect sphere, with a round bottom that flows smoothly upward to the rim. The walls are even and somewhat thick, giving the bowl a substantial feel. So exact is the shape that it sits perfectly evenly on its round bottom without a tilt. It is finely polished to a mirror finish without striations from a polishing stone. Held and rubbed with the eyes closed, it feels like a polished rock. The balance and finish are hallmarks of an expert potter and the bowl announces who that is. Just inside the inner rim of the bowl is an extra coil of clay, a clear indication that Nampeyo formed this pot (Blairs,1999:91). The exterior is strongly blushed from the outdoor firing.
Design:
As we would expect of a Sukiyaki Revival bowl, 0.375-inches on the interior below the rim the bowl has thick-over-thin framing lines. As is often the case, the thin framing line marks the boundary of the design. Both framing lines have spirit brakes at roughly the 6 o’clock position of the design. The curved space within the framing lines is 4.75-inches across. About 20% of this space if filled with a muddy-red lunette. The red lunette has been reduced to a ribbon of design with a hollow, unpainted, core, also lunette-shaped. The upper edge of the red lunette is bordered by three parallel lines, a “two-lane highway.”
Above this highway is a band of design that spans the distance between the framing lines. At its center is 1.0-inch by a 1.75-inch rectangle. An “X” formed by two parallel lines (“one-lane highways”) runs from corner-to-corner in this rectangle, subdividing it into four triangles. The pair of triangles with vertical points is unpainted. The triangles with horizontal points are black but with an internal unpainted rectangle, which has the effect of nearly subdividing each of these triangles into three smaller black triangles. From the wall of each unpainted rectangle that is closest to the center of the design, two short parallel “whiskers” emerge.
The central rectangle is flanked by 2-lane highways. From these highways to the framing line on both sides of the design run a set of three parallel and horizontal red lines. The upper edge of the rectangle is a thin black line that extends across the diameter of the design. Above are two arcs of design.
These arcs share a common base that begins above the right corner of the central rectangle and extends to the left. The lower side of the base follows the thin black line on which it rests for a distance of 2.5-inches. The upper side of the base starts at the same point but angles upwards to form the right edge of the right avian form. Together these two lines form a recumbent “V” shape 1.125-inches long that is filled with 13 black dots in 5 rows. This V shape is caped by a two-lane highway. Along the far side of this highway are two conjoint black hills (“gumdrops” in Appendix F) that intrude into the unpainted base of the avian forms.
As noted, the right edge of the right avian element emerges from that recumbent V. The left edge of the left avian element starts from the single black line and curves upward. The two remaining and central edges of the curves have a common origin. They simply start at a point in the middle of the unpainted space to the left of the two conjoint hills, diverge, and curve upwards.
The internal structure of the two avian arcs is the same. Both start with that unpainted base, then feature a coffee-bean-like element consisting of two black hills with their linear bases facing but separated by an unpainted space. After a short unpainted distance towards the point, a two-lane highway is drawn, followed by the solid black tip of the arc. Overall the upper arc is about 4.0-inches long; the lower arc is about 3.75-inches long. The black tip occupies 53% of the length of the upper arc and 67% of the length of the lower arc. The two arcs are somewhat crowded into the left side of the design space but are highlighted by considerable unpainted space to their right.
Design Analysis:
The “Bird Hanging From Skyband” design on bowl 2024-09 has ancient roots, is the iconic Nampeyo design she produce throughout her Sikyatki Revival painting career, and was instrumental in training Nampeyo to her craft. (See Appendix B.) It continues to be used today. As a result it has a rather conventionalized form. (See the “Bird Hanging From Skyband” entry under the Category listing.) At several points the layout of bowl 2024-09 violates this convention.
The red lunette is about 50% narrower than expected. Generally the red lunette is a solid color, sometimes shown with tadpool images (1993-04). I have seen hollowed-out lunettes before, but they are unusual. More discordant about the design is the form of the base upon which the avian forms rest. The central rectangular core is expected, but its internal structure is a bit boring. This rendition lacks the sets of feathers that generally flank the core rectangle, which would give this central design a more substantial appeal. Instead this bowl shows those parallel red lines flanking the rectangle, which are thickly-drawn, are visually light-weight, and add little to the design. Moreover every other rendition of this design I have seen has the avian arcs turning counterclockwise, arcing to the left. The avian arcs on bowl 2024-09 move in the opposite direction for no particular reason. In addition, these curved forms seem crowed to the left side of the available design area.
The muddy red color of the lunette suggests the bowel was made before the first Hopi Show at the Museum of Northern Arizona in 1930. The Museum offered cash prizes for the best pots at the show, but in an attempt to “increase the quality” of the craft, strongly encouraged Hopi potters to use a red paint that fired a more even red. Fairly quickly Hopi potters began using the solid color red and the use of the muddy red seen on bowl 2024-09 decreased.
The epitaph “wrong” applied earlier to the design is at least overstated. It is perhaps more accurate, though less exciting, to say that the form of the design depicted on bowl 2024-09 is substantially different than the conventional layout of this design and the painting is inferior to the high standard set by Nampeyo. Aesthetically bowl 2024-09 is not especially successful.
Nampeyo became functionally blind between 1917 and 1920 but continued to coil and polish pots for more than 20 years, These forms were painted by a relative. Bowl 2024-09 may be an attempt at painting by a teenager learning her craft. The painter might have been one of Nampeyo’s children, probably either Nellie (b 1896) or Fannie (b 1900), or her granddaughters, most likely Rachael (b 1903) or Daisy (b 1906). This bowl seems to be the product of a family endeavor.
My comment that the design on jar 2024-09 is “wrong” is clearly “ka-Hopi,” not Hopi. “Wrong” is one way my culture evaluates art, perhaps particularly tribal craft by women. As Barbara Kramer writes of Hopi:
“A mother making pottery would give her child a piece of clay to mold, letting it learn with its own hands what she too had learned in the same way (1996:8).”
Children were not told a “right” or “wrong” way to mold or paint clay, but were simply encouraged to observe, learn from experience and create as moved by their aesthetic sense. I imagine such was the case with bowl 2024-09. The painting is not “wrong,” it’s just different than convention.
That’s the gentle path to creativity encouraged by Hopi-Tewa and Hopi culture and bowl 2024-09 is a product of that effective tradition. From this perspective this bowl tells a very sweet story. A young woman from a famous potting family was learning her craft and was handed a blank bowl by the master and the teenager had the freedom to create as she wished. It is a gentle way to learn and reflects the gentle core values of the culture that produced this little bowl.
