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This pot is made of an orangish-yellow micacious clay
with a tapered rim that has an overlay rim of corregation.
Where the pottey firing manure gets extra hot it leaves
orange fire clouds especially on this clay. This makes
it more beautiful and varied
The Arrow People painting for this pot was adapted
form sandpaintings of the Shootingway Chant, one perfomed
by may late grandfather. Arrrows are the earthly equivalent
to the powerful and deadly lightening. The arms of these
Arrow People form the bows while their feather shoulders
the guide feathers, and torso forms the arrow shaft
of the arrow making these Arrow People like and arrows
ready to launch. Both Arrow People are wearing the ceremonial
caps that are associated with this ceremony. The caps,
kilts, and tobacco pouches hanging from their pouches,
and rainstreamers hanging from their wrists and elbows
are all decorated with feathers from various kinds of
birds, lightening and cloud symbols etc Between the
two Arrow People is a large white cloud symbol and on
the inside of the rim is an painted arrowhead with a
hole drilled into the pot through which a native- tanned
antelope leather strap attaches to a real arrowhead
(not ancient) This ceremony uses lots of arrowheads.
The size of the Arrow People Pot is 14 1/2" hx
8 1/2" w. The price is $2700 plus half the cost
of packing, insuring, and shipping by UPS.
THE MAKING OF A
MCKELVEY POT
The way that Lucy and Celinda make pottery is a long,
tedious, and time-consuming process. Emphasis is on
quality rather than quantity. The following is
a very abbreviated version of how it is done.
Clay Preparation
The clay is usually mined under big overhanging sandstone
cliffs usually near the tops of the mesas in many places
throughout the Southwest. It us brought
home and soaked in buckets of water for over a month
and is screened through many mashes of screen with the
final mash being as fine as cloth. Ground mica temper
is mixed with it. After the final screening the soupy
mixture of clay is poured on drying racks covered with
sheets and allowed to dry to the right consistency to
make pottery. Then it is stored in big plastic trashcans
until it is made
into pottery.
When they are ready to make pottery they beat and kneed
the clay to remove air bubbles and to mix the white
and red clays together in a secret way to make the marbleized
pottery.
The Making of the Pots
The pots are usually started in the bottoms of open
bowls and coiled up from there one coil at a time. The
coils are put together by sliding and pinching
the coils to the ones below and thinning them by pinching
them between her fingers and scraping with gourd scrapers.
Usually 4-7 pots at a time are worked on so that a coil
or two can be added at a time and allowed to firm up
while she is
working on other pots. This drying between coils prevents
the pots from collapsing when being worked on. Lucy
is known for her unusually large size pots of many unique,
and varied shapes, and for making handles and overlay
on pots.
Smoothing, Slipping, Polishing,
and Painting of the Pots.
When the pots are dried they are sanded with a series
of sandpapers until they are finally sanded to a 320
grit. Next they are evened out so the top and bottom
will be almost perfectly even. The pot is then measured
out and the basic
background is drawn on with a pencil. The background
is slipped with water and
stone polished and then the various other clay slips
are applied three times and
stone polished one color at a time. Finally the black
paint is made by grinding
the hematite paint mixed with the juice of bee plant
on a sandstone pallet. This grinding takes about one
and a half hours of hard work to grind a day.s worth
of paint. Then the black paint is then painted on the
pot.
Firing the Pots
The pots are fired outside in a fire of Sheep manure
and cedar wood. They
are protected from the fire by potshards and burned
off tin. Firing temperatures
reach between 1800-1900 degrees F. Most of her pottery
has a few firing blushes where the fire got extra hot.
Pots fired outside usually have better and varied coloring
and are shinier. However, firing in this manner is sometimes
disheartening as the pots can break when a sudden gust
of wind or rain comes up or if the fire heats unevenly.
Also the pottery can under-fire if the manure is damp
or has too much sand in it.
Final Statement
As you can see the making of their pots is a very
long process. Lucy is basically self taught but received
a little help from Hopi-Tewa friends. It has taken her
30 years to learn to make her beautiful pottery and
is glad that all of
her daughters are fine potters in their own right and
that one of them is taking it up as a career even though
she has a college degree. She has been trying to make
Navajo pottery evolve up into a fine art going up and
above tradition while still using native techniques
and home refined materials that are all natural
. Most of the designs are adapted from Navajo sand painting
designs, rug and basket designs, and the ancient pottery
designs from the ancient ruins that are so
numerous in the area the she grew up in
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