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.
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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