Best of Show Drawing Prizes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2016 Best of Show Drawing Winners

James Garcia Nampeyo – Migration Design: Ticket #236, Florence, Boston MA

Britney Eustace – Hopi Parrot Bowl: Ticket #109, Judy, Showlow, AZ

Jaycee Nahohai – “Lonkeena” Owls: Ticket #192, Carol, Sedona, AZ

Susan Folwell – “The Rescue”: Ticket #296, Rita, Larchmont, NY

Best of Show Drawing at the Best of Show Reception & Dinner, March 4, 7:15 p.m.

Any one of these pots would be a wonderful keepsake. You do not need to be present to win but I hope you will join us at the Reception & Dinner.  Tickets will be available for sale beginning on December 1. Tickets are $25 for one, $20 each for three or more. Starting December 1, the four pieces will be on display in Museum Admissions, where you can also purchase tickets.

 

Britney Eustace (Zuni)

Britney Eustace was inspired to use the parrot design because it has a special meaning to her mother, and she decided the Hopi design was best for this project. The mountain design on the pot depicts Dewayalanne, or Corn Mountain, part of the Zuni Pueblo landscape, and the arrow designs were added to make the pot unique.

Eustace created the pot in her High School class using traditional techniques. The clay is from Zuni land and was gathered according to traditional custom. The class learned to clean the raw clay, dry it, and use the pounding method to release air bubbles to prepare it for use. The wild spinach plant and hematite rock provided the black paint. Eustace formed the pot using the coil-and-scrape method, sanded, polished, and painted it, and then it was kiln-fired.

Eustace won Best of Show at the 2014 Zuni High School Art Show and also won First Place at the 2014 Gallup Indian Tribal Ceremonial Show. She plans to continue learning about and making pottery and may enter more shows in the future. Of her first-place ribbon at the Student Art Show & Sale, Eustace said she was “very happy to achieve the First Place Award and would like to thank the Heard Museum for the opportunity presented by the Student Art Show.”

 

Susan Folwell (Santa Clara)

Susan Folwell is one of the famous Folwell/Naranjo family of potters of Santa Clara Pueblo, NM.  Folwell’s inspiration for this pot came from “a vintage Buffalo Bill comic which looked very much like my husband – red hair, goatee.  I thought it a whimsical way to display our whirlwind romance.  A touch of the dramatic is displayed with the ‘spaghetti western’ bad guys in the background, and there is the old pueblo feel in the structure of casitas and prickly pear since we own a home in Tucson.” She uses only Santa Clara clay, traditionally gathered and then processed in her studio in Tucson.  The pot is hand-coiled, decorated with woodsman acrylic and India ink, and kiln-fired with natural slips.  It is sealed with ceramic seal spray.

Folwell’s pottery is a canvas for expression, whether a personal feeling or social comment.  Like her mother Jody Folwell and sister Polly Rose, she has earned her reputation as an innovator in Native Art.

Folwell has won awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market (SWAIA), Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, and Southwest Indian Art Fair, Arizona State Museum, Tucson, AZ. She has been featured in numerous publications and periodicals and on television and radio shows showcasing contemporary Native American art.  Her work is part of the permanent collection of many museums. She is also involved in judging, teaching, and curation at various galleries and shows of Southwest Art throughout the United States and beyond.

 

Jaycee Nahohai (Zuni)

Jaycee Nahohai is a talented member of the famous Nahohai pottery family of Zuni Pueblo, NM. Although pottery-making was always important in Zuni history, Jaycee’s grandmother, Josephine Nahohai, was one of the potters who worked to revive this art form in Zuni in the 1980s after most artists had changed to jewelry-making in the mid-century. Jaycee credits his grandmother and father, Randy Nahohai, as his mentors.  Owls, deer, and water creatures such as frogs and dragonflies are traditional Zuni pottery patterns along with rain, feathers, and rain birds. In his work, Nahohai often uses the dragonfly, which is said to be the messenger for prayer.

The owl is hand-built from clay gathered several miles from Nahohai’s house at the Pia Mesa clay pit. A pinch pot formed the base, then coils were applied upward to shape the body. The owl was covered with local slips, pigments, and mica from the northern pueblos before firing in an electric kiln. The two small owls were made by Nahohai’s mother, Rowena Him, also a famed Zuni potter.

Nahohai named the owl “Lonkeena” after his great-grandfather, who was born in Zuni Pueblo in 1866 and lived until 1971.  Lonkeena was a storyteller and historian and a contributor to the 1965 Dorothy Duke Indian Oral History Project.  The project resulted in two publications: The Zunis by the Zuni People and Self Portrayals.

As a high-school student, Nahohai won awards at the Heard Student Art Show & Sale for pottery and flatwork, and his “Dragonfly Rising” piece was selected for use as a Student Art Note Card in 2005. He has since studied pottery at the Idylwild Arts Academy in CA and in Japan with several master Japanese potters. The photo above was taken at a studio in Yamaguchi. His work is part of the permanent collection of many museums.

 

James Garcia Nampeyo (Hopi)

James Garcia Nampeyo, a talented Hopi potter of First Mesa, is a member of the famous Nampeyo family, a long line of legendary Hopi potters.  Garcia’s uncle, the late Tom Polacca, influenced his work.  He credits his grandmother, Fannie Nampeyo, with encouraging him to make pottery at an early age.  He has recently added more very fine detail and unique designs to his pottery.

 

The design on this pot is known as a “migration design,” which has become associated with the Nampeyo family. The design itself was found on ancestral pieces from the village of Sikyatki, AZ.  Fannie Nampeyo visited these excavations and became intrigued with the designs she saw, including the migration design, and she incorporated them into her own pottery, sparking the so-called “Sikyatki Revival.”  According to Garcia, the migration design is representative of the migrations from the Four Corners region in the 12th and 13th centuries.  It represents the movement of birds in flight, echoing the movement of the people of the time.  Fannie Nampeyo often decorated her mother Nampeyo’s pieces and in time refined the migration design by rounding off the birds’ wings, a much more difficult rendering. Garcia continues this version of his family’s design.

His work is featured in various publications including Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery by Rick Dillingham, and is part of the permanent collection of many museums.