Tan Polychrome Wedding Vase with Eagle Dancer

On this vessel the artist polished, carved, incised and colored its surfaces, to create a balanced visual statement in clay--only to fire it, risking all that effort's destruction.  

Traditional potters must have a strong constitution to endure the risk again and again.

(Born 1961, Hopi) The best lineage for a Hopi potter revolves around the original Nampeyo. Carla is this revered potter's great granddaughter as well as the granddaughter of Fannie Nampeyo.

Carla respects the traditional process of digging clay and firing. Her carved motifs stem from her father, Thomas Polacca's aesthetic.