Mata Ortiz Hand Coiled Bird Indian Pottery by MATA ORTIZ artist Jorge Corona Guillen

A stunning piece of art. Made from beautiful Mata Ortiz clay, legends take pottery-making back to the dawn of creation. Some perceive the world in the beginning as being first soft, like moistened clay. In a sense, this land was molded, shaped by wind, water and the forces of nature. Clay is said to come from the "body of Mother Earth" and to be "alive." Clay breathes, different clays have different feelings, qualities and strengths. Hand made from start to finish, this is a true one of a kind! It features hand painted, hand etched images of birds on branches. This beautiful piece of pottery is 4-3/4" tall, 6-1/2" wide, 20-1/2" in circumference, and has a 1-1/4" opening. Signed by the artist Jorge Corona Guillen.

Building the pot starts as coils spiral upward, one above the other. The potter squeezes them between her thumbs and fingers. This thins the coils to the thickness of the finished pot. The cracks between the coils are smoothed out as she turns the pot. As the walls rise, the potter smoothes them and slopes them inward and outward.

Painting is still widely used to decorate pots in the Southwest. Potters make no measurements or sketches but paint designs free-hand. They use ground minerals and boiled plant juices. The Pueblo usa a feather or a brush of yucca. The potter chews the ends of a split yucca leaf, then trims the remaining fibers to size.