Description

Master Potter Dominique Toya of Jemez Pueblo says,” I am a traditional potter with contemporary designs and techniques. By traditional I mean we gather our own clay and temper and we clean them and mix them and fire outdoors with cedar wood.”

But that is where the tradition ends and Dominique’s marvelous talent and creativity emerges. Her newest styles are her swirl jars that are circular in form and almost flat.  They are softly burnished, but glow with micaceous slip which accents of deep sharply defined ridges. This beautiful intricately carved piece has seven sharply ridged melon swirls. They extend from the center opening all the way to the back of  the bottom of the pot. This elegant swirl seed jar is fired to a soft black from a reduction firing.  The bands of distinctive ridges swirl gently around the pot all the way down across the bottom, just like the lazy Jemez River flows behind her home at the pueblo.

Dominique specializes in handmade micaceous pottery whether it is highly polished or softly burnished. She gathers her materials (natural pigments) for her masterpieces from the grounds within the Jemez Pueblo. She cleans, mixes, hand coils, shapes, sands, fires outdoors, and polishes her own pottery. It is very labor intensive, but what beautiful results!

Having won Best of Class at the Heard Indian Museum Fair and Market in 2016 and now the Best of Class at Santa Fe’s Annual Indian Market in 2017, Dominique is at the top of her division. You might have seen her award-winning micaceous melon swirl pots, but you have never seen anything like this before. This pot is simply elegant.

She was quoted as saying “All the pots that I create are my favorite, because each one is a part of me.”

Condition: Excellent – original new condition
Provenance: Purchased from Dominique at the Heard Show 2016, where she won 1st  Place in Division 2 – Pottery.