Jacob Koopee
Winner - Best of
Show
Heard Museum Show 2005
Longhair Vase
11 1/4"
H x 5" D
This piece is an example of
Jake's innovative work as a pottery maker. He is always pushing
the creative envelope and experimenting with new design techniques.
Jacob Koopee was born March
31, 1970. He is the great-great grandson of Nampeyo; great-grandson
of Nellie Nampeyo Douma; grandson of Marie Koopee, and the son
of Jacob Koopee, Sr. (Tewa) and Georgia Dewakuku Koopee.
In 1996, at the age of 26,
Jake was awarded Best of Show, Committee's Choice, Best Traditional
Pottery, at the Museum of Northern Arizona. He has successfully
participated in and won awards at many Markets since then.
Jacob appears in several major
publications on Hopi pottery including Hopi-Tewa Pottery:
500 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaff (p. 59), and The
Art of the Hopi by Jerry and Lois Jacka (pp. 118, 126).
He loves to base his work
on old Sikyaki designs. Jake reports, "My Aunt Dextra (Quotskuyva)
inspired me." Jake is a young man with extraordinary talent.
He creates some of the largest hand coiled, open fired pieces
of pottery at Hopi.
He has signed with his hallmark
Kokopelli and last name Koopee.
Jacob is proud of his adherence
to traditional methods which always produce a one-of-a-kind pottery,
with its own unique character and finish. In Hopi culture, nothing
is ever "perfect," and that's just the way he wants
it.
"The Long-haired Kachina
is one of the most pervasive of all kachinas. It is danced from
the Rio Grande to the Hopi Mesas in almost the same form. Among
the Hopis there are many varieties but the regular Angak'china
is the one portrayed here.
"They appear in a group
and sing a very melodious song which may be one of the reasons
that they are such favorites. They are often used for the Niman
Kachina on First Mesa coming with the Kocha Mana. In fact they
have danced in late August on First Mesa in direct contradiction
to the feeling that only Masau'u can be danced out of season.
Probably this was due to the presence of the Tewa people who
do not have a closed kachina season.
"Their purpose is to
bring rain, and it is said that they seldom dance without the
appearance of a soft gentle rain to help the crops grow. The
Angak'china shown [here] is the variety known as Hokyan Angak'china,
so named because of the peculiar step he uses in dancing. He
is also called the Red-bearded Angak'china. His function is exactly
the same as the regular Angak'china - to bring rain for the crops.
Angak'china is shown [here] as he delivers presents in mid-summer."
- Barton Wright, Kachinas: a Hopi
Artists Documentary (172)
