Karen Abeita
Sikyatki Shards
4 1/2"
H x 7 1/4" D
Karen Abeita is a member of
the younger generation of artists who work hard to keep their
traditions alive while coping in the modern world. She sees her
work as a mission and a duty to ensure that her people's culture
endures.
She learned her art from potters
of her own generation, most notably Fawn Garcia Navasie and Mark
Tahbo. Her pottery blends very traditional Hopi-Tewi designs
with her respect for the materials of the earth .
Karen was born on September
23, 1960. She is one of the finest young Hopi potters working
today. She particularly likes using some of the older designs
on her pots -thePolik Mana - (Butterfly Maiden) pottery sherds,
feathers, eagle tail feather skirt, clouds, and song birds.
Karen works particularly hard
on her outdoor firing techniques - aiming to have a certain warm
glow with the use of fire clouds.
Karen has become famous for
her wonderful traditional and pottery shard designs. This
piece is an exceptional example of the type of work that she
has won numerous awards for. It is an extremely large piece,
considering the level of detail in the design, and we were fortunate
that this "labor of love" survived the firing process.
Her work is some of the very
finest produced at Hopi today. Her use of fire clouds to produce
soft changes in hue in her works creates an exceptionally rich
and warm design.
All of Karen's pottery is
completely traditional from gathering the clay from the Hopi
Reservation to hand coiling, hand polishing , hand painting than
firing the old fashioned way – outdoors.
Karen has won numerous awards
– including Best of Show, "Invitational," Lawrence,
KS. She is in all the major books recently published on Hopi
pottery, including Gregory Schaaf's book Hopi–Tewa Pottery
500 Artist Biographies.
