Large 12.5\" Tall Navajo Wedding Vase Pot - Heart Base with Twisted Clay Handle For Sale

This large Navajo wedding vase pot is 12.5\" tall and 9.75\" across. It has a creative design with a heart shaped base and an open ear of corn rising from the base of the double spout. It is signed Dine LM and dated 2016. This pot has been done very much in the style of potter matriarch Betty Manygoats who had 10 children and taught all of her daughters pottery. I think that this pot was done by one of Betty\'s daughters - possibly Laura Manygoats. Looking at the base of the corn there is a gap. Please see the photos - this might have happened during firing. Still, this is a beautiful pot in all original condition, with no restoration.

Betty taught her daughters to use Navajo clay from Black Mesa and form it into coils that wind upward. She then smooths the coiled clay and adds the decorations. Fireclouds occur where the wood ash comes in contact with the clay. After firing, warm piñon pitch is applied inside and out.

Throughout the 40 years that I have been in business, I have purchased jewelry from pawn shops throughout the Southwest that had collections of dead pawn. Most of these pawn shops and trading posts are now closed. The Native American would pawn his jewelry for immediate cash. The shop would hold it and charge interest until he could reclaim it. Dead pawn are the pieces that were never retrieved. Old Pawn Jewelry typically dates from the early 1900s to the 1970s. Most of the early pieces are not signed because it wasn\'t the Native American tradition to sign the pieces they crafted. Also, the turquoise in old pawn is turquoise that you can\'t get anymore because many of the mines have closed. And, the red and orange coral is rare because of the coral bleaching which is happening today.