Sue Tapia
San Juan
Santa Clara
Star Burst
3 1/2"
H x 4 1/4" D
Sue Tapia is a San Juan pottery
artist who has brought the San Juan craft to a new level with
her highly polished and deep carved pieces. This bowl is a beautiful
combination of the two, with the lip and base highly polished,
and the center part carved.
The carved area is based on
traditional San Juan designs. They are carved into the clay and
have a micaceous slip applied to contrast with the polished surface.
Sue and Tom Tapia, who are
from Laguna and San Juan, respectively, work as a husband and
wife pottery team. Sue coils, carves, and polishes the pot, while
Tom does the masterful incising decorations. Because of the tremendous
amount of detailed complexity to their work - some pieces take
more than a month to create.
Tom has created his own unique
style of sgraffito, where he etches the surface area to reveal
a reddish/orange background to his clean traditional designs.
The natural clays that they use are dug on tribal lands. Their
pots are hand coiled, then sanded, and then fired using the traditional
open-air technique.
They use wood and manure to
fuel the fire. As the manure smolders, their pots turn black.
Sue and Tom have been winning awards at various shows and exhibits
since 1994. Their work is always unique, traditional and very
precise.
