Native American Santa Clara Pueblo bowl, miniature, black with brown-fired slip around top half. Sgraffito of kokopelli and avanyu surrounding.

Candelaria Suazo was born in the 1950s to Santa Clara Pueblo. Her family, which is filled with talented pottery makers, influenced her interest and skill in pottery making. She became an active potter in the late 1980s. Her specialty became sgraffito, a technique of scratching through a top layer of one color of slip to reveal the color that lies beneath it. This allows the potter to reveal different colors in a single firing.

Candelaria collects clay from deposits within the pueblo. Impurities are removed to temper the clay to the desired level of plasticity and durability. Next comes the creation of clay coils that will be used to shape the final pot that the potter has envisioned. The rough pot is allowed to dry in the open air. It is polished with a special stone to smooth the evolving pot. Red slip of liquified clay is applied. Then the potter, in this case, Candelaria, carves designs into the slip, using sgraffito implements to reveal the color of the fundamental clay.

Firing is the final step in Candelaria’s process. The same sources of clay are the base of both red ware and black ware. Candelaria uses reduction and oxidizing in a single firing. These two processes result in the same clay emerging as black or red once the etching is revealed. Since the designs already have been etched into the clay surfaces, the sgraffito done by Candelaria determines what colors emerge in what parts of the design.

The foregoing information about Candelaria and her potting processes has been sourced in part from material published by Morningstar Gallery.
1.75" x 2" #Pi39

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