nancee meeker on thu 9 jan 97
>As I understand it, the syrup is just a brushing vehicle. It burns off,
leaving the pigment on the surface. The firing for Santo Domingo
polychrome
is not high-reduction. The heat is provided by dung, but it is a
clean-burning oxidizing fire and is not smothered. In contrast, Santa
Clara
and San Idelfonso blackware are fired in a starved-reduction blackware
firing, which is smothered with manure and then ash or earth, charging the
clay with carbon, giving the characteristic jet-black color.
Vince
This is to confirm that Vince is totally correct on the boiled bee plant
being the "vehicle" for the pigments. With pots from Acoma, iron bearing
rocks are ground in a metate and then the black resinous stickey residue
from the cleome plant (which has been wrapped and stored in corn husks)
is also rubbed and mixed with the liquid "wash" in the stone "dish".
I have heard the Lewis sisters tell of how they first learned to do this
at Lucy Lewis' side as young children. You can see a picture of Lucy
working at a workshop that I attended in Chaco Canyon in 1988 at my web
site:
http://www2.nancee-meeker.com/nancee-meeker/resume-cv.html
And the picture next to it shows a portion of the firing that we did
there. You can "see" the white slip and the iron paintings. And you can
also see the dung patties that are being stacked around the pots and the
old shards of broken pots that are being used to "protect" the pots from
direct contact with the dung.
I went back to Acoma/Sky City this past spring and spent some time
talking to Drew Lewis, another of Lucy's children. And he told me that
EVERYONE, himself included, was now firing with electric kilns. His work
is still made in the traditional way (coiled) , and painted with chewed
yucca brushes etc., but the loss rate and labor intensity of the
traditional dung firing, was a thing of the past. (much work now
available at Sky City is slip cast and /or glazed for the tourist market)
Buyer beware.
A bit further down the page is a picture that I took of Maria Martinez at
a Mother Earth - Father Sky workshop at Idyllwild in 1975. That is when I
became a convert to STONE burnishing (I had been using a silver spoon up
until that point). I highly recommend learning stone burnishing if you
like terra sigillatas and pitfiring..........The results of "polishing"
with plastic, chamois, or "wax" are a poor substitute for the original.
(Just my opinion, mind you.)
Hope this helps.
Nancee
http://www.nancee-meeker.com
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