Quotskuyva Family Commentary

Dextra Quotskuyva provided general comments about the significance of pottery to Hopi-Tewa people and to herself:

That's what really, you would call it history, you know, from way back….It’s really history because I think most of the time there was nothing to write on or anything, you know, that was the only way they could express themselves and their feelings. It is like with any artist, I guess you would say that there's no other way you want to express yourself. I express myself through the pottery. So, that's why I know it's probably the same thing.

There's something about the clay that really draws you if you're really into it. That’s what will happen to you. I think it has a lot of power and energy to bring what, to bring to whatever you're doing with the pottery and it helps to probably slow down when you're depressed and everything, you know, you kind of go back to it and you forget about all that trouble you have out there. You know, it is therapy for you and it's really quiet.

It slows you down. You know, I have to really think and it's really a good therapy for anybody. And I think that's how I am with my pottery, so I know. And others may have different view of it. And these others, too, you know, us potters, we all have different way of expressing ourselves, you know, how what we do and how we feel about our pottery.

So when you're not all up to it, you can't work with your pottery either. You know, when you're not in the mood. There's a time that you have to get away and then get back to it again. You know, we can do better. So just like almost anything like that.

Dextra describes her path to becoming a potter after years as a nurse:

I was already almost 30 something. 35, 38. I quit working, I just stayed home caring for Camille. During that time, my mom [Rachel] was doing her potteries right next to the house, and she would be molding, designing, and I would go in there to help her, you know, with what she was doing. And I stayed around her and that’s how I picked up a lot. And I was forever asking questions of why do this, why you do that, why put that in there or all that stuff, you know, just kind of curious of what she does you know to put all that or what she does with her painting and I really picked up from there getting to fix the dye and that's the hardest to learn because you really have to know how to fix dye in order to get it on the on the pottery.

I then started from there on, and helped my mom, you know, fire. And when she started firing she would tell me how to do it, how to go about it, and told me all the tricks to it. Uh huh. That's because she always said don't pick up your potteries when still hot with a wet, I mean with a cloth. And I used to wonder well why, you know, why it's hot so you have to catch something, you know, to pick it up with….I end up asking her about that, too. And she says, if you use a cloth picking up a wet pottery you're just gonna smother it, you know, and it’ll just get dark, it’ll get gray and, you know, just change color all of a sudden, you know. Oh, because of the lack of oxygen. So, I learned that one day, too. And those things and a lot of tricky stuff that you have to pick up when you're doing something with your painting and you have to learn how to use, mix that clay, and mix up paint, because if you don't, you either gonna put a lot of this, our dye, what you call it, spinach (bee weed, Cleome serrulate),  yeah. You either put too much and not enough of water. And if you do it the other reverse, if you put too much spinach in it it’ll get real shiny. And when you paint it, you know, fire it, it’ll all peel off, you know. It’ll just come off. And then if you do it the other way, if you put your stone, you know that hematite, if you use too much of that on there and not enough dye, it’ll get real powdery. Even when you paint, after you paint it, you go over it like this and all that paint will come off. All these tricks, you know, she taught me what will happen if you do it this way or that way. Well, this is an example, this is one that had a signature, but it seems like the dye had run off. 

When asked about the practice of placing small pots into a firing, Dextra replied:

Our ways are so different, you know, and everything we do is more sacred. I don't know, in everything that we do, you know. And that's the reason why you have to make a small one and put it in there. Fire with the rest of…just to offer for that for the fire. I see. So you see a lot of these places where they probably when they, you know, excavating, they see a lot of these little bitty ones, you know. So, I mean, just for that purpose.

Regarding the effort required to make pottery, Dextra explained:

That's part of it too, everything is done, you know, all your work is done before it’s fired. We have so many [things], everything, all the painting and everything and the last, you know, to finish the whole product and that’s what you’ll put in there. And you know, you can't change anything, you know, because [firing], that's the last thing you do, and then when something goes wrong, you’re like, you feel bad and you cry…. 

And you'll do better the next time. There's always some next time, you know. So we just go along and say, okay, I guess I'll just overcome that for today. You know, maybe the next pot will come out better.

And she [her mother Rachel] would say, if you're making big pots during the summer, don't dry them too fast. You either have to kinda have it slowly, you know, let it kind of slowly dry out. If you, if you have direct sun on it right away, or in a hot room, you know, it's going to expand, it's going to crack. You know, these things, different things you have to watch out for. 

When asked if Dextra ever used coal as a fuel to fire pottery:

Well, I tried coal. Coal has a higher heat and it will go, it will ring. But it would be nice if we were still using a lot of coal. But the demand is so high on pottery, we kind of try to do it faster like, everything I think seems to be getting faster. We could just design any designs like these if we want to but people are getting too perfectionist. They want a perfect pot. They want a perfect design on it. Perfect this, you know, you try to get it so perfect for them and that's the reason why. That's the reason why. And if you have to use coal, coal doesn’t cool off ‘til maybe about three, three days or something. It doesn't cool off if people want their pot right away.

They want it right away. So that's the part I think is kind of, changed a lot of pottery, the designs. Unless you yourself are not a perfectionist, it won't matter to you. But I try to teach them. You make good quality pottery, make good quality designs. Don't just, you know, go over it and not to rush it or anything.

Dextra recalls her experience with the trachoma eye infections that plagued her grandmother Nampeyo:

Yeah, they used to treat your eyes so that when you have trachoma. I would get it and I remember making those trips to that clinic almost every evening. Oh, that was terrible. And they, I don't know what they put in my eye. They were, oh they just tortured me. I used to hate that, you know, every evening. I said, I guess I'm in her footsteps, my grandmother. It's something that's now more curable than it was.

Camille’s Story

Well, when I was little, they would just give me clay. You know, I guess they were teaching me, but I didn't realize it. You know, they would give me things to mold with. And then my grandma [Rachel], too, she would, or my mom, when one of her pots would crack or something like that, they would give it to me and I would paint it or polish it, you know, something to keep me busy while they were working. And then as I grew older, I went to school, finished high school and did some vocational schooling, I went back to it and I had already learned the basics of doing pottery. I never really did paint, either. I kind of did what she did. She would outline the design and I’d fill it in. And the paintbrush was really kinda hard for me to control, the yucca brush. But then once I learned it, it came real easy. But I did a lot of trial-and-error stuff, even though they told me, “Don't do this, don't do that, or do it this way,” I still went ahead and did it and found out.

I’ve been making [pottery] pretty much all my life, I guess. And the same with my kids. They're learning slowly, learning. Of course, we just, you know, show ‘em how to do it and then just, you know, they just make the form whatever they want to with the clay. You know, some of them are doing like little animals or little ladles, things like that instead of really the actual pot. So, they’re learning. 

Camille Quotskyuva (Hisi Nampeyo), 1998