Search our shop

Navajo

Nancy Chilly is a talented Navajo potter from the Four Corners area on the Navajo Reservation. She and her husband, Jackson Yazzie, work together making traditional pottery. They live on the Utah portion of the Navajo reservation, quite some distance from the Cow Springs area in Arizona where most Navajo potters live, close to the clay beds of that moister area. Nevertheless, that is where they go to get their clay, as do most Navajo potters. They also buy crushed lava to use as temper in their clay. After firing in an open pit kiln Nancy uses pine pitch for the outside slip or layer. Nancy specializes in making traditional Navajo pots with colorful Navajo designs of Ye'iis and the sacred corn plant. She also uses textile designs, eagle feathers, rainbows, rain and lightning--all sacred and important signs of life to the Navajo people.