Dextra, Hopi potter

This semester I am taking a course on Native American expression, and we had to watch the film “Hopi Songs of the Fourth World”, directed by Pat Ferrero. This excerpt from the film features a Hopi woman named Dextra Quotsuyva. Her great grandmother revived an ancient style of Hopi pottery from architectural findings in northern Arizona. This style was passed down to her from her mother, who did not want Dextra to stray from the traditional designs. In this clip, Dextra explains why she chose to follow her intuition with her own designs.

I was in awe when I heard her say “there’s times when I see the design that I was supposed to have put on that pot and didn’t do it, and it’ll just linger, you know it’ll just keep around me all the time until finally I guess it’s time for me to put it on, so I go ahead and design it…then it sort of draws away from me and I don’t think about it anymore.” I find that this is exactly what happens to me, although I am usually seeing spirits or ideas for artworks in my waking life rather than in my dreams. It will stay in my awareness, nagging at me every so often until I sketch or paint it. By transmuting those energies into art, the energy leaves my mind, my energy, my spirit and I am finally able to disconnect from it and have peace of mind. That is to say, until the next spirit shows up…