Lucy Leuppe McKelvey

 The Making of a Lucy McKelvey Pot  

 

The way that Lucy creates her are is a long, tedious, and time-consuming process.  The emphasis is always on quality rather than quantity.

 

 

Clay Preparation

 

The clays are mined from throughout the Four Corners area and are usually dug under sandstone layers at the tops of the mesas.  They are brought home and soaked for a month or more in buckets of water and then wet-strained though various meshes of screen with the finest screen being as fine as cloth.  Also a mica temper is added at this time to help the clay to dry evenly without cracking.  Next it is placed out on sheet covered racks to partially dry and then it is brought in and stored in plastic trash cans.

 

 

Making of the Pots

 

Before she coils the pots the clay is kneaded and beaten and various colors of clays are mixed together to make the marbleized clay.  The pots are then started usually in the bottoms of short open bowls.  The coils are put together by sliding and pinching them to the coils below and then scraping them with gourd scrapers.  Usually she works on quite a number of pots at a time adding just a few coils at a time to each pot and letting it set up and firm up a bit while she works on other pots. This allows her to make the very large pots and varied shapes that she is well known for.  

 

 

Smoothing, Designing, Slipping, Polishing, and Painting of the Pots

 

When the pots are dry they are then sanded with various grits of sandpaper ending with 320 grit.  The top and bottom of each pot then is evened out so it stands and looks straight.  The background is then drawn on the pot and then the background of the pot is slipped with water and stone polished.  Next the background colors of the designs are slipped three times with different colors of clay slips and stone polished.  Finally the black paint made from bee plant juice and hematite rock, ground on a sandstone grinding stone, is painted on.

 

 

Firing of the Pots

 

Finally the pots are preheated and fired outside using dried chunks of sheep manure and juniper wood.  They are protected in the fire by broken pottery shards and pieces of tin.  It is tricky to fire outside, and it is easy to lose many weeks of work caused by uneven heating or a sudden rain or wind.  Usually the outside fire leaves a few little yellowish blushes where the fire got extra hot from the pottery firing manure.  These are not at all undesirable unless the blushes are gray or black caused by wet firing fuel.