Carla Claw Nampeyo

Hopi

Born in 1961, Carla Claw Nampeyo is the daughter of Thomas Polacca of Polacca and Gertrude, a Hopi woman from Shungopavi. She grew up with her time split between the two villages. It was her father who taught her to make pottery and she follows in his footsteps.

Her father had learned to make pottery while he was growing up but when he became of age and got actually interested, it was his sisters who helped to fine tune his process. Then, when he got good at making, decorating and firing pots, they told he to make something different, make his own niche in the pottery world. So he took a page from Hopi kachina carvers and started to carve and paint his pieces more like their kachinas. He was very successful at it and that's what he passed on to his children. Carla primarily makes deep-carved and painted polychrome seed pots and miniatures, using similar motifs to what she learned from her father.

Carla is married to Raul Claw (Navajo).