Silas, Bobby

Bobby Silas is a Hopi potter from Baccavi on Third Mesa. He says he was taught to make pottery by his grandfather from First Mesa. He has dedicated himself to reviving Jeddito black-on-yellow and Sikyátki-Revival polychrome pottery in the way it was originally made, back between about 1100 and 1625 CE. That’s before the Spanish arrived in the neighborhood in force, bringing sheep, cattle, pigs, horses and Franciscan priests with them.

Back then, to fire their pottery the potters used lignite coal. They found a vein of it sticking out of the side of First Mesa but it had to be used immediately where it was dug. Otherwise it quickly turned to an unusable powder. Wood was too far away and manure hadn’t arrived in the New World yet. But to fire their pottery with coal, their process and mixtures had to be different. Bobby has recreated that and has learned to fire the ancient way. He’s the only Hopi potter who has been able to do that for several hundred years.

In 2001, he moved to Zuni Pueblo to be nearer family in New Mexico. There he met Tim Edaakie. Tim was interested in reviving ancient Zuni styles and designs so they decided to collaborate. Tim did most of the painting and Bobby did most of the firing. Everything else was equally shared. Then Tim died in 2020.

Tim once told us he and Bobbie had found a book about Zuni pottery written by a pair of anthropologists who actually listened to what the Zuni women were saying about how they designed their pottery. That’s when he and Bobbie realized the designs were prayers for rain, fertility and good crops. It was a language in itself, a language hardly understood any more. That added more depth to what they were doing.

Bobby and Tim earned multiple ribbons over the years at venues like the Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum Indian Arts Fair and Market and the Museum of Northern Arizona’s Hopi Show.