Kalestewa, Jack

Jack Kalestewa said he learned to make pottery from his great-grandmother. Then he married Quanita, the daughter of Nellie Bica. He and Quanita sometimes collaborate on pieces but generally they work apart.

Jack likes to make Hawikuh Revival and traditional polychrome jars, cornmeal bowls, frog effigies, frog pots, coffee cups and figures of bears with heart lines. He also makes jewelry.

Jack’s favorite designs are the kolowisi (the mythic Zuni water serpent), frogs, deer-in-his-house, tadpoles, butterflies and terraced clouds. He always fires his pottery outdoors using sheep manure, just like his great-grandmother did.

Jack was a participant at Santa Fe Indian Market and the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show for years. In 1996 he earned a Second Place ribbon for one of his Zuni jars.

Jack was interested in reviving some of the old Hawikuh shapes and designs. He studied the prehistoric Zuni pots in the collections at the Smithsonian Institute and at the School for Advanced Research, then he created several similar ones.