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The Dance. 4" high x 19" wide x 17" wide. Hand-coiled red earthenware with hand-painted white maiolica glaze.

This red earthenware platter has a colorfully painted maiolica interior surface, but a unique border where the raw clay was impressed with clay stamps carved by the artist. The platter was slab formed and finished with a short, coiled foot. The imagery depicts a scene from Zane Grey’s novel Riders of the Purple Sage in which the two main characters of the story join in a dance while surrounded by danger at every turn. At the left of the composition is a church with a bending steeple. A long blue snake that winds in and out of view has a human head attached to it that appears in the far right of the imagery. This symbol is representative of water, but also of the dark battles that are taking place over it.

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