Potoo Pot

Red clay with glaze, 30 x 15 cm, Artist’s Collection (Photo: Edgar Kanaykõ Xakriabá)

A knife and gourd shards are used for modelling. Velvet bean seeds are used for polishing the pot. Photo: Edgar Kanaykõ Xakriabá

The call of the potoo bird is scary. Tilting their head to the sky, they usually sing just before and during the rainy season—a time of abundance in the cerrado, our region. To camouflage themselves, they usually light on branches having colors similar to their plumage. They’re so confident in their disguise, they allow themselves to be touched. The Potoo was the first lidded pot I ever made.

The glaze was extracted from white toá, a very light mineral available in many colors.

Modelling a pot from a ball of clay. Photo: Edgar Kanaykõ Xakriabá

A tool made from gourd shards (we call cuitheba) is used to join the clay coil to the pot’s base. Photo: Edgar Kanaykõ Xakriabá