Rachel Namingha Nampeyo

1903 Born

1985 Died

 BIOGRAPHY

Rachel Nampeyo used the designs favored and used by Nampeyo. Nampeyo and her husband, Lesso, had originally seen the designs on shards from the Sikyatki archeological sites on First Mesa on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. Rachel Nampeyo’s pots are typically wide shouldered with polychrome images that often begin on the shoulder and move down the body of the pot.

Rachel Nampeyo, a Hopi-Tewa, was the daughter of Annie Healing and the granddaughter of Nampeyo. She learned her pottery skills from these two women and then passed her knowledge onto her daughter, Dextra. The women of the Nampeyo family were known to have serious eye sight problems and as one generation lost their sight and ability to glaze their pots the next took over that task.