Joy Navasie was born in 1919 in Arizona, although she claims to "have three birthdays, 1916 and 1918 also". Her given Hopi-Tewa name is Yellow Flower. Joy is the only daughter of famed Hopi-Tewa potter Paqua Naha. Naha, known as the original Frog Woman because she signed her pots with a frog drawing, is credited with being the first Hopi-Tewa potter to make white slipped pottery.
Joy began making pottery while in her late teens. After a few years she began signing her pottery with the frog symbol also. To distinguish her symbol from her mother's frog, which was drawn with toes, Joy Navasie drew her frog with webbed feet. In the early 1950's, a few years before her death, Paqua Naha began developing white slipped pottery. Joy decided to continue the tradition.
Joy Navasie has a very strong allegiance to the traditional methods. In her own words, "Everything is traditional -gathering the clay, the molding, coiling the pots, slipping, polishing, and painting them, and firing them with sheep dung." She hopes that her descendants continue to use traditional methods out of respect for the Frog.
Today Joy is the mother of six children and grandmother of over twenty, many acclaimed potters in the own right.
Photograph courtesy of Arizona Highways
"Indian Arts and Crafts" 1976
Joy Navasie Circa 2001