Featured Little Horsehair carved vase signed S E

I bought this little vase and was hoping someone might know the artist or when it was made.
It is 4" tall and has a couple chips on the rim that I am sure will affect the value, but it was only a dollar.
Mikey

 

Despite all the made-up claims on the internet, horsehair pottery is an outgrowth of American raku, or post-firing reduction, a technique credited to American ceramic artist and educator Paul Soldner in the 1960s. It has nothing at all to do with any traditional Native American pottery, was not the result of a Sioux (or Navajo, or puebloan) maiden catching her hair on a pot when taking it from the kiln. That is all the result of stories made up to help sell it, often preceded by "according to legend...." That's what it is, alright, just a merchandising "legend." No Indian-made horsehair pottery exists that was made before the 1960s.

As a potter myself, who was a student in the '60s (and took classes from Paul Soldner, himself), I can tell you that I saw my first piece of horsehair pottery in the early 1970s, made by a Santa Fe studio potter, and displayed in a Santa Fe gallery window. It may have been made earlier, somewhere else, but that was the first time I remember seeing it for sale.

Native American Indian-made horsehair pottery started appearing in Santa Fe galleries and shops in the 1980s/1990s, so this can't be older than that. Is that an '85 date, possibly, on the pot?

 

Thank you very much Taupou.
That could very well be a date. so 85 sounds about right. Thanks again.
Mikey

 

How interesting you knew and took classes from Soldner, we were heavily involved experimenting with Raku firing in college in the early 1970’s everyone was trying to duplicate what he was doing. I did meet him a few times and attend a couple of his workshops the last one maybe 18 years ago at a studio in Northern California and at NECCA in Portland.

A few of my Raku works these were done around 20 years ago, they are fairly large pieces the tallest a little over 36” and thrown thin to survive the thermal shock.

the first one copper luster, the other two underglaze decoration on terra sigillata.