During her lifetime, Nampeyo was, and remains today, perhaps the most renowned potter from the American Southwest. She is celebrated for her incredible skill as a potter and painter and also for her ingenuity as a designer. Like other potters of her time, Nampeyo built her pots by hand using a coiling technique. She made her clay and paints from local sources of earth and minerals and created fine paintbrushes from yucca fibers. Rather than following the contemporary Hopi style, Nampeyo drew inspiration from ceramic sherds found at abandoned ancestral villages near her home on First Mesa, Arizona, extrapolating the fragmentary designs. She favored certain decorative motifs including eagle tails, rain-bird designs, and prayer feathers, designs which she free-hand painted with bold, confident strokes. Nampeyo never signed her work, so attributions are made based on the decorative style, painting technique, and pottery form.