Over the course of her long career, Woodman tested and expanded the limits of ceramics, while exploring one of its fundamental forms—the vessel. The forms, patterns, and colors she used simultaneously addressed craft traditions and modernist painting, particularly early 20th-century abstraction. Woodman often deployed slab construction, in which she rolled clay into panels that could then be molded like soft fabric or cut like cardboard. For Aztec Vase 7, influenced by pre-Columbian designs from Mexico, Woodman created a central upright tubular column surrounded by a series of flat planes that extend off the vase like wings. The piece is painted with glazes, fired, and then painted again, combining a series of clashing colors and compositions.