The Artists
The Board of Directors of ARTsmart is pleased to announce that Roxanne Swentzell has been selected as Honorary Artist for the 11th Annual ARTfeast. The designation recognizes artists of standing in the community whose artwork and activities encourage young people to explore their creativity.
Board member Peter Gaugy, 2007 president of the Santa Fe Gallery Association, announced the selection, noting that Ms. Swentzell is one of the most acclaimed sculptors in the state of New Mexico. “Roxanne has been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, including a wall sculpture installed in 2004 at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. She has also served as an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Indian School, Tesuque Pueblo Elementary School, San Juan Pueblo Elementary School and Santa Clara Pueblo Elementary School. Her clay people and children are poignantly humanistic, conveying the joys and sorrows of life.”
Working primarily in clay, with some works cast in bronze, Ms. Swentzell was born in 1962 into the Naranjo family of Santa Clara Pueblo, renowned for sculpting and pottery making. As a young girl, she apprenticed with her uncle, sculptor Michael Naranjo, followed by formal studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, and Portland Museum Art School, OR. She has won numerous awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Indian Fair, and her work is featured in the monograph Roxanne Swentzell: Extra-Ordinary People (2002 New Mexico Magazine Artist Series).
Storyteller by Roxanne Swentzell Ms. Swentzell has written that as a child, school was difficult for her because she “couldn’t talk very well.” To overcome the impediment, she created clay figures, and by second grade, was “better at communicating through art than in words,” she writes in her Retrospective Guide. She credits several teachers as guardian angels in helping her pursue the fine arts. Her realization of a career in the field has had many rewards, as evidenced by this anecdote about an encounter at Indian Market. “A girl walked up to me wanting to talk. I quickly realized that she was deaf and dumb, but she was gesturing to me trying to tell me what my sculptures meant to her. With tears in both our eyes, I realized that my pieces were touching other people deeply. My story was not just my story. Others were identifying with them as if I were talking about their lives. I started to see that this language I created as a child through sculptures was a universal language spoken by all peoples around the world. This language was the language of human emotions.”
Ms. Swentzell will be honored during the ARTfeast Gourmet Dinner, Saturday, February 23, 2008, and featured in the ARTfeast Guide, published by the Journal Santa Fe, Sunday, February 10, 2008.