Roxanne Swentzell (born December 9, 1962) is a Santa Clara Tewa Native American sculptor, ceramic artist, Indigenous food activist, and gallerist. Her artworks are in major public collections and she has won numerous awards.
Swentzell's work addresses personal and social commentary, reflecting respect for family, cultural heritage, and for the Earth. Her sculptural work has been exhibited at the White House as well as in international museums and galleries. She has been commissioned to create permanent installations at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Wellington, New Zealand, and other venues, including the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.
Early life
Swentzell was born at Taos Pueblo, New Mexico in 1962. Her parents Ralph and Rina Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo) fostered her interest in art. Her father was a German-American philosophy professor who taught at St. John's College, Santa Fe. Her mother, Rina Swentzell, was an activist, architect, scholar and artist born to a Santa Clara Pueblo (Kha'po Owingeh) family of artists. Her uncle, Tito Naranjo, was an artist and scholar, while her other uncle Michael Naranjo, is a well-known sculptor blinded in the Vietnam War. Swentzell's two aunts, Jody Folwell and Nora Naranjo Morse, are ceramic artists.
Swentzel is descended from a long line of Santa Clara Pueblo potters from whom she learned customary methods of pottery making. She grew up watching her mother harvest clay from the earth to create hand-coiled and pit-fired pots. Swentzell began to experiment with clay as a child. She created small figurines that depicted her feelings. Her speech impediment made it difficult for her to communicate, so scraps of clay left over from her mother's pottery projects allowed her to create small figurative sculptures to convey her emotions. Clay sculpture became her primary means to communicate her inner emotional state, and she was supported by understanding teachers.
Education
In 1978, Swentzell's parents enrolled her at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. Her first art show was in the IAIA Museum. After two years at IAIA, she transferred to the Portland Museum Art School in 1980 because of its emphasis on the human figure. Swentzell grew homesick after one year of study as she became dissatisfied and disillusioned with Portland's art scene. She felt that artists in Portland separated art from their everyday lives, and their art did not thus reflect what surrounded them, whereas her own art was inspired by her life experiences. Swentzell believes in lifelong learning and has said, "Everyday is an amazing new book, a test in every discipline, a chance to advance myself, and great times on the playground."
Personal life
Swentzell homeschooled both her children and her grandchildren. Her son, Dr. Porter Swentzell, is a professor and associate dean at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Her daughter Rose Bean Simpson is also a ceramic sculptor, who earned her MFA degree from Rhode Island School of Design; she has exhibited her work widely.
Career
Swentzell's relationship with nature led her to design and plant trees and gardens at her home in the high-desert of Santa Clara Pueblo. Swentzell lives in an adobe house that she built herself. The family partakes in the pueblo's ceremonial dances and feasts at the pueblo. Swentzell also farms her own land to provide self-sustenance.
In 1987, Swentzell co-founded the Santa Clara Pueblo-based nonprofit organization Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, where she serves as president. Flowering Tree is based on the theories of ecological design, sustainable human living, and agriculture. The institute offers lessons on techniques for living a healthy life. Classes taught at the institute include: methods of farming, low water-use farming in a high desert climate, animal husbandry, adobe construction, and solar energy. Her work at the institute is based on her own personal philosophy informed by Native American ancestors who serve as role models for protectors of Earth who preserve Indigenous knowledge of conservation. Swentzell's initiative, the Pueblo Food Experience, offers participants foods that were available to precontact Tewa people.
Swentzell runs the Tower Gallery located on Pojoaque Pueblo in north Santa Fe. She exhibits her ceramics and bronze work there as well as curated group art exhibitions.