2023 NCECA Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2023-cultivating-community

Roxanne Swentzell | Where do we go from here?

Join us for 2023 Cultivating Community week from September 25 to October 1, 2023. Cultivating Community includes new and recently developed programming highlighting dynamic presenters and topics. Cultivating Community will be a series of Instagram Live sessions and week-long on-demand video presentations at no cost, though donations are welcomed.

Roxanne Swentzell | Where do we go from here?

A presentation of Swentzell’s work, weaving it into what might come next by looking at what questions we ask ourselves and the meaning of the answers.

Roxanne Swentzell was born in 1962 and comes from a long family line of artists from Santa Clara Pueblo. Her talent was recognized early and she was given the opportunity to spend two years at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe before graduating from high school. She then went on to the Portland Museum Art School. In 2016 she received an honorary doctorate from the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Swentzell developed her own style at an early age. As a child, she had a speech impediment that made it difficult to form words. Roxanne learned to use her mother’s clay to create small figurines to communicate through. Her work can be found in museum collections around the world and at her own gallery in Northern New Mexico called the Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallery. She continues to work with clay creating human figurines. Though steeped in her own culture, Swentzell’s work demonstrates an astounding universality, speaking to people of all cultures.