Right: Pod III, 2011; ceramic, reed, cotton twine, pigments; approx. 10" x 6" x 8", NMAI purchase, 2012, with support from the Ford Foundation. 26/8636


Below: Pod IV, 2011; ceramic, reed, cotton twine, pigments; 6" x 2" x 4.5", NMAI purchase, 2012, with support from the Ford Foundation. 26/8637


ROSE B. SIMPSON Born into a family of Tewa potters and sculptors, Rose Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo) grew up with clay. So while she likes to work in a variety of media—from dance and writing to metal and clay—“clay is the most important to me,” she says. “Clay is the most grounding and the most honest. It is the most integral relationship because it doesn’t feel forced because it was inherited.” Her two ceramic fi gures sitting inside and outside of twine and reed baskets, or “pods,” are rough, created in one session rather than perfected over time. Simpson says she sometimes works in this “slap slab” technique so that she cannot go back and make a piece “acceptable.” She prefers to refl ect the unscripted reality of moments in life. When looking at the pensive fi gures, their internal struggles are apparent, a refl ection of Simpson’s own feelings when she created them. She says her works are “all about emotional growth and trying to identify what the issues are so we can heal from them. Part of that is not being in denial of our honest emotional spaces.”


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 35


PHOTO BY MINESH BACRANIA


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52