It is remarkable what Santa Clara Pueblo artist Nora Naranjo Morse does in such a tiny studio. With no running water and only a few workbenches, a couple of chairs, and a kiva fireplace, the one-room structure seems more like a garage than a place for contemplation and making art. Her large-scale clay and mixed-media pieces that have been exhibited across the country wouldn't even fit through the door. But it's home; particularly because Naranjo Morse built it herself, as she helped to build the house that sits about 50 feet behind it.

Pasatiempo asked Naranjo Morse whether she ever considered moving to a larger workplace. She smiled and touched her forehead with her finger. "My ideas are up here. And I know people who can help me get them realized."

Given Naranjo Morse's widespread recognition within the Native American arts community and beyond, the Santa Fe Rotary Foundation for the Arts chose Naranjo Morse as its 2009 Distinguished Artist of the Year. "Nora represents her culture with traditional values while at the same time her art is nontraditional," said foundation president John Bishop. "We chose Nora for her leadership and innovation in the field of contemporary art. She's not only a leader for Native artists but indeed all artists — paving the way for younger artists to present unique forms of art that reflect who they are and the culture they come from."

Naranjo Morse was informed of the award after meeting with Bishop and foundation member Brian McPartlon at Chiaroscuro Gallery, where she has been represented since 2007. "I don't know what the nominating process is, but John Addison [gallery director for Chiaroscuro] had been working as liaison between Rotary and myself," she said. "Rotary members asked me to come to the gallery, where we started a dialogue.
I think they were trying to decide if I was worthy. So when I got the call, I was surprised.

"You can see how I live — fairly simply. Allan Houser [honored in 1985] is big to me; he's this major icon. And [2006 honoree] Tom Joyce is this huge icon in my mind. I see those people in a different category than myself, because I live here and work in this really small studio."

Despite her modesty, Naranjo Morse is no stranger to acclaim. In 2000, she was the Dubin Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. She was awarded an Eiteljorg Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2003 and received an honorary degree from Skidmore College in 2007. "About Skidmore," the artist said, "they called me and told me they would like to present me with an honorary doctorate of fine arts. Next thing I know, I'm on the same stage with NBC news guy Tom Brokaw. It was very surreal; and taking my turn to talk to 4,000 people was just part of that. It's really interesting to find myself in these types
of situations."

Born in a traditional Tewa family, Naranjo Morse is the youngest of seven sisters and two brothers. "When I was growing up, my sisters and brothers were like gods to me. They were smart, beautiful, artistic, and athletic; all of which I wanted to be. So they were influential in my thinking. They were coming back from college and doing this or that which I wanted to do. But I had to figure it out for myself," she said. "My mother, of course, was key because she worked with clay. And because I observed that and helped gather clay and processed it, I became cognizant of this relationship to the clay that was crucial to her — crucial to where she grew up — and that was my connection to her and the land. And when I visited my aunt, she would be doing the same thing. So all of these strong women, these matriarchs in my life, were influential to me. Not only in the way they worked, but in the way they carried themselves and how they thought about their place in the world."

Away at college, Naranjo Morse lost sight of her connection to clay but was reintroduced to the medium by her sister, potter Jody Folwell. "I went to the College of Santa Fe. What's funny is that it took me 10 years to get my degree. I would come and go a semester or two at a time, in between building a house, having kids, and all of this life stuff. But eventually I finished," she said. "When I came back from college, my sister Jody had resettled in Santa Clara and was making pottery. I was 22 at the time. Visiting with her while she was making pots, it was easy to reach out, pick up a piece of clay, and start working it. That's when I revisited that whole idea of working with clay. At 22 years of age, you don't really know what you're doing, and I was looking for something. With clay in my hand, it helps to ease my nervousness or insecurities or whatever. After my time with Jody, I became a student again and began looking at other people's work. Not just pottery and clay — those were my anchors — but everything."

Today, Naranjo Morse's work is the subject of widespread attention. In 2006, her concept for a site-specific piece at the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was chosen from more than 55 entries solicited from exhibiting Native artists. According to the museum's founding director, W. Richard West Jr., Naranjo Morse's winning work, Always Becoming, is a symbol of home and family that "not only conveys a universal theme to all peoples but also enhances the visitors' experience that they have entered a Native place when they step foot on the museum grounds."

"I actually got an invitation to apply, and I thought, sure, I'll do this, but suddenly realized invitations had been sent to everybody and their brother in the Western Hemisphere," recalled Naranjo Morse. "But having done so, I started dreaming about what I might do. And once I got the commission, it was like, 'Oh my God, now what? I have to do this!' But it was similar to when I was sitting at my sister's table and searching for something, grasping for something to hold on to; those were moments that were given to me, signposts that told me I was going in the right direction."

Each of five tepee-form structures for Always Becoming — entitled Father, Mother, Little One, Moon Woman, and Mountain Bird — was built over the summer of 2007 using organic materials including dirt, straw, sand, clay, wood, and moss. The pieces will devolve naturally over time — day by day and season by season — giving added meaning to the work's title.

Naranjo Morse is currently completing an hour-long documentary on Always Becoming that will have its premiere in Washington, D.C., in 2010. "I have all this footage of the actual making of it and interviews and podcast stuff, but I asked myself, 'What is it that inspired me to make this piece?' I started thinking about where I come from, why I'm so involved with the land — considering the environment — and all these issues that were core to my upbringing: the Pueblo worldview.

But this is a much larger story than looking at Nora Naranjo Morse, the Pueblo woman artist making these sculptures for the Smithsonian. It begged me to look at how people in our communities have always been working and what inspires them, what have they given to their children, and what those things are that are part of the cultural tenet that seems to keep us going, a life that's balanced.

"During the time I was working on the project, I hired a crew that consisted of a 75-year-old indigenous man from Obregon, Mexico, his daughter, and her husband and their son. They seemed like the most motley crew ever having crossed the border, traveled across the country, and ultimately working under the most incredible circumstances in the nation's capital. But the dignity they maintained, the way they looked at things, and the way they held themselves was breathtaking to me. There were times when the noise of Vice President Cheney's passing motorcade was so deafening that we were forced to stop working and cover our ears. I would look at my crew and see the juxtaposition of these two men — 75-year-old Don Juan, who didn't speak English, quietly whittling on bamboo, and Cheney madly racing to the Capitol with sirens blasting away. Recalling those moments has inspired me to put that in the film, to consider what are the tools that indigenous people have that are still applicable today."

Naranjo Morse has continued to work on other projects, despite her description of the film as "all-consuming." In 2008, she completed Story Line, an installation piece for SITE Santa Fe's seventh international biennial, Lucky Number Seven. This was in collaboration with her daughter Eliza and great-niece Rose Simpson. She recently teamed up with Eliza again in the exhibition Mothers & Daughters: Stories in Clay, currently at the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

"It's an interesting phenomenon to work with your daughter," said Naranjo Morse. "It has been inspirational, exciting, and as important as when I was a little girl watching my mother make pottery. We continually talk to one another about our processes in art, and she's someone I'm really engaged with right now. It's wonderful to have that, because with my mother it was different; she was the teacher, and she instructed me that this was the vein of clay, here's how we sift it, and this is what we do next. I was always her student, which was just fine. But now, for me and my daughter, it's a collaborative effort. When we worked at SITE Santa Fe, I wasn't the mother but simply one of the artists, which was a thrilling experience for me. Eliza teaches me to be fearless."

But Naranjo Morse is not immune to apprehension. "When something big like the SITE piece ends, I wonder, what do I do now? What direction should I go in? And that's scary. But it's a good scary. And as I get older, I need to be challenged. Conceptually, I can't go back to making things that will fit into an Indian Market booth. I'm not made that way. So I look for an opportunity that allows me to go to that place where I have to use all of what I've so far learned; using those cultural tools and being able to create something that is new for me. At 55 years of age, a lot of the concerns I had at 30 and 40 have washed away. I have experience and some knowledge that things will be OK for me, especially if I keep my feet grounded and hold onto those things I was taught at a younger age about the land and where I came from. Right now, I'm at that place I always wanted to be. I live in a beautiful area in a house I helped build; I'm healthy; my kids are healthy; they're doing things that excite them; and occasionally I get to work with them and make art. I would dream about this place. And I'm there."

details
Santa Fe Rotary Foundation for the Arts gala award presentation for Nora Naranjo Morse, 2009 Distinguished Artist of the Year
6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25
Scottish Rite Center, 463 Paseo de Peralta
$100 & $150 (includes private reception with the artist); 984-1133

The age of Rotarians

The Santa Fe Rotary Foundation for the Arts dates back to 1981. In that year, painter Fremont Ellis was honored by the foundation. In the years since, Ellis has been joined by a who's who of artists associated with ot Porter, Beaumont Newhall, Allan Houser, Wilson Hurley, Glenna Goodacre, Luis Tapia, Agnes Martin, and in 2004, Michael Naranjo (brother of Nora Naranjo Morse). The foundation's involvement with the arts community goes beyond recognizing individual artists, however. In 2008, grants were awarded to a variety of institutions deemed vital to Santa Fe's cultural development, including the Santa Fe Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Moving People Dance Santa Fe, Creativity for Peace, and Warehouse 21. The foundation's mission statement spells out a specific orientation toward enriching the lives of children and teens: "To inspire the youth of our community by providing support and funding for arts in education, scholarships, and personal development."