Embedding emotion in pottery is not a skill that’s easily acquired. Yet for Roxanne Swentzell, the descendant of a long line of Tewa artists, it became a lifeline at a young age. When she was three, a speech impediment prevented her from being understood, so her mother, a potter, handed her a piece of clay.

“I began to create little figurines, and I used them to communicate for me,” Swentzell says. Dirt from the earth mixed with water became a medium for expressing herself. It would also become her vocation. “When people ask, ‘How do you see yourself as an artist?,’ that’s a strange question for me, because art was first about communication,”she says. Today, the famed artist from Santa Clara Pueblo is well-known for her sculptures, some of which are on display at the Tower Gallery in Pojoaque Pueblo. They radiate feelings, experiences, and stories. 

Swentzell found success with her pottery early on. By 19, her art was being showcased at the Four Winds Gallery in Pittsburgh, and Swentzell was selected to be an artist at the prestigious Santa Fe Indian Market. While her life’s work has revolved around working with clay, she has devoted time to learning new skills and promoting traditions. In 1987, she cocreated the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute to teach sustainable farming practices. 

Today, it is home to a vast seed bank, offers cultural and farming workshops, and is the base of the Pueblo Food Experiment, which advocates a return to a precolonial diet. Currently, the institute is building a retreat center at Abiquiu Lake that will be open to both tribal members and the general public. In 2016, through the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, Swentzell published The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors, which “promotes healing and balance by returning to the original foodways of the Pueblo peoples.”

During those years, ceramic art remained central to her creative endeavors. She has received numerous awards for her work, which has been exhibited around the world, including at the National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. In 2019, she was presented with the New Mexico Governor’s Art Award, one of the highest honors an artist can receive from the state.

Now 62, Swentzell—a mother, grandmother, artist, activist, farmer, author, teacher, and Tewa elder—remains as full of life and creative energy as the land she resides on. She’s become a prominent figure in New Mexico culture, inspiring others to live actively, value community connections, and empower themselves through healthy aging. We chatted with her about her life and ongoing work.

Can you explain how clay figurines helped you communicate when you were a child?

Swentzell: I had a very severe speech impediment, so the sounds I made were not forming words that you could understand. Imagine a little girl starting school, and she’s trying to talk to other kids and they’re laughing at her because they don’t understand. School was very, very difficult for me, but I had this incredible medium of clay. 

I remember coming home one day, and I wanted to explain to my mother how difficult it was in school. I was five or six years old at this point, and I created a little figure of a girl crying at a desk, and then I could hand it to my mother so she would understand what I was going through.

How did you go from those early days of art being an essential part of communication to realizing that you could do it for a living?

I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in high school, and while I was there I was offered a one-woman show at their museum. I was so excited, and I gathered all my sculptures, pots, cups, and everything I had made that year and put them in the museum. They put up a big sign with my name on it. And then they said, “Well, where’s your price list?” I went, “What?” It had never dawned on me to put a price on anything. 

At that particular show, there were two men who had come from New York, and they were impressed and wanted to take the whole show to a gallery in Niagara Falls. I said, “You have to go talk to my mom.” Instead of saying, “Oh, that’s wonderful, that’s amazing,” she scolded them. She told them, “Shame on you. She doesn’t need to be exposed to that world. Leave her alone. Don’t force her there right now. Let her just be who she is.”

It was an incredible lesson for me that I still think about. My mother was trying to point out that not everything has to be about Western success or money. What I was doing, which she told me very clearly was of value, was making things from my heart. It wasn’t for money or ego. It was just about what was beautiful and wonderful to me. I’m so grateful that she made that view prominent so that I wouldn’t get lost. I think there’s a need for just letting children bloom first.

How do you characterize yourself as an artist today?

I describe myself as a sculptor of human emotions. 

Can you explain the significance of art in your culture?

Art in the Pueblo culture is very prominent, although it wouldn’t necessarily be referred to as art. It’s just what you do. The fine line between crafts and art is not noticed in the culture much. You make what you can, whether it’s your clothes, a pot, a belt, or a garden. It’s all artistically done.

A lot of our cultural beliefs are seen on, say, the outfits of our ceremonial and pottery pieces. They often show patterns and pictures of our belief systems in symbols. And those symbols you can’t go buy in a store. We have to make them ourselves. They have stories connected to them, because they have meanings, and those meanings are passed down from generation to generation. 

How has working with clay, gardening, and your other creative outlets supported you throughout your life?

My approach to everything is very place- and earth-based. As I grew, we built our own house out of adobe, which is earth-based. I continue to build with the materials around me. As I got older, where our food comes from became more [prominent] in my consciousness. I was planting and growing gardens in the fields around me, which is a place-based, culture-based, earth-based thing. It’s all tied to who I am and how I am connected to this place, the people of this place, the plants of this place, the air of this place. It’s all connected.

My mother made our pots because we needed dishes to eat from. If you need a pot to cook something in, you can go make it. There was very much an independence within yourself. And I’m lucky to have grown up with that perspective, because it gave me a real sense of empowerment. When people know that they can feed themselves, that’s empowerment. When they know that they can make themselves a pair of shoes, that’s empowerment. When you can make shelter for yourself, that’s empowerment. 

What are some lessons you’ve been able to transfer from your mother to your own children and grandchildren?

I homeschooled my kids for seven years and my grandkids for a couple years. And the thing that I have tried to pass on to them is, again, the understanding that they can figure out whatever it is that’s in front of them. So if they run into car problems, it’s like, “Well, let’s see if we can figure it out.” If they want to sew something, it’s like, “Well, let’s figure this out.” It’s all in our world to be able to figure it out. 

Today, information is so available, but the hands-on part is lacking. Many people know a lot of information, but they don’t know how to put it into practice. So what I often do now is teach basic skills like how to make a little bowl and how to fire it, because people have disconnected from that part of their lives—how to make their clothes, their houses, their food, an expression of themselves. I just want to encourage that in everybody. My kids are successful in their own right, and I think it’s because I didn’t encourage them to be just one thing. I encouraged them to enjoy learning.

How does being outside and creating help your health, your mental wellness, and your spirit as you get older?

We’ve been building [our retreat center] up at Abiquiu Lake. And the days I go up to work, it’s physical labor, but we only really work hard for like three hours. Then we have a really good lunch and enjoy the scenery and talk to each other, and you feel very accomplished, like, “Wow, I did stuff and I got exercise, and I didn’t have to go pay a gym fee.” 

I realized this fall, when everyone was getting sick, I was outside mixing concrete for walls and feeling healthy. I think all that vitamin D is good for me. I encourage everybody to go outside. If we spend too much time inside, we get sick. Being outside keeps us healthy.

How important is community to the aging process?

Community is so important. I couldn’t do anything I’ve done
without the people around me. The older I get, the more it becomes obvious that nobody lives in a bubble. Everybody has a community around them, and it’s not just the people. It’s the sun that rises on the mountain, the water you drink, the birds in your yard. It’s the bigger community, and our communities are what hold us up. When we diversify that community and add more wonderful things to it, that community becomes stronger.

How do you personally connect with your community? 

We built a traditional women’s house in Santa Clara Pueblo. The women gather there to do traditional women’s activities, mostly concerning corn, because corn is female in our culture. 

It’s so wonderful when we gather, because the men come too, and they’ll help out by singing to us, or help guard, or just take care of what needs they can provide. When you have an activity that’s happening that’s good and feels good, it attracts others, and then they want to help.

How is food and community connected in your culture?

Corn is very seasonal, so there’s different activities throughout the year depending on the season. The Pueblo dances that happen in the villages are seasonally connected to the crops or hunting time or springtime and the things that happen in that season. It’s place-based, community-based thinking.

In the begining of the fall, in August and September, we have a lot of harvest dances. And then we hang our corn up to make sure it’s nice and dry. Through the winter, we can take the dried corn down—it’s either seed corn or food corn, and gets segregated into those piles—and then throughout the year the corn is available as needed, whether it’s for replanting, ceremonial use, or eating. 

What are some Pueblo corn dishes you make?

We do a corn soup—chicos—from dried, roasted sweet corn, as well as posole and tamales. Another is with blue corn. We grind it into flour and roast it, and make what we call buwah, which is a very thin, paper-like bread. 

Are there traditional winter activities that are important in your community?

In the winter, you start to go indoors because it’s cold. A lot of crafts can be done in wintertime—basketmaking, weaving, sewing, pottery, all while sitting inside by a warm fire.

How are art, cooking and building houses all related for you?

They’re related through a love story. They’re related because I wanted to make a sculpture that showed somebody looking at somebody else with a particular feeling they had. I grew red sweet corn because I loved the thought of having an ear of red
sweet corn. 

It seems like you’ve learned new things throughout your entire life. What would you tell people to let them know they can pick up a new craft at any age?

Creativity is the tool you use, but love is what moves it. The desire and the enjoyment of it, the joy it brings you, the feeling afterward that I did that by myself with my hands, is what connects them all. 

Stay in the place of just being excited about learning. Stay in the place where you always feel good.