The Things I Have to Do to Maintain Myself 

Roxanne Swentzell (1962-)

Coiled and scraped cray, 15.5" x 13" x 15".

1994

Denver Art Museum Collection

Roxanne Swentzell, from Santa Clara Pueblo in Northern New Mexico, specializes in creating human figures out of clay.[1] Swentzell recalls her memory of her mother worked as a clay potter. As Swentzell had a speech impediment, she started making figures out of clay to describe her feelings when she was very little. “Now I use an electric kiln, but I want to go back to traditional outside firing,” Swentzell says.[2]

Most of her pottery works ties to the question of what Native Americans are about. This artwork captures Swentzell’s image of sacred figure in her tribe. Although this spiritual figure is now called Pueblo clowns, it has much more deep meanings than the stereotypical European clowns for Pueblo people.

Practicing a traditional Pueblo life, Swentzell learned the importance of paying attention to the ordinary things in her everyday life, which is the message she put into this art piece. “If we see through our eyes then whatever we are will come out. And that means [the same] whether I am an Indian or not … I learned to listen to myself and not to be so influenced by what other people wanted me to make. I am going to present the world through my eyes.”[1]

This clown looks comfortable with being himself. He may not care what people call him. He knows where he comes from, just as well as his creator does.

[1] Williams, F. Lucy, "Seeing Through the Eyes of an Artist," Expedition Magazine 43.2 (July 2001):  n. pag. Expedition Magazine. Penn Museum, July 2001, http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/?p=6369 (accessed 14 May 2016).

[2] Susan Peterson, “fig. 31: Roxanne Swentzell,” Pottery by American Indian Women, the Legacy of Generations: the Avant-Garde, (online, Woman Artist of the American West, 1997), https://www.cla.purdue.edu/WAAW/Peterson/Swentzell.html (accessed 19 May, 2016).