Making Babies for Indian Market
Arts of the Americas
Roxanne Swentzell’s work often plays on the interaction between native and non-native worlds. Here she uses clay, an ancient artistic medium, to depict a traditional Pueblo woman
Making Babies for Indian Market
Arts of the Americas
Roxanne Swentzell’s work often plays on the interaction between native and non-native worlds. Here she uses clay, an ancient artistic medium, to depict a traditional Pueblo woman, whose face is much like Swentzell’s own. The woman in the sculpture looks up at the Santa Clara black pot balanced on her head, from which babies are emerging. But there is a contemporary ironic twist to what the woman is doing: is she “birthing” pots to be sold at an Indian market, or is it the baby Indians themselves that the consumer will want to buy? The work challenges the viewer to acknowledge the treatment of Native Americans as a stereotype and commodity in representations by non-nativ