Young Curator Tara Lujan-Baker interviews her grandmother, Carol Lujan (Navajo), a clay and glass artist based in New Mexico and Arizona.
This article is part of our Young Curators series, written by high school students taking part in SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators program.
My grandmother, known to me as Nana and known to others as Carol Lujan (Navajo), is a clay and glass artist based in New Mexico and Arizona. Her art focuses on Native culture, infusing her experience living as a Native artist in the Southwest. She gains inspiration and creates her art using Native American symbolism and contemporary practices. She’s taught me about Native symbols and their importance, and has taught me about how to make art for as long as I can remember. She has taught me how to use clay and how to use glass, all while letting me infuse my own style and explore for myself.
I first learned how to work with clay when I was young. I would visit my Nana at the Taos house and we would walk to the clay studio on the dry dirt road. She would teach me what she knew and would let me take it from there. The impressionable wet clay took form in my hands, changing with every touch. I learned that I could create using clay like she did. Thin layers of cracked, dry clay flaked off of my hands as I looked at what I made. It wasn’t incredible or what anyone would consider artistic, but it was mine.
I started developing my own style at some point, something not yet completely identifiable, but it was my own nonetheless. My Nana had picked up the art of glass far after she had learned to work with clay. Once she believed we were both ready for it, she taught me that process too. It was scary at first. Not smooth and moldable like clay, it was rigid and fixed. Dragging towards my body, a needle tool against a ruler smoothly cuts a straight line into clay. Pushing away from my body, a glass tool against a thick ruler scores the glass. But scoring the glass didn’t cut it and the scariest part was going to be breaking it. Broken glass doesn’t ever sound pleasant. I took the breaker to the line I had scored, my hands hesitantly squeezed and, crack! I had cut a straight line into glass.
My Nana taught me so much about art. She has taught me to explore and take risks, while simultaneously showing me the importance of Native culture. She gives me instruction based on what she knows, and allows me to incorporate what she has taught me into other media as well as incorporate my own style and ideas into what she has taught me. As I’ve grown, I’ve seen her grow as well. She works hard and passionately to improve because she is an artist who loves to make art. Native art is a forever evolving presence; some see it and think of it as something from the past, something solely traditional, but it’s not. My Nana is an example of those who incorporate tradition while creating something new.
I decided to interview my Nana one afternoon and learn more about her art and creative process.
What art media do you use and why have you chosen to work with them?
I work with both clay and fused glass. I chose clay because I like the feel of it and the way you can shape it easily. I just like working with my hands, being able to change the clay. With glass I was really attracted to working with it because of the way that the colors seem to come to life when the light hits it. The colors that you usually choose for your glass is what you get in the final outcome—it doesn’t change colors in the kiln like with clay. If you use a certain glaze sometimes it doesn’t come out the way you thought it would—but I like working with both of the media and so far I haven’t combined them.
What does the creative process of making your art look like?
I have to first think about what I want to make and sometimes I’ll sketch–usually with glass. I make them to try and get an idea of what to make. Then I make sure I have all my materials.
When I’m working with glass for instance, I’ll make sure I have all the colors and everything that I need and I have all my tools that I use. Then I start cutting out the designs that I have planned and start placing them on a base sheet of glass. If it looks good then I’m ok with it, if not then I do something different or add more to the piece I’m working on.
When it comes to fused glass, once I have the design the way I want it, I put it in the kiln and the firing process usually takes a day or twenty-four hours to complete for the first fire which fuses it together. For the second fire I put it in the kiln again to slump it into a mold of the shape I want my piece to have.
With clay I don’t usually have to make a sketch but I have a general idea of what I want to make. If I’m making a clay mask for example, I’ve already made so many of those that it’s pretty easy to just put it together and get it done. Once it dries I put it in the kiln to fire it and then when it comes out sometimes I glaze my piece and sometimes I paint it. I’ll then add embellishments. With the clay mask I’ll add feathers or ribbons to it and clay earrings. Depending on the medium I work with, the process is a little different.
What messages do you hope to portray in your art and how do you go about portraying them?
I like to portray the Native lifestyle I guess you would say—the culture, the landscape of the Southwest, and I use a lot of native symbols like dragonflies, butterflies, and hummingbirds in my work too. That, to me, emphasizes the beauty of nature in the Southwest and how Native people have lived with those symbols in their culture.
What led you to be involved in the Native art world?
Working with art, and I am Native so [laughter] it just ended up that way. It felt natural to do that because there are a lot of shows for Native people that I’ve always been involved with either as a consumer of the art or, as of now, an artist who makes the art. The process of being an artist has always been an attraction to me.
What do you think about how your work has been received by art institutions in New Mexico or the Southwest in general?
It seems like it has been received fairly well. I like the fact that I’ve been included in one of the traveling art exhibitions which started with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. That exhibition is traveling across the country right now as we speak. So far it seems that it’s been accepted fairly well; I didn’t expect that kind of visibility for my artwork.
Have you seen any changes or shifts in the art world during your art career?
Yeah! I’m mainly focused on Native artists, but it seems like a lot of Native artists are using computers to make their art which is very new and interesting to me. There seems to be more of a focus on fashion as well which wasn’t the case about twenty years ago, but now it seems like one of the areas that’s really showcased now. And what else? Of course, film, that’s getting really popular when it wasn’t so much in the past.
How do you hope to further develop your art? Do you want to experiment with more media or the media that you already work with?
I just hope to improve my art. I want to make sure that I can learn from my mistakes and perfect it—not that anything can be perfect but I just want to try to make it what I think is a little bit better every time I do my work. I would like to also experiment more with the media I work with. With clay I’m not going to go any further with what I know, but with glass I’d like to do more. I would like to cast using glass which is a different process than fusing glass. I would like to try that process again. Overall, I would like to use some more techniques and experiments with glass.
What lessons or processes do you hope to have taught me or still want to teach?
The appreciation of working with different types of media—like with clay it’s a little different than with glass. They are two different types of media but they sort of take a similar creative process. You have to think about what you’re going to do before you do it, and I think you do that probably better than I do [laughter]—
—I don’t know about that—
—because I notice you take your time and try to develop what you want to make and usually you do sketches; I don’t always do sketches. I think you’re good at learning, quick at learning, but the main thing I still want you to understand is just the enjoyment of making art. To do art as something fun, to work with it as still something fun and enjoyable for you.
How does your work differ from others around you? What makes it yours?
I include, with glass, a lot more detail than I’ve seen. I use a lot of different types of glass material, like dichroic glass, stringers, frit, and use it for different designs and details. I like color. I use different types of color and mix them well, combining colors, putting colors together that others probably wouldn’t do. I feel like I have a distinct style that makes my work my own and unique.
The Young Curators series is presented in partnership with SITE Santa Fe.
