Mud Woman Rolls On - October 21

The Denver Art Museum is a wonderful start for our trip. After breakfast and on our way to meet up with Lucy we stopped there for a few hours to take in their Indian exhibit.  It is similarly structured along geographic lines like Nelson-Atkins which we visited last year, but here the art is exhibited in a much larger space so feels more breathtaking.  And the Indians of the Southwest have a major pride of place (pottery, basketry, clothing, jewelry, katsina dolls, woven items), though Northwest and Plains Indian art is also featured.
“Mud Woman Rolls On,” produced in 2011 specifically as the entrance figure for the entire exhibit, is amazing both in its message and in its presentation. The Santa Clara Pueblo (New Mexico) artist Roxanne Swentzall has produced a larger than life sized clay figure (11 feet tall) of a mother holding an older child, holder a younger child, holding a still younger child, and finally a fourth.  It is a depiction of our connection to the earth. “We are all from this Mother, all from this Earth: made of her and will return to her… generation after generation. In the Pueblo world when we nurture life, we take care of the Earth and each other so life itself can continue.”  Because the figure is so large she used straw wattles (long tubes of straw often used for erosion control) for the base of the sculpture (fitting because a straw base is a standard practice in adobe construction).

Mud Woman


Hopi Katsina Dolls


Zuni Pottery

Navajo Rugs

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