Vessels, Interconnectedness, and the Beauty of Boundaries With Rose B. Simpson

Simpson’s work was also included in the recent exhibition To Take Shape and Meaning: Form and Design in Contemporary American Indian Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh by guest curator Nancy Strickland Fields (Lumbee).

“She is an artistic force, and I am inspired by all she creates and who she is,” says Fields, the Director/Curator of The Museum of the Southeast American Indian at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

The NMCA has now acquired two of 12 sentinel-like figures from Simpson’s installation Counterculture, as well as a smaller sculpture, Nightwork: Shame. Linda Dougherty, Chief Curator and Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, says, “Her works are significant additions to the museum’s permanent collection and part of our efforts to expand works by Native American artists.” In Counterculture, negative-space eyes reveal the sky– intended to make it easier to “give consciousness to the inanimate.”

Aware of her carbon footprint, the artist uses very thin layers of clay in an unforgiving, “slap slab” hand-building technique. Simpson retains fingerprints in her work like those still visible in the ancient pottery shards and handprints within the ancestral dwellings of her Santa Clara Pueblo homelands in New Mexico where she still lives. 

Descended from a matrilineal lineage of some 70 generations of clay artists, she explains that traditionally this was a woman's role, since the body itself was a vessel for building a human. Simpson sees the landscape “as a vessel that's holding you”, while giving voice to the respect and accountability that comes with being in such a place. 

Frequently, the artist’s figures lack arms to emphasize “being” over “doing.” When they lack fully formed legs, Simpson wants to emphasize the vessel– a concept to which she frequently returns. 

Simpson’s anthropomorphic figures are a synergistic integration of the self-portrait and the presence of the animate within the supposed inanimate. To avoid being exploitive, she carefully curates her imagery. 

“I have to be really careful about using religious iconography because of the extractive nature of colonization and how it affected my community,” shares Simpson, who comes from a very conservative, traditional background. The artist honors the importance of continued spiritual preservation and agrees that some things don't belong in the outside world. 

“But, if I make a self-portrait about my journey as a human being in relationship to the journey of becoming who I'm intended to be– of remembering who I really am…. That representation of the act of creating oneself… sometimes that is recognizing that sacred nature of oneself in aesthetic.” 

Simpson considers the many rules and boundaries of Pueblo culture to be a blessing, because these restrictions inspire her to be “extra creative,” pushing her to understand things in a different way. “How do I navigate my identity and be honest about my experience, but without exploiting or extracting?” the artist asks. “I have to be as innovative as I possibly can, which pushes me more into a contemporary expression.” 

Simpson describes the beauty of these boundaries and how the community is built as another type of vessel, holding you like the walls of the mountains, house, and pot. 

“[I]f you see it as something that's restricting you and suffocating you, then that's gonna be your experience. But, if you see something as hugging you, as holding you, as loving you, as caring for you, then it's an entirely other experience that is absolutely incredible, and it is an honor to respect."

As a result of being judicious with her spiritual iconography, Simpson’s work can evoke a sacred universality, though such cross-cultural references are unintentional. “If it is that delicious flavor of what it means to be Indigenous to this planet, then…. Where does that deliciousness lead me?” 

Simpson hopes that her artwork will “lead people back to themselves,” and encourages the act of listening. “How do we listen to ourselves?...[B]ecause we tend to fill our world up with noise, even if it's the noise of our thoughts to the point where we're not open to what's there to teach us. I always think of [the artworks] as sort of Trojan horses of consciousness.” 

One such work is a different kind of vessel: Maria. Simpson rebuilt and customized this 1985 Chevy El Camino, while honoring San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Maria Martinez, who redeveloped traditional Tewa black-on-black pottery designs. Empowering group “transformances” featured participants in black post-apocalyptic attire, complete with Maria’s loud heartbeat on a subwoofer.

“Apocalyptic theory is about survivalism and the intensity of trauma,” Simpson explains. Her work once took the form of post-apocalyptic warriors, but after becoming a parent, she transformed her figures “from objects of power to grace”. What currently calls to her is a very different world view– “agency, hope and prayer, and the power that comes from connectedness,” as well as proactively taking charge of your life.

“We think we're stuck in some sort of story, but maybe we're not. That post-apocalyptic theory is so much like the victimhood of colonization…. So how do I change that story to: ‘Actually, no, we are surviving, we are thriving, we are beautiful, we are powerful, we are stronger than ever because of the trauma we've been through.’ I'm going to focus on that instead.”