Before realizing the true nature of his mind and all things, Siddhartha Gautama sat down with his back supported by a tree, resolving to uncover a new perspective. The entire Buddhist path of seeking is predicated on the experience of observing one’s own mind and questioning the assumptions found therein. Art, similarly, involves a path of experimentation and investigation into what is and what might be. Of bringing to light and form the nuances and seeming contradictions of the ineffable human experience, in all its varied flavors. For Indigenous artists, this involves unlayering what has been superimposed or mandated by a dominating cultural imposition. These days, no one inspires me more than bold, creative, and unwavering artists like Rose B. Simpson.

Walking into the large foyer of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, I encountered these two impressive vehicles, custom-painted in the style of Tewa and San Indefonso Pueblo pottery, respectively. Towering above both is a gorgeous mural, reflected in the hood of the black-on-black 1985 Chevy El Camino. Indigenous Santa Clara, New Mexico artist Rose B. Simpson is an innovator par excellence, creating in a plethora of mixed media, including ceramics, fabrics, metal, performance, and installation. She not only created the exterior custom paint jobs to invoke traditional pottery techniques, but she also completely overhauled the engines, added hydraulics, and fitted the interiors with custom leather designed in traditional Pueblo symbols as well.

Simpson is a highly educated and experienced artist in multiple styles and media, and a Native American cultural ambassador for modern times. She received an MFA in Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2018, is collected in museums across the continent, and has exhibited internationally. Simpson is steeped in traditional Pueblo arts and artisanry handed down for millennia, as well as an artist innovator. She put herself through automotive training to learn the masterful skills of auto body and engine work, and then combined her two skill sets toward the creation of these two auto-works, beautiful and provocative pieces that speak for themselves as well as lineage and personal expression. In Simpson’s own words:

In the spring of 2013, I was invited to be an Artist in Residence at the Denver Art Museum. While working in the museum, I crafted post-apocalyptic indigenous warrior accoutrements out of leather, metal, found objects, and ceramic components. I was simultaneously enrolled at the Northern New Mexico College Automotive Science program, working toward a certificate in Auto Body. At the shop in Espanola, I worked to finish the body work and black-on-black painting on a 1985 El Camino that I named “Maria” after the famed potter from San Ildefonso Pueblo. (rose b. simpson)

Simpson then designed outfits and a procession through Denver to the Art Museum, with the sub-woofer amplified beating heart sounds from Maria (named after renowned ceramicist Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo), the Chevy El Camino, in a solemn procession toward the installation, where her six models/performers interacted with Simpson’s static sculptures indoors. Apocalyptic, fierce, post-apocalyptic, and brimming with provocative agency are just a few phrases that jump to mind when experiencing Simposon’s work. Her performance and stationary works alike connote the reclamation of power long overdue for Indigenous peoples, especially women and children. Her work alludes directly and indirectly to Murdered & Missing Indigenous Women [and girls] (MMIW), an epidemic in this country.

Performance art is a powerful tool for social justice and liberatory practice. In the hands of Rose B. Simpson, her traveling shows and works of art cross boundaries through the use of modern regalia, auto art, pottery styles, and ceramic sculpture, showing her expertise in many media. Her body of work gives a strong voice to her personal and her Pueblos’ experiences, as well as that of Indigenous women and their storied history of cultural and artistic greatness.

Art is often a process of reclamation and a show of pride and dignity. Public art, installation, and performance, especially in public spaces, help amplify these paths to power and visibility, and illuminate for the general public topical issues and voices in need of upliftment, in a bigger arena than just inside rarefied museum walls. That said, Simpson’s museum exhibitions and permanent pieces, such as a ceramic sculpture outside the DeYoung, in their sculpture garden, leave their own indelible stamp. The artist is dedicated, prolific, and impactful with her oeuvre. Her breadth of work conveys not only power but pathos, heartbreak, joy, beauty, and a blunt directness that she describes the Pueblo people themselves, in one of her many riveting YouTube videos.

At once ancient and futurist, Simpson’s art transcends time, but remains keenly located in place, upholding traditional Indigenous Pueblo art forms in brand new ways that both preserve a cultural identity and create space for new breadth and breath within those identities. I would go as far as to say that her process, in its breadth and depth of uncovering her experience, Pueblo history, and will to thrive is as inspiring now as it must have been shocking then, for those who knew Siddhartha Gautama and watched him unlayer his cultural baggage to see truth his own way. He, too, was a renegade and a forerunner of discovery. Whether the creative journey shows itself inwardly or outwardly or both, it is this which uncover dsmeaning, connection, continuity, whether in art or in meditation. I argue they are not two, but sides of a similar, rare, and beautiful coin.

Wherever you live, dear reader, I highly encourage you to seek out and uplift the Indigenous arts and artists of your area. They have quite literally stewarded the world upon which we now depend and thrive, and for this, we owe a debt of gratitude and appreciation, at the very least. May Indigenous peoples reclaim their agency, voice, and experience well-being.

Writer and car aficionado Arlo Plazas consulted on and contributed to this piece.

See more

Rose B. Simpson (Site Santa Fe)
performance (rose b. simpson)
Murdered & Missing  Indigenous Women (Native Women’s Wilderness)
DAM Artist in Residence: Rose Simpson (YouTube)

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