Rising star goes big in latest exhibit

By Jim Belshaw

Kathleen Wall photo Penny Singer

Evolution does not always lend itself to precise measurement. Markers on a timeline provide a guide, signposts that point in a direction, some delicate and subdued, some startling, such as the ones found in two rooms at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

This moment in the evolution of celebrated Jemez Pueblo sculptor and potter Kathleen Wall is called “Celebrating Native Legacies: Works in Clay by Kathleen Wall of Jemez Pueblo.”

The exhibition opened in February 2009 and has been extended to May 2010.

It is extraordinary.

From hand-held to life-sized

With 27 pieces and taking more than two years to complete from conception to finished work, the exhibition comprises nearly life-sized clay figures using immediate family members, friends and others as models. Wall has built a show honoring the Native American past but in a contemporary manner.

“The show at the Cultural Center is a part of the evolution of my work,” she said. “The size of the figures is part of that evolution. I was taught to make novelty, small figures. Everybody in my family made them. Going from that to an installation project such as the one at the Cultural Center is such a journey for an artist. It’s not even a conscious journey. In the back of my mind it was something I always wanted to do.”

She said it was probably around the sixth grade that she knew she would be an artist. She had been playing with clay all her life. Her mother made storytellers; her father was an artist; her stepmother was a painter and worked in stone. By the time she was 16, she had made many storytellers and was ready to move into more figurative work. She experimented with other media while in school, but she stayed with the clay that had been her companion growing up.

“It was very natural to me,” she said. “It’s not something I have to put a lot of effort into to make myself comfortable with.”

She would meet with great success in her signature work—the Koshare clown.

“It’s a piece you can look at and say, `Oh, that’s Kathleen Wall’s,’” she said. “In the Native American circle, you can tell who I am by that signature piece.”

Around the time she was 21, her evolution was bringing about change. She started making larger pieces.

“You enter pieces in art shows, and I was quite successful with this art [her smaller pieces] as a career, but there has always been a longing to do installation art,” she said. “I was starting to make the transformation from Pueblo potter to more of a sculptor.”

Honoring Native tradition

Taos Sisters photo by Penny Singer

Wall first set about speaking with Jemez Pueblo elders, seeking their permission to mount the show.

“It takes a lot of explaining,” she said. “The show is meant to be educational. When you’re approaching someone to get approval for a piece, it’s always going to be difficult. It always raises an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean? What are you trying to do?’ The thing about art is that it’s difficult to get someone else to see what’s in your head and in your heart. But it wasn’t that bad, actually. A lot of people in the Pueblo are very open to art these days. This kind of art is very much a part of our culture. Living a native life is artistic to me.”

She works in a studio in Jemez Pueblo, bringing her three small children along. She finds them “comforting” and “sometimes crazy.” Having received an “overwhelming” response to the current Cultural Center show, she hopes to do more installation work in the future.

“I so want to go into it more,” she said. “I love the travel, love the people I work with. It fills my heart. I thrive on meeting new people and learning about their lives and making art. I have had more than a few people tell me [the Cultural Center show] was inspirational and that they learned a lot. I was really touched and pleased. It was all so worth it.”

Exhibition continues to May 2010.

The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
2401 12th St. NW Albuquerque, NM 87104
1-866-855-7902

—Jim Belshaw is a contributing editor at large for albuquerqueARTS.