Misplaced Pages

Rina Swentzell

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Pueblo architect, activist and artist (1939–2015)
Rina Naranjo Swentzell
Born1939
Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico
DiedOctober 30, 2015
Alma materUniversity of New Mexico, PhD American Studies
Occupation(s)Architect, artist, activist and writer
SpouseRalph Swentzell
Children4, including Roxanne Swentzell
Parent(s)Michael Edward and Rose Naranjo
RelativesMichael Naranjo, brother
Nora Naranjo Morse, sister
Jody Folwell, sister
Jody Naranjo, niece
Susan Folwell, niece
Rose Bean Simpson, granddaughter

Rina Naranjo Swentzell (1939 – 2015) was a Tewa Santa Clara Puebloan author, potter, historian and architect. She was known for her expertise in Pueblo art and architecture, and for her work as an activist for the Santa Clara Pueblo people.

Biography

Rina Swentzell was born Rina Naranjo to Rose "Gia" and Michael Naranjo, a Baptist minister and a traditional potter in Santa Clara Pueblo. One of ten children born to the Naranjo family, their mother's line hailed from a long line of ceramicists and Puebloan artists. Swentzell's brother Michael Naranjo and sister Jody Folwell would become prominent ceramic artists. Swentzell's home of the Santa Clara Pueblo, and the tradition of Puebloan pottery passed down through the generations would leave a strong impression on her future studies and career.

Academics and art

Plan of the Santa Clara Pueblo, where Swentzell was born and where she would focus her studies

Swentzell earned a bachelor's degree in education at New Mexico Highlands University. In 1976 she earned a Master of Art in architecture at the University of New Mexico. In 1982 she earned a doctorate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. In 1989, she was honored with an International Woman Award from the University of New Mexico's Women's Studies program.

Swentzell became a preeminent expert in Pueblo art and architecture. She would go on to work as a consultant to the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Smithsonian and serve as a visiting lecturer to Yale and Oxford universities. In 1990, she was the subject of a public television art program ¡COLORES! Rina Swentzell: An Understated Sacredness where she shared her life growing up on the Pueblo in the 1940s. Her academic writing explored the conflicts between culture and landscape within the Santa Clara pueblo and the relationship between how architecture, land and space reflected the belief systems of the Tewa people who lived there.

In 1993, she wrote Children of Clay: A Family of Pueblo Potters (We Are Still Here) and in 1996 co-authored To Touch the Past: The Painted Pottery of the Mimbres People with J.J. Brody. In 1996, Swentzell shared the School for Advanced Research's Katrin H. Lamon fellowship with her sister Tessie Naranjo and brother Tito Naranjo, where they wrote Sacred to Secular: The Transformation of a Gendered Pueblo World. Tessie and Tito Naranjo similarly became established Pueblo academics.

In 2010, she published Younger-Older Ones: Tieu-Paadeh Ing, a novel about moving to the modern day Santa Clara Pueblo. Alongside her academic and architectural work, Swentzell followed in her family tradition to become a ceramic artist. Her art is described as challenging entrenched systems of patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism.

Personal life

After meeting at New Mexico Highlands University, Swentzell married Ralph Swentzell. They had four children, including artist Roxanne Swentzell. Her granddaughter is mixed media artist Rose Bean Simpson. In 2006, after Ralph's death, Swentzell moved from Santa Fe back to Santa Clara Pueblo. There, she and her daughter Athena designed and built an adobe house together, emblematic of the Puebloan style. It would be Swentzell's final architecture project. Swentzell died on October 30, 2015.

See also

References

  1. ^ Terrell, Steve (2015-10-31). "Rina Swentzell, 1939-2015: Daughter says Santa Clara artist, activist fought for all but put family first". Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  2. "Naranjo, Rose". sflivingtreasures.org. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  3. ^ Jacobs, Alex (2018-09-13). "Santa Clara Pueblo Artist, Author and Scholar Rina Swentzell Walks On (1939-2015)". ICT News. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  4. "Rina Swentzell: An Understated Sacredness". ¡COLORES!. 2013-10-28. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  5. An Understated Sacredness, ¡Colores!, Television station : Albuquerque, N.M.: KNME-TV, retrieved 2025-01-20
  6. Swentzell, Rina (1990-10-01). "Conflicting Landscape Values: The Santa Clara Pueblo and Day School [Vision, Culture and Landscape]". Places. 7 (1). ISSN 0731-0455.
  7. Swentzell, Rina (1989). "Healing Spaces in the Tewa Pueblo World". doi.org. Retrieved 2025-01-20 – via American Indian Culture and Research Journal.
  8. "My Mother, The Builder". www.newmexicomagazine.org. 2020-06-17. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  9. Bernhardt, Kat (2025-01-22). "Santa Clara Sibling Scholars Studied the Transformation of a Gendered Pueblo World | School for Advanced Research". Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  10. "A Healing Act: Rina Swentzell". Homing Instinct. 2012-10-03. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  11. Scott, Chadd. "Rose, Rina, Roxanne And Rose B. Simpson: Four Generations Of Santa Clara Ceramics At Norton Museum Of Art". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  12. "The Art of Home: Inside Athena Steen's (SF83) Canelo Project". St. John's College. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  13. "Rina Swentzell's House – Canelo Project". Retrieved 2025-01-20.

External links

Categories:
Rina Swentzell Add topic