Glenn Green Galleries: Melanie Yazzie

Yazzie
Photo Credit: Kathryn Polk

Melanie Yazzie is Navajo/Dine of the Salt Water Clan and Bitter Water Clan of the Dine - Navajo People of North Eastern Arizona.

She is Associate Professor of Art at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

Her works belong to many collections such as: the Anchorage Museum of History & Art, the Art Museum of Missoula, the Australian National Gallery, the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Kennedy Museum of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Musuem. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in places such as: Alaska, California, New Mexico, New York, Florida, New Zealand, France, Russia, Canada, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland and South Africa.

I am Navajo of the salt and bitter water clans. I grew up on the Navajo reservation in north eastern Arizona. In my role as an artist I have been exploring and researching many different issues that relate to native people. I make prints, ceramic animals and mixed media pieces.

My work speaks about travel and transformation. The insects and bugs of the Tucson desert have inspired me within the past two years to make many prints. I also use images or symbols from different places I have been to. For example, I made a series of prints speaking Hawaii, using images of flowers and seed pods symbolizing growth and coffee beans symbolizing morning beginnings!!!

I also work in clay and make pieces that portray little animals that have taken on the personalities of different people I have known in life. The series of pieces started with a series of dogs that portray childhood bullies. They would have names such as: “Joe Yazzie thinks he’s tough!”, “ Sadie Begay likes to go to Gallup”, “Michael Blacksheep herds sheep in Ganado” and “ Tommy Tody lives in K-Town”. These pieces are light hearted and fun. I make work that is happy and uplifting but at the same time I create installation pieces and mixed media work that speaks about the truth. Sometimes these themes are taken as political and harsh but I prefer to see them as educational and enlightening.

When traveling I find stories that are not in our history books but are held within oral history. The pieces I make are a visual history of this “one” Navajo traveling and breaking down colonial ideas of who we are as native people. I dream of a day that people will began to know that our stories are not myth or legend. That as first peoples we have known each other before and have not forgotten one another. We are returning to each other with each passing year!

In December of 1999, I traveled to New Zealand for the 2000 dawn ceremonies held in Gisborne. There with many other nations present to receive the first light of the new year. Since 1995 I have been to New Zealand various times and I continue to return to keep the connection open. In 2001 there was a wonderful gathering in Olympia, Washington at the Evergreen State University to renew contacts made in New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada. The gathering was also a time to make new contacts with the people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The Gathering was hosted by the people of that area and was titled, “Return to the Swing.” It was called this based on a Northwest Coast creation story of the first peoples coming together once again after being apart for many, many years! It is at these gatherings and traveling from place to place that fuels my work and revitalize my spirit!

Currently I am an assistant professor at the University of Arizona in the School of Art. Before arriving to Tucson I taught in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Institute of American Indian Arts(IAIA) and part time at the College of Santa Fe. Other places I have taught at include the Pont-Aven School of Art in France and various printmaking workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Other countries I have traveled to include: Japan, Mexico, Germany, Canada and many Native Nations with in the United States.