Rocking the Boat: Innovation as Tradition

Jason Garcia. “Tewa Tales of Suspense #5 – Behold…Po’Pay”
Clay and mineral pigments. Photo courtesy of artist.

Jason Garcia (Okuu Pin) does what great artists have been doing since the beginning of time: he carefully examines and interprets life around him and then shares those uniquely personal observations with the rest of the world. In his finished work—most often clay tiles that are created in the traditional Pueblo way with hand-gathered clay, native clay slips and outdoor firings — he transforms materials closely connected to the earth into a visually rich mix of Pueblo history and culture, comic book super heroes, video game characters, religious icons and all things pop culture. The son of well-known Santa Clara Pueblo potters John and Gloria Garcia (known as Golden Rod), and the great grandson of the equally revered Santa Clara potter Severa Tafoya, Garcia notes he has been an artist all his life.

Garcia has participated in several significant exhibitions including Comic Art Indigene at both the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC and Native Pop! at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Garcia has also received numerous awards and honors including a Ronald N. and Susan Dubin Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research, and both the coveted Best of Classification and Artist’s Choice awards at the world-famous Santa Fe Indian Market. Important museums have purchased his work for their collections, as well, including the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

Lonnie Vigil. Photo by Toba Tucker, courtesy Lonnie Vigil

Tony R. Chavarria is the Curator of Ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology (MIAC/LAB) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has served as a cultural/exhibit consultant for Miami University of Ohio, the Pojoaque Pueblo Poeh Center, the National Park Service, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, the Haak’u Museum at the Sky City Cultural Center and the Southwest Association for Indian Arts. He also served as a Community Liaison and Curator for the inaugural Pueblo exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. He resides and abides at Santa Clara Pueblo.

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