Artist's Statement
For me, the process of making art is both physical and spiritual. I love the way my media — paint and encaustic — respond to application on a surface, whether paper, canvas or panel. To load a brush with paint and smooth it onto a blank canvas is ecstasy. To turn the propane torch on a panel of encaustic, watch the wax move and see the layers fuse, is rapture. It takes my mind to a different place. A dialogue begins between me and the work. I seldom have the last word in that conversation!
The inspiration for my paintings comes from everyday life. At the Indian pueblo where I live, I am surrounded by landscapes of unimaginable beauty. Daily I can see light splash off the mountains outside my studio windows, the studio lovingly built for me by my husband. I am filled with awe and gratitude.
As I work, the tribe’s buffalo herd may wander into view. I may take a break and go to one of the nearby casinos or just for a walk along the irrigation ditch. There are ceremonies to attend and participate in. Family gathers. Sometimes we pit fire micaceous pottery made by relatives and traditional to this particular pueblo, Picuris, my home.
Ordinary events and objects make their way into my paintings as symbols for the extra-ordinary.
A tape measure appears, representing the brevity of this life: dice, its uncertainty. My baskets are mandalas, suggesting unity or wholeness. The bones, of course, are death. Petroglyphs symbolize the past — ancestor artists who have gone before, inspiring me, keeping me connected.
I always work in layers, whether with acrylic paint or encaustic. The layers not only give a physical depth to the work, but also a psychological one. I am fascinated by the idea of a collective unconscious — images springing from our common human history and appearing in all cultures, whether or not they have had contact with one another. I study and incorporate these images in my work. They add another dimension — mystery. Like the painter Francis Bacon, I believe the artist’s role is “to deepen the mystery.”
Harriette Tsosie, 2007
