Greetings and salutations my friends Thank You for visiting my webpage I am Native American on my Mothers side I descend from the Pueblo of Isleta Isleta and on my Fathers side I am Navajo. I was born in Albuquerque New Mexico but was raised in Southern California. I have been creating works of art that incorporate traditional methods handed down from previous generations yet maintaining a contemporary vision. I work in two different mediums one in clay and the other in pen and ink.
During my childhood I would spend summers with my Grandmother Anita Abeita on the Pueblo of Isleta, it is here is where my artistic journey into the ceramic arts began. My Grandmother was very instrumental in exposing me to the beauty, creativity and functional use of clay. She introduced me into forming simple pinch pot forms, small animal forms and traditional firings of the clay in her Horno. Another important aspect to my development and exposure to Native American pottery was my parents collection of traditional pottery that were permanent fixtures around my home. It is these exposures to the art form at a very young age that have spoken to me and has laid the foundation in my journey into the wonderful creative world of clay.
In my adult years I began to learn and realize that I come from a group of indigenous people who have been experimenting with the elements of Mother Earth, clay, water, air, plants and fire utilizing these precious resources for beauty and function. I have been combining the ideals of passion, apprenticeship and patience in creating hand built, hand coiled and hand painted pottery. All my pottery pieces are hand made without the use of a modern days pottery wheel, old school. The surface designs and patterns within my work are hand painted free hand using no stencils or rulers. All pieces are hand burnished and hand painted using non traditional commercial underglazes in a limited color palate. This palate consists of browns, blues and greens all representing the natural beauty of the natural world. My current body of work has seen the implementation of using found objects of metal along with the clay work. The narrative of this mixed media approach is establishing a balance between nature, Mother Earth and industrialization.
Another extension in my body of work has been the fundamental yet complex approach of using pen and ink on paper. For many years I have been using traditional south western Pueblo designs, patterns and motifs. These design elements that are applied across the three dimensional ceramic forms all represent the various beauty and diversity of the natural world...Mother Earth. These designs have now taken a whole new dynamic when applied on paper in a two dimensional plane. The uninhibited approach of not using outside devices such as rulers and stencils and only relying on my free hand experience has been another liberating approach of expressing these traditional designs and elements in a much broader complex fashion.
As an award winning ceramic artist, residing and working in the city of Fullerton, CA I have been actively promoting and exhibiting my work within the Southern California area and abroad. With my experience and years as a practicing artist I have had part time teaching engagements in Irvine, CA and an established ceramic instructor at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, CA. I have also had the rewarding experience of sharing my cultural heritage and art form in a variety of community programming with the National Park Service in Ventura and with the Los Angeles County Public Library system. It is these rich and rewarding programs that allows me to share my Native American heritage and ancestry through the arts.
Thank You and Best Regards
Rowan Harrison