Artist Rose B. Simpson in Aztec Ruins and Chaco

ARTIST ROSE B. SIMPSON GOES TO AZTEC RUINS & CHACO

Listen to the Big Blend Radio interview with mixed media artist Rose B. Simpson, who talks about her art, and being the National Parks Arts Foundation artist-in-residence at Aztec Ruins National Monument and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, both in Northern New Mexico. Nathan Hatfield, Chief of Interpretation for both park units, provides an overview of the history and natural elements preserved in the parks.

Rose B. Simpson hails from an arts and Permaculture environment at Santa Clara Pueblo, NM. She is a mixed-media artist whose work engages ceramics, metal, fashion, painting, music, performance, installation, and custom cars. Simpson’s work has been featured at Pomona College Museum of Art, SITE Santa Fe, National Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, the Clay Art Center, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Denver Art Museum. Her work is in museum collections nationally.

Simpson earned her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. From 2012-2015 she attended Northern New Mexico College’s Automotive Science Program with a focus in Auto Body. She is currently enrolled in the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Low Rez Creative Writing MFA program, and is on the Board of Directors of Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute of Santa Clara Pueblo, and the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe. Simpson is represented by Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Fe. Residing on the Santa Clara reservation, she explores ways to deconstruct stereotypes of gender and culture while challenging social ideologies by creating 2D and 3D works in her studios, working on her classic cars in her shop, or pulling weeds and feeding animals on the farm, all while carrying her infant baby girl. See www.RoseBSimpson.com

Rose B. Simpson will be the National Parks Arts Foundation artist-in-residence at Aztec Ruins National Monument in September 2017, and at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in 2018. Aztec Ruins National Monument is a tightly clustered Chacoan complex made up of a Pueblo, a reconstructed Great Kiva and plaza, and several close-by ceremonial ruins. Pueblo tradition claims this settlement as an important waypoint in the ancient settlement of the Rio Grande Valley. Aztec Ruins is hidden away in tree filled hills near the Animas River and the picturesque town of Aztec, New Mexico. See www.NPS.gov/azru

Comprised of eleven beautifully preserved pueblos or ceremonial structures, Chaco Culture National Historical Park is the premier site to experience the amazing and mysterious Chacoan culture. This beautiful and isolated complex is the historical trace of the sacred ancestral culture to many of the existing pueblos of the Southwest. The park is also a Dark Skies certified location, one of the ideal places for astronomy, astrophotography and other Night Sky artistic practice. See www.NPS.gov/chcu

The National Parks Arts Foundation (NPAF) is the only nationwide non-profit providing Artist-in-Residence Programs (AiR), Workshops, Exhibits and Museum Loans uniquely in cooperation with National Parks, National Monuments, State Parks, World Heritage Sites and other park locations. www.NationalParksArtsFoundation.org.

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