Dozens of ceramics line a back gallery at the Southern Utah Museum of Art. Some are so smooth yet tactilely tempting that you’ll want to reach out and caress them—or, maybe inspired by Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures in the adjoining gallery, you’ll be tempted to pluck them with your fingers to hear an echo reminiscent of desert canyons. Kelvin Yazzie plays with material in a way that feels both intuitive and deliberate, creating rich vessels that invite engagement with multiple senses.
A graduate of Southern Utah University, Yazzie is a master of clay, blending elements of his Navajo heritage into his pottery with both subtle and bold expressions. His pots swoop, swerve, and swell with serpentine curves, rounded chambers, and twisted knots. They explore volume and emptiness, evoking the dynamic movement of water and the stability of earth. Some pieces are smooth, with rounded, open chambers that invite viewers to peer inside. Others are dense and knotted, their surfaces marked by the artist’s unique firing process. First, Yazzie sculpts the clay, then bisque fires it to harden the form. In the final step, the pots are pit-fired, where materials burned in the pit leave serendipitous markings from smoke and flame. Even without knowing the process, one might imagine the artist slicing sections of varnished sandstone and shaping them into sinuous, earthy forms with some ancient alchemy.
Born in 1954, Yazzie spent his childhood herding sheep in the desert on the Navajo Reservation near his hometown of Church Rock, New Mexico. His most recent works feature figural scenes and natural imagery that reflect his relationships with family, friends, and artistic collaborators. They convey narratives both personal and communal. In one work, we see a young Yazzie reading a book while tending sheep. In a pair of vessels, Yazzie appears as an adult, his eyes concealed by sunglasses in front of a vessel that symbolizes his recovery from addiction. The hogan and the four cardinal directions are cultural symbols that inform these narrative works, as are a draped American flag and racist slogans from the period of Manifest Destiny.
In Yazzie’s art, each vessel—whether figurative or abstract—becomes a story of heritage, personal growth, and connection to the land and tradition. As these dynamic, tactile forms fill the gallery, they invite not just the eyes, but also the heart and mind to engage with them.
Ceramic sculpture by Kelvin Yazzie featuring a stylized bird with an American flag pattern on its head, displayed on a wooden pedestal.
Like Water in a Vessel: The Ceramic Art of Kelvin Yazzie, Southern Utah Museum of Art, Cedar City, through Sep. 21
All images courtesy of the author
The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
Categories: Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts
I’ve always thought clay to be the most versatile and evocative sculptural material . . . period. These voluptuous, evocative shapes with their sensuous surfaces go to show it. Their content doesn’t just reveal itself through their skins, but swells in them until they fill with power and purpose. They are, at the same time, both fully abstract and yet bursting with significance. The heavy story of their origins, in a place of tragedy and relentless maltreatment only makes their humor, good will, and positive impulses all the more miraculous. Art for all people, art for the ages.