"I came from this reservation" by Melanie Yazzie

The sharing of one’s history promotes strong cultural connections and community building. These are key parts of my research and teaching. For this exhibit my print is about the land I grew up on, the Navajo Nation. I used images from an old history book, images from popular books and images from a birthday party kit to make this print that is layered with meaning that I feel speaks of our history on the Navajo Nation. It is a Nation with in a Nation and there are many borders that are seen and unseen.

Artist's Bio:

As a printmaker, painter, and sculptor, Melanie Yazzie’s work draws upon her rich Diné (Navajo) cultural heritage. Her work follows the Diné dictum “walk in beauty” literally, creating beauty and harmony. As an artist, she works to serve as an agent of change by encouraging others to learn about social, cultural, and political phenomena shaping the contemporary lives of Native peoples in the United States and beyond. Her work incorporates both personal experiences as well as the events and symbols from Dine culture. Her work is informed and shaped by personal experiences. Ms. Yazzie uses her travels around the world to connect with other indigenous peoples. Her visits to New Zealand, the Arctic, the Pueblos in the Southwest, and to indigenous peoples of Russia, these travels have been the impetus for continued dialogue about Indigenous cultural practices, language, song, story-telling, and survival. Ms. Yazzie has exhibited widely, both in the United States and abroad. Her work is in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Print Collection, Providence, the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Kennedy Museum of Art, Art Collection, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, Rhodes University, Print Collection, Grahamstown, South Africa, to name a few. She has been reviewed in Focus Magazine, Santa Fe, the Los Angeles Times, New Zealand Herald, and she is mentioned in Printmaking in the Sun by Dan Welden and Pauline Muir and The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multi Centered Society by Lucy Lippard. She has had over 500 group and solo exhibitions combined. Yazzie makes prints, sculptures, paintings, and mixed media works. Her work can always be found at the Glenn Green Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.