Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Research Curator
The exhibition Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass has been traveling around the country since fall 2023. Recently, I had an opportunity to see it at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.
Glass had mainly been part of Indigenous traditional arts within beadwork; there was no word for glassmaking. A growing number of artists, however, have enthusiastically embraced the medium, much like silver when it was introduced. This exhibition, consisting of work by 29 Indigenous artists, celebrates their contributions to studio glass as well as Native traditions. It was a treat to see several examples by Tony Jojola, an early studio glass artist, mentor, and teacher, whose work is represented in the FWMoA collection. Notably, he helped make a major glass center in New Mexico and introduced the glass medium to a generation of Native and non-native artists.
Jojola grew up in the Isleta Pueblo, just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. His paternal grandmother was a potter, and one of the most influential people in his life, his maternal grandfather, was a skilled woodcarver and jeweler. Jojola enjoyed watching him work with silver and gold. Honoring his importance, Jojola often embellished his glass vessels with stamped elements made with his grandfather’s tools. Two of Jojola’s works in Clearly Indigenous feature circular discs with impressed designs.
Jojola excelled in ceramics and photography in high school. In 1975 Jojola enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe to work in ceramics but discovered a small hot shop in a 19th century barn on campus. The year before, IAIA had invited Dale Chihuly to help them set up a glass studio and program. At IAIA Jojola studied glass with Carl Ponca, a past student of Chihuly’s, and Larry Ahvakana who encouraged him to go to the Pilchuck Glass School in 1978.
Jojola worked at Pilchuck from 1979-81 and periodically in the 1980s. He received a scholarship to attend Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine and studied with Bruce Chow, one of Chihuly’s past assistants. He earned a BFA from the College of Santa Fe in 1983. In 1988, he spent six months as a Creative Glass Fellow at Wheaton Village in Millville, New Jersey.
Jojola kept in touch with Chihuly through the years and appreciated the artist’s concept of collaboration and community. He helped on a team with Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra to create Chihuly’s Venetian series.
In 1994, Jojola taught at the newly opened Hilltop Artists, Tacoma, Washington (founded by Chihuly and Kathy Kaperick), working with at-risk youths for a couple of years. Jojola wanted to return to New Mexico and Kapernick desired to work on a new venture modeled on Hilltop Artists. They co-founded Taos Glass Arts and Education with some financial support from Chihuly, which opened in 1999. For around 13 years, Jojola taught and directed the program, which also centered on working with middle and high school students.
The strength and durability of glass appealed to Jojola. It held the potential for long-term preservation. He stated, “The fluidity of the material really excited me. The idea that material would last forever not only attracted me but also intrigued me.”i
Inspired by living in the Isleta Pueblo, Jojola often used bowl and jar shapes of traditional polychrome ceramics. Rather than working in clay and fiber in baskets, which is opaque, he used glass, a non-traditional medium. Jojola sensed an affinity between the two mediums as the materials both come from the earth and involve fire.
The artist took advantage of its range of colors and translucent quality. Jojola exclaimed, “I love color. . . I love Van Gogh, but those paintings are not what inspired me. The colors I love are the ones we have in the world of New Mexico.”ii The FWMoA’s untitled vessel is made up of earth tones—reddish brown and amber—along with greens and blues used to make a rectilinear spiral and stylized marks that seem reminiscent of symbols found on rock petroglyphs. Triangular shapes allude perhaps to mountain-like landforms.
Jojola devoted much of his life teaching and introducing other Indigenous artists to glass. Ira Lujan studied with Jojola; Lujan and Robert “Spooner” Marcus, both in the museum’s collection, worked at the Taos Glass Arts and Education where Jojola was a mentor. Preston Singletary recalled when he, Jojola, and Ahvakana were all at Pilchuck in 1983. He credited that time with inspiring him to reflect on his cultural heritage in his art, as they were doing in their art. Jojola’s devotion to education is remembered with a scholarship at the IAIA that the Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation support in memory of Tony Jojola.
Jojola was the subject of a mid-career retrospective in 2000 at the Wheelwright Museum entitled Born of Fire. One of his most ambitious works is the 30-foot long Indigenous Evolution, a collaboration with ceramicist Rosemary Lonewolf located at the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.
To see more hand made glass works, explore the Glass Wing during your next visit to FWMoA!