Heights I,

2022

Heights I was first sculpted in clay, Simpson’s preferred material, and adorned with silver drop earrings and leather bindings. In converting the work into more durable bronze, one of the artist’s first works in the medium, Simpson sought to maintain the hand-built surface detail, imprints of her hands, and clay techniques. The two-handled vessels stacked on the head of the figure recall both a ladder and the hand-and foot holds used by Puebloans who have occupied the Puye Cliff Dwellings, Simpson’s ancestral home in New Mexico.

In my sculpture, I often leave out identifying characteristics, but I always leave attributes of the senses: the nose, the eyes, the ears, the mouths to spark an empathic response. Through our senses the human body perceives and witnesses. I usually omit arms in my work because they have so much reference to power and agency. I’m conveying instead a moment of vulnerability. I can’t make an honest portrait of someone else. I have to make pieces of myself.

Rose B. Simpson, artist