[accessibleimage] Sculptor Michael Naranjo 2004 Distinguished Artist of the Year

Hi,
Link and article about Michael Naranjo.
Lisa


http://www.abqjournal.com/north/venuenorth/253253venuenorth11-05-04.htm

After Losing His Sight, Sculptor Stuck to His Dreams


By Kate McGraw
For the Journal
Sculptor Michael Naranjo lives with a serene sense of
enfolding and unfolding time. Sitting in his spacious,
comfortable home at Eldorado, Naranjo was in a reflective
mood recently as he acknowledged being selected the 2004
Distinguished Artist of the Year by the Santa Fe Rotary
Foundation.
   
The foundation will honor Naranjo at an award dinner Nov.
13.
   
Again and again Naranjo used the phrase "it takes time" as
he spoke contemplatively about the long road that brought
him to this point in his life. It takes time, he said, to
adjust to losing all of your eyesight and most of the use of
your dominant hand in Vietnam; to teach yourself to sculpt
one-handed for the lost-wax bronze process; and to garner
the critical notice necessary to build a market for your
work.
   
"Art teaches every artist patience," Naranjo said. "My whole
life has taught me patience."
   
Born in 1944 at Santa Clara Pueblo to well-known potter Rose
Naranjo, Michael Naranjo always knew he wanted to be a
sculptor someday. He studied the techniques during a brief
stint in college and sometimes sculpted an animal or person
as he worked other jobs and enjoyed his late teens and 20s.
He was having a good time? until he was drafted at 22. In
1968, at 23, he was in combat in Vietnam.
   
"I was there a month and a half when someone lobbed a
grenade at me and the next thing I knew I was being carried
off the rice field," he said softly. "Everything changed
that day."
   
It did and it didn't. What really happened was that a
stainless-steel resolve hardened inside Naranjo's broken
body, and he became more focused than ever. Lying in a
military hospital in Japan, Naranjo realized he would never
see again and that he had lost almost all practical use of
his right hand. But he stubbornly believed he could still be
a sculptor.
   
"Sculpting lends itself to a tactile world," he said. "I
thought with time I could learn to do it again."
   
A physical therapist unwittingly reinforced this secret
belief when Naranjo was handed a piece of modeling clay to
exercise his wounded hand. Instead, he used his left hand to
create a little inchworm.
   
"That's when I knew I could do it," he said. "It was just a
little worm, crawling along? so simple. But it doesn't take
much to make you realize you can do something. I knew it was
going to be all OK."
   
Back home at Santa Clara, Naranjo started "learning to live
in a strange new world of sound and touch."
   
"It took time to learn to use a cane, to learn to live
alone," Naranjo said. "Truthfully, it took me years to learn
how to be comfortable in this new environment."
   
It only took two months, however, for Naranjo to assert his
independence. He left the pueblo for Santa Fe and found a
little apartment on Garcia Street, where he started
sculpting every day.
   
"I'm not sure how I do it," he said. "I have an image in my
mind's eye, and my mind transmits those messages back and
forth to my fingers. It takes time. It's mostly a feeling."
   
Naranjo had his first show, a display of wax sculptures at a
library in Albuquerque, in 1970. Articles about "the blind
sculptor" drew interest from foundries. He started casting
and selling his work. Publicity led to shows and galleries
and more publicity. But being "the blind sculptor" is a
one-trick pony, he acknowledged. Winning awards in juried
shows where the judges didn't know Naranjo's background
really got his career off the ground.
   
"It was very gratifying to know it didn't matter," Naranjo
said with a beatific smile.
   
These days the artist creates an average of four sculptures
a year, which are cast in limited editions of about 10 each.
In the past 30 years, Naranjo's career has grown
exponentially. He has pieces in individual and museum
collections around the world, including the Vatican, the
Heard Museum in Phoenix and the White House. Recent Naranjo
work is shown in a current two-person exhibit at the state
Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures, and his commissioned
sculptures are seen in public and commercial buildings
throughout Santa Fe.
   
Two women are greatly responsible for this success, he says?
his wife, Laurie, and dealer Nedra Matteucci. He and Laurie
met 27 years ago and have been together ever since, raising
two daughters.
   
Of course, sometimes even Laurie winces when Naranjo, like
all artists, starts trying to stretch his techniques and
mediums. "I've started stone carving," he confided. "That's
what Michelangelo did."
   
Naranjo said he has exercised his right hand, which has only
three fingers and a non-opposable thumb, until it can hold
something like a forceps. Now he holds a chisel moved by
compressed air and keeps the fingers of his left hand? his
wax-sculpting hand? in front of the chisel to guide it.
   
"... it's a challenge, and I'm getting better and better,"
he said. "It just takes time, that's all."
   
If you go
   
WHAT: Distinguished Artist Award Dinner for Michael A.
Naranjo, sponsored by the Santa Fe Rotary Foundation
   
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Nov. 13
   
WHERE: La Fonda ballroom, 100 E. San Francisco
   
HOW MUCH: $125 for individual tickets. Proceeds benefit arts
in education through grants and scholarships. Call 989-4440
for tickets

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