Two Selves on view at Mint Museum Randolph beginning March 5, 2025

By Annie Carlano

Rose B. Simpson is one of the most visionary artists of our time. She is the granddaughter of distinguished architect, potter, scholar and activist Rina Swentzell, daughter of the pioneering figurative ceramicist Roxanne Swentzell, and descended from generations of matriarchal ceramicists. Simpson still lives in Santa Clara Pueblo, a Tewa tribal community in northern New Mexico.

Two Selves is made of coiled red and yellow clay and is about duality. The two figures — an adult-sized armless character with firmly planted feet and a childlike creature with outstretched arms and restless legs — represent the difference between the centered and accepting state of being, and the frenetic and grasping state of doing. Both lie within us in an ongoing struggle for dominance.

Simpson has said that the making of her mixed-media works is a spiritual act, a healing process from centuries of colonial trauma and life in the post-colonial postmodern world. Once each sculpture leaves her studio, she believes it will find its intended home, a place that needs that specific work and the message it carries. To protect this sculpture on its journey from her studio to its destination, Two Selves is adorned with talismanic jewelry.

Simpson received a master’s degree in fine art from Rhode Island School of Design and a master’s degree in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her works are in many museum collections, including the Cleveland Museum of Art; Guggenheim, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and LACMA, Los Angeles. She was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial and in 2023, she was appointed to the board of trustees of the Institute of American Indian Arts by President Biden.

Annie Carlano, senior curator of Craft, Design & Fashion