Heights III

Heights III is a self-portrait of the artist holding her daughter. The object shows traces of Simpson’s intricate hand molding throughout the surface. The arms of both figures are missing, replaced instead with handles, symbolizing their likeness to double-handled, ceramic vessels. Simpson is from a long lineage of women from her northern New Mexico tribe working with clay, dating backs hundreds of years. Of the material, the artist says: “Clay was the earth that grew our food, was the house we lived in, was the pottery we ate out of and prayed with. So my relationship to clay is ancestral and I think it has a deep genetic memory. It’s like a family member for us.”