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♪ soft uplifting music ♪

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[welder crackling]

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♪ ethereal ambient music ♪

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[Rose B. Simpson] There's something
so important about witnessing.

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Anything is a witness,
even inanimate things --

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or we consider inanimate things.

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This is an idea I was working
out for a public art piece I'm working on where...

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these sort of ancestor
beings are watching.

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My art is basically taking a
moment of that experience.

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♪ uplifting ethereal music ♪

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I'm building these beings that
are then reflecting my process

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back to me,

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but it's also going out
into the world and watching.

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♪♪♪

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[Rose] That's that.

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I figured out if I use clay that's very thin, I have to be very present with the

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process and I have to just do it.

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You can't, like, go
back and fix it later and,

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you know, carve stuff down.

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It has no...

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forgiveness, in a
sense; it is what it is.

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So you have to just be with it.

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So now that I started this,
I have to finish it today.

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This is New Mexico
Clay, where I get my clay.

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I really like putting
different clays together,

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just as a aesthetic,
but also the idea of, like,

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we're all made up
of many different things,

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and we're trying to
understand ourselves and be...

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you know, compassionate and
graceful and accepting of all

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the many things that we all are.

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Because I'm mixed blood, I
was always hyper-aware of how I

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wasn't fitting in.

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And as a
multicultural two-spirit person,

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I'm always navigating one
foot in two worlds. [laughs]

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And so, you know, the
clay gets to do that too.

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♪ ethereal ambient music ♪

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I'm trying to reveal our deep truth and 
that deep truth is process,

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and so why would I hide?
Why would I hide that process?

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♪♪♪

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To allow it to have fingerprints
and to show the touching and the

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making, the making -- the actual
making of something --

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is our power, right?
Is our greatness.

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That's why I love going to
ancestral homes or ruins, you know?

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And seeing the
fingerprints in the plaster.

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It's like, "Whoa, those are my
ancestors' hands that were here

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making just like
we make," you know?

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Right now, we're here in Santa Clara 
ancestral homelands.

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My people were living here
between these mountain ranges

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along this river for
thousands of years.

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This was our place long
before European contact.

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It's considered a tri-cultural place,
where we have the Indigenous ancestry,

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and then the Spanish, and also
the English-speaking colonizing.

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Many of us are descendants of all 
those things, like myself.

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Still a lot of anger and hurt.

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People are 
navigating that inherited historical trauma.

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But it's also home; I am
of this place very deeply.

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— Yep.

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But you're not going to fall.

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So holding your hand is just 
because I love you.

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See that right there?

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So this was a big
reservoir right here.

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The water would come down. 
Ancestors used to catch the water up here for drinking

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and stuff -- for farming, even.

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— So this rock used to be 
a waterfall, Mom?

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— Mm-hm.

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I've been coming here since I was a kid.

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— There you go, now try.

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The proof of people's
bodies interacting with the place

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and old sites
where you see, like,

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plaster still on the walls
and you see that handprint or, like,

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fingerprints in old
pottery shards or whatever,

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it's like this very
relatable moment.

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This is ancestry in the making,
and we're in that, right?

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We're given this line and
this heritage and this story to continue.

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♪ soft ambient music ♪

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-[Rose] 'Cause they're cute?
-[Cedar] Yes.

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[Roxanne] That's really good.

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[Cedar] I made a snail.
[Rose] Hey, you made a snail!

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That's cute!
Look at its eyeballs.

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[Rose] The person I love to
make things the most with is my mom.

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She learned to
communicate through her clay,

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and she was given
clay through her mom;

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it was a matrilineal gift.

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♪♪♪

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[Roxanne] It's like we
leapfrog in a funny way,

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because as she learned from me,
then I learned from her because

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she tries
something I never tried.

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It's quite a blessing to be able
to have a child [chuckles] that

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can walk the trail with you.

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♪♪♪

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[Rose] Whether we're
plastering a house or laying adobes

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or planting a field,
to be able to make work that's

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building a conversation
together is a really

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beautiful tool that
we have to heal.

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I often think about
relationships within Indigenous world,

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and we have this big
heart to exist and to empower ourselves

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and to change the narratives and express what it

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means to carry this story forth.

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♪ uplifting music ♪

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I kept making these
objects of empowerment.

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I made warriors for years that
were sort of in this state of being empowered and

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and not being aggressive or 
confrontational, but just -- boom -- in itself.

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In that, we're transforming
that victim narrative.

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♪♪♪

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I think I'm looking
for that inside myself, and

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the car was actually
inspired by growing up in

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Española -- Española is the low
rider capital of the world --

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seeing people who are very
disempowered in lots of ways but

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totally proud of their
experience and their car.

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[engine rumbling]

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The love and energy they
put into this piece of art,

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I remember
thinking, "When I grow up,

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I want that feeling of being
complete and protected and whole

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and I become that piece of art
and I'm carrying myself with pride."

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So when I came back from graduate school, I was like, "I'm gonna go find that."

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And at that time, that looked
like "Oh, muscle cars;

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I need it to go real
fast and be real loud."

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♪ aggressive rock music ♪

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The base color is called "hot rod black," 
which is a satin.

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I taped it off, and then I threw a glass clear on top, which is what gives it this

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kind of gloss versus matte.

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The pattern is based off of
traditional patterns from this

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area of pottery designs.

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We have, like, the
traveling spiral,

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we have mountains and clouds,
and then we have feathers coming back here.

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It's rooted in this place, and
if you take it outside of this area,

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it doesn't
make much sense.

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♪ sensitive ambient music ♪

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I named her "Maria"
after Maria Martinez,

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who is a master potter and also an
innovator from San Ildefonso Pueblo.

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She developed the black-on-black style, and that is very, very, very specific

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aesthetic color choice to this area.

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♪♪♪

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I started doing performances I
was calling "Transformances"

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'cause the intention
was to actually change.

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I was transforming.

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I'm trying to evolve and
transform my perspective.

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We were using the car
and taking up spaces, locking up roads,

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and marching up with what I call "post-apocalyptic Indigenous regalia."

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I put these subwoofers in the El Camino, 
and I played a heartbeat

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just super loud 
-- gu-gung, gu-gung, gu-gung --

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while we were walking, and the car--
[mimics engine sound], right?

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And then, this, like, gu-gung.

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They closed off the streets and
we just walked slow with this car.

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[engine revving]

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You wanna get your,
like, adrenaline going.

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It was like, "We're in
the post-apocalypse now,

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we've experienced this
for hundreds of years.

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Now look at us; we're just gonna claim 
it, we're gonna be in it," right?

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After my daughter came into my life, I did another "Transformance" in Las Vegas, Nevada

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with a collaborator, Fawn Douglas,
who's Southern Paiute,

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and we ended up taking up space with 
our bodies very simply and meditatively,

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and we ended up
not using the car.

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♪ sensitive piano music ♪

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I was carrying my daughter, and
there was two mothers and two daughters.

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I realized that what empowerment
is looking like for me is

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changing, and it actually is
changing from this genderqueer,

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more-masculine space to actually
accepting the feminine and

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understanding that I can stand
in my femininity and still feel that power.

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The marks all mean
something, right?

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So for this one specifically,
I keep thinking about,

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like, marking of time and
marking of the steps and this

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monotonous-but-also-dedicated
process.

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The wings flapping
of migrating birds,

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it's this, like...You just go, you
just go, you just go.

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♪♪♪

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This chick acts like she
knows what she's doing.

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It'll fit! I think it'll fit.

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I hope it fits. Pretty close to that.

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Good job, baby!

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Let's get this done, and
thank you for your hard work.

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There is no
separation between art and life.

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I feel like my life has
been being in between.

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When you can't ever be
comfortable in one place,

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the discomfort can create an
incredible environment for investigation.

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You have to kind of fall back
and close your eyes and hope

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that where you land is exactly
the place you need to go.

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♪♪♪

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♪ sparse ethereal music ♪