LARRY YAZZIE

To gaze upon a sculpture by Larry Yazzie is to allow your senses to relax. Each piece, no matter its size or subject, allows ones sight to travel the curved line of concave and convex space, of subject and non-subject. These figurative works exhibit both fine detail and suggestive shapes mirroring equally nature as well as thought.

Multiple award-winning Native American sculptor Larry Yazzie begins each work without knowing what it will turn out to be. "The stone decides itself what it will be as the piece develops," he explains. "I feel like if you ever get to the place where you know what you're going to do then it's just a job." One has only to look at a Yazzie sculpture to know its creation was not approached as a task to be completed but, instead, reflects the artist's very being - his feelings, his traditions, and the honor he strives to return to his Navajo (Diné) people.

Yazzie works on 7-1/2 riverfront acres amidst cottonwoods and black walnut trees that shade his outdoor work area. Sculpting is a labor intensive and time consuming process involving much noise and dust as the tools of the trade are employed; work best done outdoors if an artist can manage it. In order to use stone – literally a part of the earth – to support his family and express his talents, Yazzie always strives to work in harmony with the spirit of the earth.

"In the old days everything our people made always had a purpose and a reason; and so, as a Navajo, to now use native designs for artwork that will only be displayed, there are rules." His sculptures, most always figurative forms, are dignified, elegant and stylized; Yazzie likes clean, simplistic lines and his sculptures have a definite contemporary feel while also representing the artist's cultural values. He stays away from realistically reproducing specific likenesses; this is one of the cultural rules he follows. His figures always come from his own feelings and from the stone itself.

"The creator gave me something, but it comes with a responsibility; as I mature I'm figuring out more of what that is." For all the noteworthy pieces Yazzie has created, he doesn't like to think about having already had a great accomplishment. "I want to always feel like I'm striving to get better. If I can educate people about Indian ways, I'll see that as my great accomplishment."

From eleven inches high to five and a half feet tall, Yazzie's exquisitely streamlined sculptures capture and hold ones attention - and draw ones attention back for further consideration time and again.