ARTIST OF THE MONTH - March 2007
NATASHA SMOKE SANTIAGO  
Kanonwiio (under the river bank)

Painting, Clay Sculpture, Pottery

Mohawk/ Turtle/Akwesasne                             
Birth date: 1/12/83      

Natasha was born in Rochester, New York, and moved when she was fourteen to Akwesasne, where she lived in a house behind her grandparents’ home. Her grandfather Smoke was a woodsman who taught her father Domingo. Her mother Leah Smoke is a dental hygienist.  Her grandmother Barbara Smoke often took Natasha to art and craft shows, where her grandmother, to keep Natasha busy, gave her paper to draw upon, and she learned to keep herself busy creating and watching others.

 She graduated from Salmon River High School, where she took art.  Her teacher let her do pretty much what she wanted.  Art became a world where she spent most of her time as an escape because she often felt out of touch with the social life at school.  When she was seventeen she took a pottery class from Roger Perkins, who taught her how to work with clay, and she still enjoys sculpting and building pots.  In painting, she is basically self-taught, influenced by Frida Kahlo.

In her painting she uses acrylics and oil pastels, mixed in bold and strong colors, often with accents of actual glass bead, wampum, or sand.  A number of her creative inspirations come from her dreams.  Often she finds herself fascinated with themes that explore the energies of women – their fertility, pregnancy -- the relationship of women to seeds  and the Three Sisters.  She is doing a series of ceramic belly casts of pregnant women for a installation she hopes to see at the United Nations.

Her work has earned her increasing attention and recognition, being included a group show entitled “An Exhibition of Hotinonshonni Contempory Art” at  St. Lawrence University.  She lives at Akwesasne with her husband Joshua Sargent and their children.

 Date of interview: Sept. 4, 2005                                                Interviewer: John Ferguson