Gia

 

A Family of Artists and More...

(statement on the Gia show) written by Roxanne Swentzell

There is a flavor to each family. When I stepped back and viewed my extended Naranjo family, I
couldn't help but be impressed. At first (being an artist myself) I noticed a surprising number of well-
established artists starting with my grandmother, Rose Naranjo. I thought that this would be a great

way to start looking at this family by starting with Rose or rather Gia (what we all called her, which
translates into Mother).

Mothers are central to families and calling this show Gia would give the show a center.........
a place to start. My grandmother had many children and raised a few others. Those children had
many children, and so on for five generations before she passed away in 2004. It is not fair to talk
about Gia without talking about Ta ("Father" or my grandfather Micheal Naranjo). Of course they
created this family together but there's something about starting with Gia that acknowledges that
she was, for better or for worse, a person who centralized this family, through love, guilt, force or
just plain need.

We ALL buzzed around her like a queen bee. When she died, the hub of this family died with her.
I would like to take time to acknowledge this. We all have our own nucleus families and friends,
but for five generations this woman created a world that spun around her extending far and wide
pulling our many nucleus families into her orbit. For many of our lives, this orbit was consuming.
It was the thread that bound us to her and we loved and hated it. Maybe she held the key to how
community is held together......you let yourself need each other. She needed us and we needed to
be needed.

But the times had changed and the Western mind-set of individualism had seeped into the Pueblos
and we too, wanted our own lives with our own cars, private property, names, nucleus families that
are held away from extended families out of differing ideas and beliefs. The Pueblo sense of one
large extending family of cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and great grandparents had been
pierced by the sword of "Me versus You". Gia was still functioning under the old Pueblo belief that the
hive is only strong when we work together around our mother. And she was our MOTHER.

As the wave of her life and death has settled some, I look around me and see what is left. I see our
family, scattered here and there, slowly trying to establish "hives" of their own. I see remnants of

Her everywhere.........strong mothers, a deep sense of home, strong work ethics, and a strong sense of
being. I felt overwhelmingly proud of US. We are an amazing group of people. I wanted to show us
to the world, but mostly, I wanted to show us to ourselves. I wanted to mirror to us what we have
come through and become. As I looked around I saw not only amazing artists and craftsmen; I saw

ground-breaking scholars, scientists, atheletes, builders, singers, dancers and spiritual leaders. And
I saw such physically beautiful people that I wanted to gloat over us all.......just for a moment in time
before it passes and we disappear into the vast history of mankind.

We are a moment in time that merged from a situation that was shifting, struggling with the future
and the past, a moment that had its own unique flavor. This is our family that buzzed around Gia for
60-plus years. This is our family that created its own art and culture, its own strengths and weaknesses.......
our own heart. Before we all go our separate ways, I would like to take a moment to look at us before the
hive swarms away forever. We are all strong amazing individuals, but we all owe some of that

strength to Gia, our queen bee for so many years. It is no small feat to hold five generations
together for so long. As I take a sigh of relief at times that we are all free to go our separate ways, I
also have a need to look back and bow my head with respect, gratitude and awe at every one of us.

We are part of this amazing story, this chapter in time.

I stop and acknowledge Gia's Family.