I Make ArtWinner of numerous awards, Swentzell (born 1962) was the subject of the 2002 book Roxanne Swentzell: Extra-Ordinary People. She is a sculptor of the joys and sorrows of the human condition, often using her own experiences as a child and mature woman living and working in Santa Clara Pueblo.

Her many commissions include a wall sculpture installed in 2004 at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. She served as an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Indian School and in elementary schools on several nearby pueblos and oversaw a mask-making project for ARTsmart. Wokrking in clay, Swentzell comes from a family of renowned Naranjos, including her mother architect Rina Naranjo Swentzell, her uncle sculptor Michael Naranjo, and her aunts, potters Nora Naranjo-Morse and Jody Folwell.

Her sculpture Let’s Make Art was donated to ARTsmart and auctioned at the Gourmet Dinner. Following are her remarks at that event.

"I want to thank the people of ARTfeast for choosing me to be their honored artist and to help support the art programs in the public schools here in Santa Fe.
I am one of those children who if it were not for the art classes that I attended
starting in Larriogoite Elementary School, Harvey Jr. High and then Santa
High School, wouldn’t be where I am today. My hat goes off to those teachers
who knew that art was a vital part of their students’ lives.

And in my life those were:
Mrs. Trimmer
Mrs. Koch
Mrs. Woods
and utmost, Mr. Philip Karshis.

I want to thank you for loving art the way you did, you were my stepping stones
through school. Without those classes I would’ve drowned.

While working with the students on their masks this fall I couldn’t help but wonder
how many of them were like me……shy, alone young-adults looking for ways to
express themselves. I wondered how many just needed a door that led them to a
language beyond languages…..the language of art in all its forms,

I only had three days with the students at the high school, but we started every hour
with making a quick pinch figure of our feelings of the day. I wanted then to know
that they could express through the clay. They could channel that rich inner world
of theirs into form. Just within those few days, I saw a change in them. They
weren’t as afraid of showing how they felt, There’s so much push to be "the same
as everyone else." Art is a wonderful way to not have to be. And for high school
students this might be life saving, It was for me.

Thank you again for this honor. May the art programs continue as long as we are
still human beings willing to express. For if the tree doesn’t bloom, then there is
no fruit."