Carol Chiago Lujan is an educator on many levels.

She is a clay artist, a professor at Arizona State University, and has served as advisor to influential politicians in Washington, DC. In all arenas, her work emphasizes and reflects the beauty, strength, and endurance of Native people.

An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, Lujan comes from a long line of rug weavers from the Big Water clan and has lived most of her life in Arizona and New Mexico. In 1997, she began to work seriously with clay after enrolling in a traditional Indian pottery class at the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe. Since that time she has developed a passion for working with clay and enjoys exploring the many aspects of the medium. "The ability to mold clay to almost any shape provides endless challenges and is intriguing to me as a Native woman artist."

Having grown up surrounded with beautiful Navajo rugs created by her grandmother and other women in her family, one would think that she would follow in the weaving tradition. "I have not worked with textiles but that is not to say that I will not do so at some point in the future," she explains. "It seemed that my creative energies were more directed to working with clay. Ever since I can remember, I have always enjoyed the feel and smell of clay. The mixture of water and clay and its soft and smooth, cool, texture provides me with the perfect medium for my creative expression." But it wasn't until after she raised her three children and completed her education that she finally had time to focus her creative spirit on clay.

Lujan's work is primarily figurative sculpture. She creates numerous varieties of masks inspired by the Yei-bi-chai or Nightway ceremonies. Her clay figurines of “mud people” portray interaction in both traditional and contemporary society settings -- work, thought, and play. "I think art is educational for the creator as well as the observer," she explains. "I would like to think that my work reflects the beauty, compassion, strength, and the continuity of Native people but viewers interpret art in many different ways. That’s what makes it so compelling and exciting. I myself learn from the pieces I create. As I begin working on a piece, I usually have a general idea of what the end result will be but there is inspiration that occurs while I am actively working on a piece. Many times the clay takes on a life of its own and determines what it will be and how it will look."

Holding a doctorate from the University of New Mexico, Lujan was instrumental in developing the American Indian Studies program at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe and served as its first director for six years. She recently stepped down as director and is currently an associate professor in American Indian Studies at ASU. "Our role in American Indian studies is to dispel negative and destructive images. AIS is faced with a number of challenges in terms of our teaching, our research, and our service. We're committed here at Arizona State University to assisting Native nations in their endeavors to protect their sovereignty, their land base, their religious rights, their lifestyles. We also seek ways to support them in building self-sufficient nations, to decolonize, and to establish culturally appropriate institutions."

Lujan has a rich and diverse career that includes serving in 1998-99 as special assistant to Kevin Gover, assistant secretary of Indian affairs/U.S. Dept. of Interior, Washington, DC. Her primary assignment was to advise the assistant secretary on issues concerning the BIA's education system. "I learned an extensive amount about the challenges and successes of school and programs funded by the BIA. I always told my students that if you're born Native you're born into politics. It's a political reality that the general American population has minimal knowledge about indigenous nations, and the knowledge they do possess is very distorted and inaccurate. They don't know that we as American Indian Nations have rich cultures and histories, a distinctive land base, and our own governments. We also have treaties and a special trust relationship with the federal government that is supported by the Supreme Court and various legislative acts that separate us from other Americans."

In 1999, Lujan participated in Hillary Clinton's visit to Acoma Sky City Elementary School in Acoma Pubelo, NM, which was just one of many stops for the First Lady on her cross-country tour to advocate for the preservation of historical sites.

Carol won the Award of Excellence in Figurative Clay in the 2005 SWIAF Juried Competition at the Arizona State Museum's Southwest Indian Art Fair for her clay sculpture, "Learning About Coyote". She was honored as the featured artist at the 2006 Southwest Indian Art Fair.

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