Judy Tuwaletstiwa's memories and personal experiences create a relational web of visual storytelling about fragility, strength, vulnerability, resilience and the ephemeral nature of life. Her work invites image and memory to unfold from the past into a transient present. Materials (from Latin, mater, mother) become keepers of a collective truth passed down through generations. With deep empathy, she reflects to us the joy and pain of our human condition. 

​

Tuwaletstiwa’s work emanates a palpable healing force, often described as elemental or cosmological in nature. She works across a broad range of media including kiln fired glass, fiber, clay, handmade paper and organic matter, such as feathers, quills, ash, sand and sticks. Each artwork is a conversation between color, texture and form: evoking intuitive narratives of embodied knowledge.

​

An artist, writer, and teacher, Judy Tuwaletstiwa, received her BA in English Literature from UC, Berkeley in 1962, and her MA in Teaching English from Harvard University in 1963. A celebrated artist with a long career of residency fellowships, exhibitions, and collections to her name, she was the recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2023. Her art lives in private, public, and museum collections. Tuwaletstiwa’s publications include The Canyon Poem (1997), Mapping Water (2007, Radius Books), Glass (2017, Radius Books) and Chaco (2025, Tia Collection). Special editions of her monographs reside in libraries such as the Corning Museum of Glass’ Rakow Library and Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.