Tradition and Innovation: A New Spin on an Ancient Practice

School for Advanced Research’s 2025 Native Arts Speaker Series

Cultural Currents: The Role of Mentorship in Native Arts

Explore how mentorship shapes both traditional and contemporary Native arts.

This second event of four features Nora Naranjo Morse and Margarita Paz-Pedro:

Nora Naranjo Morse (Kha’P’o Tewa, Santa Clara Pueblo] was born and raised in Northern New Mexico. Nora is a contemporary artist who energizes Pueblo ancestral sensibility into her art using earth based materials to create large Public Art installations. One of Nora’s public art piece is at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. Naranjo Morse. Nora also works in a number of media. Nora is a hands on learner and educator. Her public art piece at the National Museum of the American Indian, Always Becoming, in many ways exemplifies Nora’s leadership. Always Becoming is interactive, collaborative, and needs yearly, collective tending. Nora widens the circle of collaboration by sharing her art process and cultural information with others in her community and beyond. Naranjo Morse lives on Kha’P’o tribal land in an adobe house she helped to build.

Margarita Paz-Pedro (Mexican-American, Laguna Pueblo & Santa Clara Pueblo) was born in Albuquerque, NM, raised in Las Cruces, NM and with family in Laguna Pueblo, Margarita has ties across NM. Her background is core to her artmaking. She is a ceramic artist, teacher, organizer, and muralist. She received her BFA with an emphasis in Ceramics in 2003 from the University of Colorado-Boulder, an MA in Art Education in 2008 at the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Studio Arts-Integrated Practice from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2023. She has been able to travel, participate in Artist Residencies and study under some fierce female artists. Since 2009, she has worked as a lead artist with the ALMA Summer Institute of ALMA, creating large-scale public art mosaic murals across New Mexico. She is currently an adjunct professor in Ceramics, where she can reciprocate the knowledge that has been given and shared with her, to others. She is a partner to a fellow artist and together they have a rowdy 11 year old.

To register please go to our website. If you aren’t able to attend in person, please join us for the livestream on SAR’s YouTube channel.