Peterson Yazzie is a Contemporary
Navajo artist from Greasewood Springs, Arizona; he was born in
Ft. Defiance, Arizona in 1979. Peterson is of the Mexican Clan,
One Who Walks Around Clan, Red House, and Coyote Pass Clan. After
graduating from Holbrook High School in 1997, he went on to Northland
Pioneer College in Holbrook, Arizona.
Taking a “Southwest
Art” class from Don Whitesinger, a graduate of Rhode Island
School of Design, and Institute of American Indian Arts, during
his junior year in high school was a major turning point for
Peterson. College cost money; therefore he had no plans to go
to college to further his education. When high school graduation
came Peterson had an art scholarship to The University of Evansville
in Indiana and a full tuition scholarship to Northland Pioneer
College in Holbrook, Arizona. He also had a scholarship for art
from the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, and art internship to
Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. These accomplishments
made Peterson realize he had a talent for art, so decided to
give art a try.
Peterson has participated
in several shows in the southwest, and has won several awards;
some of these are; Most Outstanding Achievement Award, sculpture,
Heard Museum Student Art Show; First Place, painting, 1999 Gallup
Intertribal Indian Ceremonial Poster Contest; Best of Division,
painting; Best of Category, painting, “Navajo Market”,
Museum of Northern Arizona in 2001.Peterson was also awarded
the Eiteljorg Museum Student Fellowship in Spring of 2001; Goodman
Fellowship- Wheelwright Museum in 2003; Best of Division, painting,
Eight Northern Pueblos Indians Arts and Craft Show in 2004; Honorable
Mention, Painting, Heard Museum Indian Market 2005; First Place,
Painting, Santa Fe Indian Market 2005; 2006 Mill Atelier Fellowship,
Vermont Studio Center; Best of Classification and Best of Division
in Painting, Honorable Mention in Printmaking at 2006 Heard Museum
Indian Market.
The Navajo culture and
personal life experience is the foundation of Peterson’s
work. Peterson strives to maintain his culture through his paintings
that go beyond just being a “Pretty picture”, to “positive
and negative realities”. Peterson says, “My painting
are expressions of who I am, an individual co-existing between
worlds. I use traditional aspects of my culture, to communicate
in a contemporary society.”
Peterson received an Associates
of Fine Arts (2002) and Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree (2004)
from the Institute of American Indian Arts, in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. He has continued his education for a Masters of Fine
Arts degree at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque,
NM.