‘Dancing to an Entirely Different Song’<br><br>

“I was only at Hopi during the summers of my childhood, when school was out, and missed participating in girls’ and women’s social dances because they were in the fall and winter. I fantasized that if ever I was in one of those dances my “tablita” (headpiece) would be the biggest and brightest, sort of like with Christmas lights,” beamed Suetopka as she was discussing the colorful art board acrylic mixed media piece that includes CDs as elements of the work.

Suetopka’s second piece at the Coconino Center for the Arts, “True Confessions of Somivikmana,” is an art board and acrylic mixed media with a Hopi woman musing to herself in a bubble above her head, “If only I could learn to make decent piki and still have time to plan the corporate take over.”

With a blend of the old and new Suetopka stated, “We as human beings have so much in common. Natives are separated by culture, spirituality and language, but there are universal traits with all human beings. Humor and beauty are common ground to all people. I use a lot of humor in my work.

“Native Americans are in the boardrooms of America, the hospitals, the schools and businesses of America,” stated Suetopka, “and we all have similar problems in mixing old family values with contemporary life.”

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