Terrol Dew Johnson
he/him Artist & Community Activist Sells, AZ
About The Artist
Terrol Dew Johnson is a Tohono O’odham basket weaver, community leader, and a nationally recognized advocate for Native communities. His work reflects his culture, his family, and the desert and he has learned about tradition, patience, and technique from his elders. He combines this respect for tradition and heritage of hard work with his own artistic vision, reflecting the world he lives in with innovative, modern designs, materials and forms in his baskets. His baskets have won major awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market, the O’odham Tash, the Heard Museum Fair, and the Southwest Indian Art Fair. His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Heard Museum. He founded the Tohono O'odham Basketweavers Organization (TOBA) as a part of TOCA (Tohono O’odham Community Action) in 1996 to help O'odham weavers get fair prices for their products, access traditional harvesting grounds for the basket materials, as well as, create community spaces for learning and exchange. He lives and works in Sells, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Nation.
About The Work
My practice is rooted in the traditional techniques and cultural memory passed on by my mentors and community. It is essential that my work carry the past and gather what is available in the present; whether that be technologies, tools, materials, or forms. All materials are from the land and I know the importance of giving back to the environment. This is what I have been taught and this is what I teach. I consider my art and activism one in the same, and as a call from necessity.
Knot #3, 2016, in collaboration with Aranda\Lasch, Aluminum, Creosote, Yucca, Cedar Bark, 48 x 13 x 52 inches. Photo credit: Aranda\Lasch
Form Over Function, 2014, Wood, Bear Grass, Sinew, 18 x 6 x 15 inches. Photo credit: Aranda\Lasch
