I first met Antoinette Thompson, or ATA as she likes to be called, at the Winter Indian Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I fell in love with one of her pieces and after a delightful conversation with her about the piece, I fell for the artist as well. ATA is an enthusiastic indigenous contemporary artist from Arizona. Many of her works are influenced by her life on the Navajo Nation Reservation. She has a master’s degree in healthcare administration but turned to art to express herself during rehab. Eventually, she went to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and started to incorporate her Native American culture into her art in part to heal herself from addiction and in part to display to the world that the Navajo are still here as a powerful part of the world.
Her dynamic art includes bold images representing various entities and designs from Navajo culture, like Changing Woman, twirling dancers and warriors. Her art is available in various galleries and exhibits both locally and globally, including in Genoa, Italy, the home of Christopher Columbus, the explorer who has a complicate relationship, at best, with the Native American people.
She is also dedicated to sharing her art, and her gifts as an artist, to Navajo and other indigenous children and anyone who is interested in healing and finding peace through art. In many of her interviews, she uses her tagline: “Let’s decorate the world with more art.” She believes that art can hold the key to healing, something the world and those of us in it truly need.
Do you have a favorite color?
Red. Red is so powerful to me. Like everyone else, I see passion, intensity, love, hatred. it’s so beautiful to me.
What images inspire you to create art?
Images?! It’s usually human interaction, words, conversation, colors. I take random photos of certain things, like corners, people’s clothes, prints, hands, as inspiration.
Do you have a favorite artist?
“Artist” goes in so many directions. Eminem is my top artist, I find him very inspiring and motivating. Billie Eilish is such a great artist. Painters, Dan Namingha, loveeee his work and his use of colors. Jean Michel Basquiat, his abstract form of the human anatomy and again his use of colors. The late Pablo Milan, the freeness and flow of his brush work, the layers of colors then his fading use of a light color.
What would you like to create next?
I really don’t have a strategy to create new works, they just happen. A light bulb goes off and I see a whole collection of something new. I try to direct my expressions in different forms, using different items from brush, sponge, cardboard, hands, just about anything that’s in arms reach. I’ll use what tools I can find or try using them in a different way. Being in my studio, all these ideas pop into my head and I want to do them all at once. Patience; it’s the hardest action for me. I have to work on multiple projects at once. Also, I can stay in the studio for days and stay up all night into the sunrise. It seems that I always want to create something new, something different, something I haven’t tried.
What’s the most memorable reaction you’ve received to your artwork?
Tears. People have been so overwhelmed with emotions that they stand there and cry. I find that inspiring and am honored. The movement of the colors and subject reflect what thoughts and emotions I was experiencing, and it flows through into the eye and heart of the viewer. I paint with my emotions so it’s a connection I get to share with my collectors, followers, and art lovers. The first time it happened, I had just moved home to the reservation [Navajo Nation] and decided to show my abstract work to the community at a local fair. People weren’t used to seeing abstract art — they’re used to traditional detailed work. One person came over and stood at one painting and cried. I like to give the viewers their time with the paintings, so I let her be. That’s when I knew art wasn’t just for the eyes but for the heart as well.
What’s one misconception people often have about your art that you’d like to debunk?
If someone doesn’t know me or follow my work or me, they assume I’m a male artist and usually don’t know that I’m Native [Navajo or Dine]. Their reactions make me smile when they say, “I thought you were a guy,” or “Wow! You’re Native!” Sometimes, the art is educational for them because I incorporate my Navajo culture into the abstract work so my art isn’t considered Native Art, and they ask what the symbols mean. It gives me the opportunity to talk about Natives in America. I don’t make art just to sell or make profits, I make art to help spread the awareness and knowledge of the First Nations people. We are seen as uneducated, as alcoholics, drug addicts, savages, or whatever the stereotypes make us to be. I want my art to help change these misconceptions.
What’s the most unexpected source of inspiration you’ve ever had for a piece of artwork?
Oh boy! That happens all the time. I’ll see something, somewhere and it’ll annoy me for some weird reason and right before I go to sleep, it hits me. Like the 100th Annual 2022 Santa Fe Market, I won a 1st place ribbon for a piece I just put together the night before they were due. My studio is Lukachukai, Arizona and Santa Fe are about a good 4+ hours away. The Pendleton blanket on my bed kept poking at me for days, there was this board placed against my table saw, I needed to use them both, but I didn’t know how. Finally, it hit me while I was at work, so I had to sketch it out quick. As soon as I got home, I started cutting the board, then I took my blanket and started cutting, started painting and put everything together. I was scared to show it, but I took the piece into SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) the next day. Afterwards, I fell asleep about midnight and woke up at 3am and left for Santa Fe. It turned out, I was one of the first artists to turn their work in. I was sweating so bad because I hadn’t shown at SWAIA in a few years, and this was my first time back with this crazy piece. And a few days later, I saw a 1st Place ribbon next to my diverse art. I couldn’t believe it. I kept asking people around me if that ribbon belonged to that piece. It was a great show. I also won a 2nd place ribbon for another piece that year.
If your artwork could evoke one emotion in every viewer, what would it be?
One emotion??!?! What! I want them to feel every emotion hahaha. Acceptance would probably be the emotion. Because growing up, I didn’t feel accepted, even as an adult I still feel uncomfortable with acceptance. Honestly that was one of the reasons I started painting. So, for someone to look at my art, I want the warmth, happiness and comfort of acceptance.
ATA’s work is certainly accepted around the world. Her art has been shown in nearly 100 venues and she has had interviews published in dozens of publications. She continues to receive awards for her paintings and sculptures. I will continue to stalk her at the Santa Fe Indian Market (SWAIA) and everyone who steps into my home knows that I am the proud owner of her award-winning piece painted on the Pendleton blanket.
Keep track of ATA on her website, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.
As one who cries in front of art, I am struck by ATA being able to interact with her criers. What would I say to Mary Cassatt if she caught me weeping in front of “The Child’s Bath” (1893) at the MFA Boston? Her subject matter, intimate domestic moments, was unseen by her contemporaries. She was the one woman at the Impressionist boys’ table, where she more than held her own. ATA can claim a similar space.