Sam Minkler, Hopi Maiden

Late in 1950 I was transported by wagon and a team of horses off of Black Mesa to be born in the old Tuba City Indian hospital. My family was traditional, monolingual Navajo and isolated from the western world, they were rich in Navajo ways.
 
At the age of four a single engine aircraft flew me to a Tuberculosis sanitarium in Bolder Colorado where I spent two years. In retrospect that single visual experience of flying activated my literal visual existence that I live today. Navajo reality is derived from the visual experience in contrast to an emphasis on using the written word to interpret reality. Little did I realize this would be my window for my greatest form of expression and would help me create a balance and cultural consciousness in a multidimensional universe. The desire in Navajo to follow Hozoh, the beauty way, is natural for me and inspires me to teach the visual language of photography.
 
My early government boarding school experience with education could be considered violently oppressive to myself as an individual and to the Native American cultures, language, and consequently the expression of religion and art. With this in my background I approach teaching with a deep sense of compassion for the student. I strive to create a positive effect even from a negative experience.
 
I am fortunate to have acquired the role as an assistant professor to help influence tolerance and cultural understanding to created a more diverse and understanding environment for students and faculty. Through teaching Photography I seek to discover the humanity of us, to discover our own identity and reveal the identity of others. Photography is the unwritten expressive link for humanity from across oceans, deserts and halls.
 
As a teacher, I realize it’s important for me to convey to students to be more visually literate, and to strive technically to attain the best possible statement in their work. It’s a social relationship that transcends age, cultures, economics, and leaning styles to create a mutual environment for learning with its dilemmas and rewards. Without fostering this social relationship we cannot structure and focus our dialogue with students. Like exposure is for photographers, maintaining the student-teacher dialogue is a life long endeavor for learning success in an inconstant world.
 
I try to be more of a conceptual artist and realize that I have to compromise similarities and negotiate differences with in the non-art world. Our photography majors experience a dilemma when faced with the realities of finding jobs in a world where they cannot always apply their artistic training. However, there has been a growing a shift on the job market to new technologies such as desk top publishing, hand held computers, cellular phones that incorporate camera’s, and the evolution of the digital age in photographic cameras and printing that allows our students to apply their unique training at NAU. I am excited about these shifts and about the role our photography degree will contribute in the future. Photography teaching will have to be more cyber literate in the next century and if Photoshop is a sample of what is to come, how necessary and exciting it is to embrace the coming revolution.
 
Susan Sontag said “to photograph is to confer importance” and I believe it is important to “confer importance” equally and fairly when representing “visual truth” in the field of visual communication and to offset stereotypes and misrepresentations of the past.
 
Coming from a Navajo Paradigm I find my photographic work sociological in nature and am interested in the theme of equality and diversity of the student experience. I realize “diversity” seems co-opted but to me its been real and strive to help the under represented students from disadvantage populations. I came from the Native American Research and Training Center, Northern Arizona University where we advocated for the disabled/blind populations too. I am interested in our mission and the coherent plans for the student’s future as productive, responsible and creative citizens facing a global, information-based society that will require innovative solutions to new and old social problems.
--Sam Minkler, 2009