Cajero Fine Art

New this year, Local Treasures awards recognize accomplished N.M. artists for their body of work

Sunday, August 31, 2008
By David Steinberg
Journal Staff Writer

Kevin Burgess, Joe Cajero Jr., Donna Loraine Contractor and Kathryne Cyman share several general identifiying attributes.

They are accomplished artists, they live in New Mexico and they are represented by galleries that are members of the Albuquerque Art Business Association. Next month Burgess, Cajero, Contractor and Cyman also will be sharing an honor with eight other artists: They will be recognized with the first-ever Local Treasures awards.

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Cajero Draws Line Between Freedom & Tradition

By Keiko Ohnuma
Sandoval Signpost August 2008

Barely out of his teens, Joe Cajero had a bright career ahead of him as a Pueblo potter, crafting delicate clay figures and racking up prizes every year at Indian Market. The demand for his striped koshare (jester) figures was so strong, he bought a home in Placitas at the age of twenty-seven. He was in tune with Spirit, he felt, and had an unquestioned “ability to make things work.”

Then around five years ago, things turned on the sculptor. His marriage collapsed, the rising tide of success became a tsunami of grief, and now it was Cajero who was a lump of clay being pounded by bills on an artist’s pay.

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Joe Cajero Leaps Into His Soul

By George M. Green
ABQ ARTs
May2004

When I met Joe Cajero three years ago and was introduced to his work, I realized immediately that he was a talented artist. His sculptures were at once intriguing and engaging, reflections of his observations, infused with his own particular sense of humor. This was particularly true of his Koshares, for which he was already quite well known. As he was a young man, not yet thirty, I presumed it would be interesting to watch his growth as an artist. But recently something has happened to Joe and his work, something that goes beyond mere growth, something which can only be described as a kind of quantum leap. His sculpture has taken on a soulful depth which is difficult to describe. The pieces, in addition to being beautiful in form and color, are so new and unexpected, that I find myself asking the obvious question; how in the world did you think of doing that?

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Market Makers

By Emily Van Cleve

Su Casa Magazine
Winter 2003 Vol. 9 No. 1
SuCasaMagazine.com

The Embodiment Of PrayerPeaceful Placitas, tucked in the foothills just north of Albuquerque, provides the perfect artistic environment for award-winning sculptor Joe Cajero. A member of the Pueblo of Jemez and a descendant of a long line of artists, Cajero conveys his culture’s deep spiritual beliefs through figures that abstractly represent the sacred. He premiered his latest piece, “The Embodiment of Prayer,” at the 2002 Santa Fe Indian Market. It won second place in its category.

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Medicine of Happiness

By Linda Shockley
SANTA FEAN
August 1998 – Vol. 26 No. 7 Cover:

The cherubic koshares of sculptor Joe Cajero, Jr. capture all the delightful nuances of the pueblo tricksters: they clown, flirt, tease, and generally wreak havoc. Koshares are renowned for a well-developed sense of humor, and pueblo singers, dancers and guests all know not to turn their backs on a koshare during any feast day or celebration. A pueblo cross between circus clown and court jester, koshares rarely fail to elicit smiles with their white and brown, broad-striped bodies, adorned only with loin-type aprons, beads and the traditional jester-like cap.

“The medicine of the koshares stands for happiness. They take all the anguish away and bless you with positive energy. No dance would be successful without the koshares,” Cajero explains. “And if I see a koshare today, it is the same as seeing one from 1804. The koshares haven’t changed much.”

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