'You just want to live': After losing his sight in Vietnam, Michael Naranjo sculpts his memories through touch

Editor’s note: The Journal continues the once-a-month series “From the Studio” with Assistant Arts Editor Kathaleen Roberts, as she takes an up-close look at an artist.

The three fingers remaining on Michael Naranjo's right hand turn clay and wax into massive bronze sculptures.

Blinded and wounded during his service in Vietnam, the famed sculptor can boast public works in front of Santa Fe's Roundhouse, the Albuquerque Museum, the Vatican, the White House and the Heard Museum, among others.

'You just want to live': After losing his sight in Vietnam, Michael Naranjo sculpts his memories through touch

At 80, Naranjo is beginning to use the "R" word (for retirement) and talking of at least slowing down.

A native of Santa Clara Pueblo, Naranjo moved to Taos with his family when he reached the fourth grade. He hails from a family of creatives — pottery, sculpture and painting.

"There was so much art around in Taos," Naranjo said. "I walked through town on the way to school and you see so many galleries."

His artistic journey started when he was a young boy, modeling small animals out of the clay his mother Rose used for her pottery.

Naranjo took a couple of art classes in college, then he was drafted at the age of 22. He ended up in south Vietnam.

He still remembers the date: Jan. 8, 1968.

"We got caught in an ambush," he said. "I ended up in the jungle and someone threw a hand grenade at me.

"I felt the grenade hit my hand and I tried to throw it away. My hand was pretty damaged."

The explosion blinded him and permanently maimed his right hand. In the hospital, he asked for some modeling clay and began creating small figures using only his left hand.

Naranjo spent eight months in hospitals in Vietnam, Japan and Denver. He learned to read Braille and to walk with a cane at the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center. He spent three months living with his parents. Then his sister found him a Santa Fe apartment and he began selling his work to galleries.

"I knew I could still sculpt," he said. "In Japan, I figured out I could. I got a hold of some water-based clay. I made an inchworm. Then I made a goldfish."

He swears he was never suicidal.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "You just want to live. You want to be as whole as possible."

Naranjo's sculptures often depict his memories from childhood: Native dances, eagles and buffalo, women carrying water, as well as mythical creatures such as mermaids and centaurs.

"I have no eyes, so I have to use touch," he explained.

His public works scatter across Santa Fe and Albuquerque. His pieces greet visitors to the Roundhouse, El Prado's Millicent Rogers Museum and Albuquerque's Jewish Community Center. His largest works - some 12-feet-tall - may take from two to three years to complete.

First he creates a wax version, adding wire for the internal armature. He covers the surface with oil-based clay to create a mold, heating it until the wax melts. A foundry turns the results into bronze and brings it back in pieces for Naranjo's inspection.

"I guess it's a passion; an insane passion to see what I can," Naranjo said. "But I'm always afraid to start. I think of the pieces months ahead; years ahead. It's the analogy of the fetus being born."

In 1986, he was invited to "see" Michelangelo's famous "David" at the Accademia Gallery of Florence. A film crew built him a scaffolding for the 14-foot-tall masterpiece.

"I got to look at it for three hours from the top to the bottom," he said.

Naranjo's daughter Jenna Winters Naranjo is working on a film about her father titled "Dream Touch Believe." She plans to submit it to the Sundance Film Festival.

He's currently working on a sculpture of Adam and Eve. He says he may or may not finish it, and he's fine with that.

The artist has scaled down to a single gallery - Nedra Matteucci in Santa Fe - from five.

"I do it at my pace and my rate of speed," he said. "I'm slowing down because I'm 80. But I'm still having fun."

The Bataan Building Atrium Gallery in Santa Fe is showing "Touching Beauty Now," an exhibition of Naranjo's sculptures. Visitors are invited to touch.