"It is simply a feeling," he said.

Before Naranjo was blinded in battle in 1968, his life seemed out of focus. It was as if he had something lodged in his eyes.

In high school he knew he wanted to go to college and study art. But, as he puts it, youth intervened and he got "sidetracked considerably."   He had the passion but not the discipline.

All that changed when he was drafted at age 22 into the U.S. Army.   In a rice field in Vietnam, he was struck by a grenade.

"At some point in all of our lives something touches us," said Naranjo in his Santa Fe home, a black cat purring at his feet and his black sculptures of people and eagles surrounding him.

Something had touched him as a child, while watching his mother, Rose, make pottery and while crafting his first animals from clay he dug up in the woods.   One of the few surviving pieces of art from his childhood - a sparkling micaceous-clay horse - rears its head in a niche inside the entryway of his house. And his oil painting of a bullfighter, still unfinished, hangs next to the hearth.

Once blinded and recovering in a hospital of moaning soldiers in Japan, Naranjo reached for the clay again.

With one good hand left and no eyes, he felt as though he had no choice in the matter: it was time to become a creator, an artist.   So during eight months of surgeries and rehabilitation, he spent his free time sculpting, destroying and sculpting again the objects he had once seen.

When he returned home to New Mexico, he let himself sink into his work like never before. "Being blind, I had all the time in the world," he said.

The first piece he had cast into bronze was a lean, hungry wolf.   He traded it with his sister for two pumpkin pies.

"I got one of the pies, but I never got the other one," he said, laughing.

By 1970, he sold his first piece to a Taos art gallery. He can't remember what the sculpture was, but in two tries he found a place willing to accept his work.   At that point, no one in his artistic Santa Clara Pueblo family had been dealing with the galleries, so he was forging new territory.

"I was ready for rejection, but I wasn't rejected that much," he said.

Right away, Naranjo set up a pricing structure based on three times what he paid the foundry to cast his bronzes.   That way he kept one third, the gallery got one third and the foundry got one third. He turned down galleries that wanted more than that.

"It's your reputation," he explained. "If you plan to be around for a long time, your reputation is sacred."

Momentum built as bigger galleries exhibited his work, he won contests and he gave his sculptures to high-profile people, including President Richard Nixon in 1971 and Pope John Paul II in 1983.   Social workers from the Veteran's Administration made the connections to the White House and the Vatican.

"I probably had it fairly good," he said. "Is it because I'm blind? Yes. Is it because I'm a veteran? Possibly.   Is it because I'm Indian? Yes, in this part of the world."

Of course, talent plays a huge part, too. Contest judges, and even some clients, don't know he can't see when they select his work.

His tallest sculpture, a 12-foot-tall hoop dancer, stands outside the New Mexico Capitol building. And soon, his sculpture of a girl holding a butterfly will be at the Jewish Community Center in Albuquerque.

Naranjo remembers when he could finish a sculpture in a week.   He has slowed down his pace in recent years, completing about five sculptures a year, sometimes less depending on his health. His works are mainly sold through galleries in Santa Fe; Durango, Colorado; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And thanks to his wife, Laurie Naranjo, he doesn't fuss much with the business side of the operation. "So much of it is Laurie," he said. "She makes it easy."

The most compelling photograph from Naranjo's career happens to be in the guest bathroom.   In this image, he touches the right eye of David, the monolithic Michelangelo sculpture in Italy.   He had received special access to do so, and he counts it as one of his greatest honors in life.   These trips to Europe eventually inspired him to start carving stone, to the dismay of his wife.

At his home, Naranjo has two studios. He leads the way to a small room where he's making a fox out of a block of Texas limestone. An air hammer hangs from the ceiling.   His left hand moves along in front of the chisel, he demonstrates.

"So often my fingers get nicked and cut," he said.

His right hand is scarred, twisted and missing a pinky finger, from the explosion in Vietnam. It is weak and lacks feeling. But still, he can hold a piece of stone in place with that hand.

In a separate studio next to the kitchen, a rack of antlers on the wall holds his fishing poles and his dog, Lulu, curls up on the floor. In clay, Naranjo is making a tall native woman and a baby for her back in a cradleboard.   The shelves behind him, draped in sheets, are filled with out-of-edition pieces.   Looking on, from photos on the wall, are Nixon, President Bill Clinton and the Pope, with Naranjo at their side.

"It's been one happy, amazing ride," he said.

Writer Diana Heil holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and has over 18 years of experience with three different newspapers in the Southwest: The Farmington Daily Times, The Albuquerque Journal and The Santa Fe New Mexican.

For those who want to break into the art world, Naranjo recommends getting to know older artists who under-stand the business.

"Learn art techniques either in school or in the studio. But remember: Galleries and buyers will be drawn by the passion behind your work, rather than a fancy college degree.   When you approach a gallery for the first time, take several pieces of your work and ask to meet the manager. Be prepared for rejection."

"We don't know until we try," this sculptor and teacher says. 'It's really possible."

Contact the Naranjo Studio at:
P.O. Box 5803, Santa Fe, NM 87502   …   (505) 466-3730.