Heard Museum Earth Song, Fall 2022

earth song HEARD MUSEUM MEMBERSHIP MAGAZINE

FALL 2022

SPECIAL EDITION

SUBSTANCE of

STA R S

HEARD MUSEUM, HEARD MUSEUM SHOP BOARD OF TRUSTEES John F. Lomax

Chair

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David M. Roche

Dickey Family Director and CEO

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EARTHSONG Sarah Moore

Graphic Design

Sean Ornelas

Director of Marketing & Communications

Deborah Paddison

Copy Editing

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Kim Alexis Adversario, Olivia Barney, Velma Kee Craig, Marcus Monenerkit, Sean Mooney, Diana Pardue, David M. Roche

Cover: Steven Yazzie (Diné/Laguna Pueblo/Anglo), still image of Tsé Bit'a'í (Shiprock) from Substance of Stars: Physiographic Spirit of Navajoland, 2022, video produced for the Heard Museum.

The Heard Museum is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization incorporated in the State of Arizona. Exhibition, event and program funding provided in part by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Arizona Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.

CONTENTS Substance of Stars 2

Letter from the Director

4

Substance of Stars

6

Excerpt: Of One Mind

12

New Acquisitions for Substance of Stars

16

In Conversation: Jamie Jacobs

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Members Experience More

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LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR 2

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ho among us hasn’t looked into the night sky and dreamt of other inhabited worlds, or made a wish on a star, or wondered what lies beyond the universe? This summer, NASA released a series of spectacular images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory ever built. One of the thrilling aspects of these images is that they provide clues to our beginnings. The search for our beginnings, and the knowledge yielded from that search, is at the heart of the Heard Museum’s new exhibition, Substance of Stars, which opens on Nov. 6 to members. This special issue of EarthSong is dedicated exclusively to this exhibition, which has been more than three years in the making.

The exhibition shares public elements of creation stories that form the foundational knowledge systems and inspire artistic production within four tribes: the Haudenosaunee, Yup’ik, Diné and Akimel O’odham. The title of the exhibition is meant to encourage viewers to think of stars as more than just twinkling lights in the sky. For the purposes of this exhibition and publication, their “substance” lies in the inspiration they have provided to cultures across time and space. And because stars shine down justly, if not divinely, on all of us, the cosmos creates a common ground to explore these ideas. The stars belong to all of us.

For this reason, an important feature of the exhibition is the Sky-Dome, which will give members an immersive 360-degree experience in a room showing projections on all its 20-foot-high walls. The name “Sky-Dome” is derived from the Haudenosaunee’s creation story, which starts in the world above the dome of the sky. Incorporating edge-blending technology, the wall imagery in the Sky-Dome will feature the work of Indigenous videographers—James Jay and Anthony Marietta (Akimel O’odham), Ansley Jemison (Seneca), Steven J. Yazzie (Diné/Laguna Pueblo/Anglo) and Kiliii Yüyan (Nanai/Hèzhé)—and will show dynamically changing landscapes, shifting from day to night and between seasons. Simultaneously, the ceiling will be a fiber-optic map of the cosmos centered on the North Star and will rotate four times to represent the change of seasons as seen from Arizona.

EARTHSONG

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Beyond the Sky-Dome, visitors to Substance of Stars will encounter works of Indigenous manufacture by artists both known and unknown to us and that span centuries. This breadth of presentation has a special resonance relating to the nature of stars. Aside from our own sun, the stars we see in the night sky are all light-years from Earth. When you look at the North Star, also known as Polaris (or Náhookos Biko’, the central fire in Navajo cosmology), for example, you are seeing light emitted from about 323 light-years away.

What this means is that when you gaze up into the night sky, you are looking into the distant past. Right now, somewhere in the universe, a star is radiating light that will be seen by people living in the distant future. In a similar way, the historical works presented in this exhibition are conveying information, like starlight, from the distant past. And the new Indigenous works of art commissioned for this exhibition will convey information to people in the distant future.

For some tribal cultures, stars are uniquely connected to their creation stories and religious beliefs. For example, Jamie Jacobs writes in his essay for the exhibition catalogue, “Bringing the Female Voice: The Iroquois Sky Woman Narrative,” that the Seneca believe that a celestial female ancestor, known as Sky Woman, fell through an opening in the heavens and landed on the back of a turtle and brought with her the seeds that would populate the earth. The Sky Woman tradition is manifest in several works in this exhibition, including ancient engraved shells; a beaded gown titled “She Holds the Stars” by Ken Williams (Arapaho/Seneca), Orlando Dugi (Navajo), and Ben Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole); and a painting

by Marie Watt (Hodinöhsö:ni’, Seneca Nation) titled Companion Species (Blazing for Everyone).

We look forward to seeing you at the museum, and thank you for your support, which makes all our work possible.

David M. Roche Dickey Family Director and CEO

Photo: “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope)

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SUBSTANCE

4

EARTHSONG

OF STARS

Kiliii Yüyan (Nanai/Hèzhé [Siberian East Asian Indigenous]), 2018, off the coast of Barrow, Alaska. Shot during the making of Gift of the Whale (2018).

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Of

One

ON EXHIBIT 6

Mind

Excerpt Adapted from Substance of Stars

SEAN MOONEY | GUEST CURATOR

W

Top to bottom: Ric Charlie (Diné), b. 1959, seed pot, 2005, silver, 3 1/4 x 1/4 in. Gift of Norman L. Sandfield, 4450-88A. Fidel Estudillo (Diné), 1919-1986, Shooting Star, 2007, silver, 2 3/4 x 1 1/4 in. Gift of Norman L. Sandfield, 4593-23. Kee Yazzie (Diné), b. 1969, seed pot, 2005, silver, gold, coral, 1 3/4 x 1 1/4 in. Gift of Norman L. Sandfield, 4511-23.

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e humans have the blessing and the curse that is conscious intelligence.

From the earliest stages of our childhoods, we ask questions, we imagine our futures, we measure time, and we consider everything we see, hear and feel.

Our world is small—until we realize that the shared world is larger, more vast than ourselves, our homes, our families, our village. One day comes when we look up at the sky and realize that the universe is more expansive than we can see or touch, more immense than we can measure or imagine, that it extends beyond any boundaries we fathom, and has existed before us and will do so after us—after every generation we can picture as our family is gone, and before any generation of what we know as our family was ever born. Once we start to articulate this vastness, we begin to wonder what made everything, what order might have invented it. We come to learn of where life began, and over time we learn of this from a host of philosophies. Some of those ways of understanding might be called religion, or science, or simply knowledge.

ON EXHIBIT

One day comes when we look up at the sky and realize that the universe is more expansive than we can see or touch, more immense than we can measure or imagine, that it extends beyond any boundaries we fathom ...

Peter Lind (Alutiiq), b. 1930, Hunting hat, 2003. Wood, pigment, walrus ivory, feathers, cordage; 9 3/4 x 21 x 11 1/2 in. Heard Museum, 4837-38. Bequest of Dr. E. Daniel Albrecht

In the centuries before our modern lifetimes, when the earth was not flooded with electric lights and the sounds of machinery, our nighttime experience of the sky was so obviously different—deeper, darker, more brilliant and subtle. Today, we experience the night sky shrouded in “light pollution,” a term well known by astronomers, for whom only a very small portion of the Earth can be considered immune. (Arizona is uniquely endowed with six recognized “Dark Skies” sites.) But for traditional societies that experienced the night sky very differently than we can imagine it today, the lights, shapes, patterns and amazing depths of space must have been the most profoundly mystical of realities. Anyone who lived on Earth prior to 1870 would have understood the nighttime in a way we can barely sense today. Our exploration of traditional knowledge begins by reminding ourselves what this profound visual sensation was like: the palpable reality of darkness, of stars, a universe once commonly experienced but now a rarity.

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ON EXHIBIT 8

We are also reminded that knowledge systems are born from our common human curiosity to understand the world around us, and our place within it. As with the wonder inspired by the night sky, our observed Earth has been a source of mystery; and as humanity strove to survive, it developed sciences and religions as a means of transmitting accumulated knowledge from one generation to another. Almost universally, this has taken the form of storytelling, in which cultural histories have been intimately transmitted from the mouth of one person to the ears of another. After millennia of oral tradition, origin stories have evolved in endless varieties and richness, as the narratives of individual storytellers continually accrued. These complement rather than contradict one another, reinforcing cultural knowledge and understanding.

Indigenous societies throughout the world know endlessly varied truths in their traditions, in origin stories, sky and star sciences, and oral histories. This wonderful complexity is expressed in song, dance, and limitless visual and physical arts.

Anthropology defines this collective knowledge of creativity as “material culture.” EuroAmerican culture tends to distance the Self (in the present) from the World (in the past), as if history and science are somehow apart from us as people; it considers knowledge as something competitively acquired and jealously guarded, rather than as an inheritance, and it defines art as the works of uniquely visionary individuals. Other intellectual

EARTHSONG

ABOVE: G. Peter Jemison (Seneca), b. 1945, The Balance of Good and Evil, 1980, paper, mixed media, 22 x 30 in. Heard Museum purchase, IAC1931. RIGHT: Pair of dance fans, ca. 1870, Central Yup’ik, Lower Kuskokwim River, Alaska.

Wood, feathers, pigment; (a): 13 1/4 x 14 x 1 3/8 in. (b): 19 1/2 x 19 x 1 3/8 in. Fenimore Museum, Thaw Collection, T0596a-b

traditions define creativity collectively, by many names, and consider it evidence of divine intervention and a living, spiritual presence. Making art, in the Indigenous context, reflects the works of the Creator, however defined.

ON EXHIBIT

Indigenous societies throughout the world know endlessly varied truths in their traditions, in origin stories, sky and star sciences, and oral histories.

This exhibition has come about as an invitation to witness the deep intellectual and spiritual relationships of Indigenous American artists. It explores the collection of the Heard Museum from the perspective of the descendant communities whose ancestors created the baskets, textiles, paintings, sculpture and many other works, and it provides additional context rooted in Native language and traditional knowledge. New works have been commissioned by contemporary Native American artists and filmmakers, and Indigenous curators and scholars have been asked to contribute to further interpretation and analysis of traditional iconography and form. The exhibition begins, fundamentally, with an immersive video environment in which photographers from each Native community included in the exhibition selected locations and elements of their home landscape to present and celebrate, to acknowledge the profound and eternal relationship between the people and the Earth we all inhabit. This video environment also places us, communally, in dialogue with beauty and truth, calling upon us to recall where we came from and consider what legacies we are responsible for. We refer to this video space at the Heard as the “Sky-Dome,” in honor of the Haudenosaunee terminology for the place of the Sacred Beings. It is also, because we stand upon it, the Earth-Dome, and our contemplation is the metaphoric sacred ladder which connects the Sky-Dome to the Earth-Dome in the Opening Address.

As knowledge-keepers and storytellers, Indigenous artists acknowledge that they descend from these divine works and recall that they themselves are the substance of stars.

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Marie Watt (Seneca), b. 1967, Companion Species (Blazing for Eveyrone), 2021, canvas, spray paint, Flashe paint, each panel 35 x 344 in. Purchased with funds from the Lilly Foundation, 5028-1ab. Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum.

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New Acquisitions for

Substance of Stars Works by Marie Watt, Thomas ‘Breeze’ Marcus, Jacob Butler, Dwayne Manuel, Kevin Aspaas, and Sally Black

VELMA KEE CRAIG | ASSISTANT CURATOR

COLLECTION 12

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he Heard Museum’s new Exhibition, Substance of Stars, will open on Nov. 6. This exhibition shares the creation stories that form the foundational knowledge systems and inspire artistic production for the Haudenosaunee, Yup’ik, Diné, and Akimel O’otham nations. The exhibition examines the collection of the Heard Museum from Indigenous perspectives of their own cultural production across a variety of media. It incorporates Indigenous languages, knowledge, and spiritual values as well as the foundational origin stories and sky knowledge that figure prominently in the national identities of Indigenous peoples. For this exhibition, the Heard has acquired new works by contemporary Indigenous artists. These include works by Marie Watt (Seneca), Thomas “Breeze” Marcus (Tohono O’odham), Jacob Butler (Akimel O’otham), Dwayne Manuel (Onk Akimel O’odham), Kevin Aspaas (Diné), and Sally Black (Diné).

EARTHSONG

Marie Watt’s Companion Species (Blazing for Everyone) (see pp. 10-11) is composed of two canvas panels, each measuring 35 inches high and 172 inches wide. When the piece is exhibited, the panels are meant to be arranged so they form the phrase “Turtle Island,” which Watt grew up to know as a “Seneca and Haudenosaunee understanding of place and creation.” Different Indigenous communities may use Turtle Island to refer to the continent of North America or the planet Earth.

Watt has created several pieces which turn the spotlight on this phrase. She states, “Indigenous people are often expected to translate stories, memories, and knowledge to those outside our communities. By boldly ‘stitching’ the words TURTLE ISLAND and placing them in unexpected sites, I subvert expectation.” For Watt, recognition of a place name “that preceded colonial names … can be a step toward acknowledging historical trauma and a legacy of extraction and displacement.”

COLLECTION Thomas “Breeze” Marcus (Tohono O’odham), Stars Over Ce:dagi Wahia, 2022, canvas, acrylic paint, spray paint, oil paint pen, 48 x 72 1/2 in. Heard Museum purchase.

Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum.

Stars Over Ce:dagi Wahia by Thomas “Breeze” Marcus illustrates the moment in the O’odham creation story when Jewed Ma:kai (Earth Doctor) creates the stars, by scooping up a handful of water and blowing it up into the sky. The water droplets froze into crystals, which became the stars. In another version of the same story, Jewed Ma:kai throws tepary beans into the sky to make the stars. This is true for the creation stories of other cultures, as well; there can be many variations of the same story. The versions shared within Substance of Stars are the ones known to or preferred by the cultural advisors we’re working with or the artists whose works are represented in the exhibition.

Jacob Butler’s two bracelets delicately carved from Glycymeris shells are nearly identical. One is slightly larger in diameter, at 3½ versus 3¼ inches. The wings of the crane extend outward from its head to form the circular shape of the bracelet. Clasped within the crane’s beak is the neck of a rattlesnake, resigned to its fate. It is now food.

The bracelets are one piece. There are no seams, as the artist worked from a large Glycymeris shell and carefully removed the interior of the bracelet to create a hole to fit the wearer’s arm. After that, Butler carved the intricate details to create the gripping scene of crane overcoming rattlesnake.

LEFT: Jacob Butler (Akimel O’otham), bracelet, 2022, Glycymeris shell, 1 1/4 in. by 3 1/2 in. diameter. Heard Museum purchase, 5029-1. Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum.

ABOVE: Jacob Butler (Akimel O’otham), bracelet, 2022, Glycymeris shell, 1 in. by 3 1/4 in. diameter. Heard Museum purchase, 5029-2. Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum.

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In collaboration with Thomas “Breeze” Marcus and Jacob Butler, artist Dwayne Manuel has composed a scene that expresses another moment of the O’odham Creation story, when Jeved Ma:kai pointed his staff into the stars he created, and spun them to form the Milky Way galaxy. In Marcus’s painting, our perspective is drawn from a point of view low to the ground, looking up from the position of Jeved Ma:kai’s feet into the center of the galaxy above. While invisible to the scene, the presence of the Earth is keenly felt, reminding the viewer of the profound interconnection of Earth and Sky, the terrestrial and celestial, created at the same moment.

Dwayne Manuel (Onk Akimel O’odham), Drawing for Jeved Makai Creates the Milky Way, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Heard Museum purchase. Photo courtesy of the artist.

COLLECTION 14

Horned Toad and Lightning by Kevin Aspaas represents the second time this Diné weaver has woven a textile utilizing the combined techniques of wedge weave and twill. The textile is dyed with rabbitbrush and various shades of indigo.

It has a fringed bottom edge, which was created using the wool tufting technique. The grey and blue zigzag stripes symbolize Lightning, and the broken diamond twill design represents the natural armor worn by Horned Toad. In his artist statement, Aspaas notes, “Navajo stories talk about the fight between Lightning and Horned Toad. Lightning challenged every living being and won each time. Everyone was scared, but Horned Toad was not. Horned Toad challenged Lightning. He was struck four times but was not affected. His flint armor protected him.”

Kevin Aspaas (Diné), b. 1995, Horned Toad and Lightning, 2022, wool, indigo, rabbitbrush dye, 39 x 35 1/4 in., Heard Museum purchase, 5019-1. Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum.

EARTHSONG

In preparation for the exhibition Substance of Stars and other exhibitions opening in the near future that will include Diné baskets, we invited Sally Black and her sister Lorraine Black (Diné) to the Heard Museum to discuss basket weaving and basketry design. It was then when we realized that we also had in our collection one of Sally’s earlier baskets, an oversized Ye’ii Bicheii pictorial basket that was woven in 1979, when she was still a teenager. This basket (NA-SW-NA-B-20) measures 41¼ inches in diameter and, I imagine, took quite a bit of strength to form. This was an exciting find, and Sally’s reunion with her earlier basket was a moving event to witness and be part of.

ABOVE, Right: Sally Black (Diné), b. 1959, How Coyote Put the Stars in the Sky, c. 2012, sumac, dye, 3 in. by 16 1/2 in. diameter. Heard Museum purchase, 5012-1.

Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum. BELOW, Left to Right: Sisters Lorraine Black (left) and Sally Black (right) hold an oversized Ye’ii Bicheii pictorial basket woven by Sally and acquired by the Heard Museum in 1979. More works in the Heard’s permanent collection created by both artists are shown in the shelves above Sally’s left shoulder. Photo by Craig Smith, Heard Museum. Sally Black (center) with one of her sisters (left) and mother Mary Holiday Black (right). Sally is working on an oversized Ye’ii Bicheii pictorial basket (NA-SWNA-B-20), measuring 41 1/4 in. diameter. The basket was completed in 1979 and shortly thereafter was acquired by the Heard Museum. Photo courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (NMAI. AC.070_004_001_006).

Substance of Stars is guest curated by Sean Mooney and Chuna McIntyre (Central Yup’ik,) with advisory support from Josephine Aloralrea (Cup’ik, Nunivak Island), Vernon Chimegalrea (Central Yup’ik), Jamie Jacobs (Seneca), Michael Galban (Mono Lake Paiute), Thomas Porter (Mohawk), Ainsley Jemison (Seneca), Marie Watt (Seneca), Velma Kee Craig (Diné), Manuelito Wheeler (Diné), Steven Yazzie (Diné/Laguna Pueblo/ Anglo), Orlando White (Diné), Barnaby Lewis (Akimel O’otham), David Martinez (Akimel O’odham/Hia Ced O’odham/Mexican) and Jacob Butler (Akimel O’otham).

The Heard Museum is delighted to have these newly acquired works for the exhibition, and we offer many thanks to the creators of these beautiful works and the stories that they enable the exhibition team to share with our viewers.

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The last work the Heard Museum acquired for the exhibition is How Coyote Put the Stars in the Sky, by master basket weaver Sally Black. Woven in 2012, the pictorial basket tells the story of how Coyote interrupted First Man as he was carefully positioning the constellations in the sky. It is a humorous story that shares with Diné listeners the reason for the meticulous placement of some stars and the seemingly chaotic positioning of others. In the design of this basket, equal space is given to both First Man and Coyote, implying that each has his important place.

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In Conversation:

Jamie Jacobs

OLIVIA BARNEY | COLLECTIONS COORDINATOR

This fall, the Heard Museum is unveiling a new exhibition, Substance of Stars. Jamie Jacobs is one of the guest curators contributing to the exhibition, in addition to his head curator role for the Rock Foundation Collection at the Rochester Museum & Science Center. Jacobs is Seneca, one of the nations that is part of the Iroquois Confederacy, and of the Turtle Clan. He grew up immersed in his culture on Tonawanda Seneca territory, and he is currently one of the last language speakers in his community. He is also a multiple award winner from this summer’s Santa Fe Indian Market, receiving a first-place and two second-place ribbons. I talked with Jacobs about being a curator, being an artist, and what he looks forward to with Substance of Stars.

Olivia Barney: How did you become interested in being a curator?

ON EXHIBIT 16

Jamie Jacobs: It began when I started working in Rochester. I started off as an intern while I was going to college. When I graduated, I had already worked myself up into the museum. I enjoyed it so much that I just kept going with it. Which, when I look back on it, this is probably what I was meant to do.

OB: What about your journey as an artist?

JJ: I do traditional quill work here in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes. I started doing reproduction work of items I saw in museum collections. Now, I’m going off into my own contemporary type of quill work.

So, I do a little bit of everything, and it’s become one of my passions. I really love doing it. I want to explore trying to blend the old with the new, the new with the old.

Photograph courtesy of Jamie Jacobs

EARTHSONG

Photograph courtesy of Jamie Jacobs

OB: When curating, do you have a process you go through or any particular focuses you keep in mind?

JJ: I don’t look at objects as just objects. They have life, and I give them the proper respect they deserve.

I treat them as ancestors and not just as inanimate materials, because they’re not. I speak to them. I ask them questions. I figure out how I can make their voices heard and known.

everything I have into this exhibition because I want to represent my people well. I’m also in love with the idea of having four groups from different parts of Indian Country [in the exhibition] because that’s exactly what it’s doing.

Hopefully, the exhibition will plant a seed in the viewers’ minds. That they go home and look us up or pick up more literature or come visit us even. That’s my hope.

OB: You’re also working on a language manuscript.

Would you like to talk about that project?

OB: You’re one of the guest curators for Photograph courtesy of Jamie Jacobs JJ: Nobody has ever written anything Substance of Stars. like this on any kind of Iroquoian What are you looking forward to project. It was written by an elder from my community with the exhibition?

JJ: To bring this exhibition and to bring our [Seneca] story [to Phoenix], it’s going to let people know that tribes east of the Mississippi River are still here. We’re still alive. We still have stories. To have our voice echo across the country, that’s one of my favorites. I’m putting

and never published. It’s written in such a way that anybody can pick it up and learn from it. To be able to finish this project, not only for her but for the future, it couldn’t come at a better time. Like the exhibition, I’m putting everything I’ve got into it because it’s going to have a lasting effect on our world.

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Members Experience More

MEMBERSHIP

KIM ALEXIS ADVERSARIO MEMBERSHIP & CIRCLES MANAGER

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Our new original exhibition, Substance of Stars, opens on Sunday, Nov. 6, and we are thrilled to share this display of historical works and innovative technologies with our Heard Museum members before it opens to the public. This celebratory occasion includes special remarks from guest curator Sean Mooney and a first look at the stunning catalogues for this exhibition. Members will be the first to explore this remodeled gallery space and experience the 360-degree projections in the Sky-Dome.

As a member, you enjoy benefits like exclusive exhibition openings along with free admission year-round, a 10% discount in the Heard Museum Shop and Café, discounted admission for our signature events, and exclusive opportunities to connect with American Indian art and artists.

Your dedication to our work lights the way for another spectacular season for exhibitions, public programs and events that you won’t find anywhere else, and I extend my sincerest gratitude to you. Your support enables us to further our mission every day and encourages the Heard Museum to reach for the stars and beyond in curating new exhibitions, executing educational programs, planning special member experiences, and much more. Thank you!

EARTHSONG

TAKE THE EXHIBITION HOME WITH YOU Substance of Stars exhibition catalogue now available in the Heard Museum Shop, Books & More and heardmuseumshop.com

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