FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE
Spring 2013
Orlando Dugi Anita Fields Tom Jones Erin Shaw
Greenlandic Art Rethinking Native Fashion Délégation Amérindienne, Paris
2013 International
Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries and Museums Save the Date Now
June 10–13 2013 Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico Featuring 14 Pre-conferences and tours 90 Sessions, including hands-on labs Digital Storytelling track Keynotes by Honorary Chair LaDonna Harris, Walter Echo-Hawk, James Anaya, and more Luncheon honoring Scott Momaday Literary Evening with Joe Bruchac, Walter Echo-Hawk, Joy Harjo, Scott Momaday, and Tim Tingle Evenings at Santa Fe’s Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Guardians of Lifeways Awards Ceremony
Registration is $250 and includes two breakfasts and three luncheons. For more information, please visit www.atalm.org
KESHi thezuniconnection
Dragonfly, to the Zunis, is the messenger between the physical and spiritual. Since 1981, Keshi has used this symbol to honor our role as a bridge from Zuni Pueblo to your world. Our purpose is to create a place where the Zuni people can sell their unique pieces at an equitable price.
227 don gaspar santa fe, nm 87501 505.989.8728
www.keshi.com
Pottery corn maiden: Randy Nahohai: Dragonfly fetish: Brian Yatsattie
since 1981
fetishes
jewelry
pottery SPRING 2013
1
FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE
www.FirstAmericanArtMagazine.com
The leading voice for Native American art
Quarterly Coverage
Brent Greenwood Indian Market 2013 Booth 779LIN-W www.brentgreenwood.com gwoodstudio@yahoo.com www.kivaindianart.com
2
WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM
SPRING 2013
FEATURES
REVIEWS
More Than Just a Trend: Rethinking the “Native” in Native Fashion Jessica R. Metcalfe (Turtle Mountain Chippewa)
36
Something Imperialistic Happened on the Way to the Louvre: Délégation Amérindienne 2012, An Artist’s Perspective Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation)
40
Northern Lights: Greenlandic Art in the 21st Century America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
46
“Biennale of Sydney: all our relations” Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo)
56
“The Way We Live: American 59 Indian Art Of The Great Basin And The Sierra Nevada” Melissa Melero (Northern Paiute/Modoc) “Real N.D.N.–Native Diaspora Now” 60 America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) “Arte Textil Contemporáneo” Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/Choctaw)
62
DEPARTMENTS ARTIST PROFILES Orlando Dugi (Diné) Teri Greeves (Kiowa)
10
Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee) Denise Neil-Binion (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation)
18
Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
24
Erin Shaw (Chickasaw/Choctaw) America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
30
Images left, from top: • Tom Jones, detail of Powell Littlejohn, 2012, digital print, 25 × 20 in. • Orlando Dugi. detail of Celestial Phoenix, 2010, beaded sting ray leather handbag. • Erin Shaw, detail of On the Grave of Dreams, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 30 × 40 in. • Anita Fields, Begin with Your Left, 2012, clay slips, under glaze, gold luster glaze, 4½ × 8½ in.
Recent Developments
8
Exploring Native Graphic Design Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Chippewas of Rama First Nation)
10
Pueblo Revolt Reid Gómez (Navajo) Illustrations by Bryon Archuleta (Ohkay Owingeh)
68
Book Reviews
63
Numbers
76
In Memoriam
77
Cover: Erin Shaw, Be Prepared, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 12 × 12 in. From the Meritocracy series: “This series is not about birds, or merit badges, or the Boy Scouts of America, or some metanarrative where birds or merit badges are a metaphor for people and our daily strife toward a definable identity. This series, these layers, these multiple mediums are a challenge, an invitation to consider paradox, unanswered questions, accidents, truths, paradigms.” —Erin Shaw Back cover: Melissa Melero, Category X, 2011, mixed media on canvas, 48 × 36 in. “Category X is a response to everything Native being put into categories and boxes, instead of seeing Native art simply being art made by Natives.” —Melissa Melero SPRING 2013
3
CONTRIBUTORS ROY BONEY JR. (Cherokee Nation) is a full-blood Cherokee and an award-winning filmmaker, artist, and writer. Boney has written, directed, and produced several short animated films. As a graphic novelist, Boney contributed to Dead Eyes Open and the Eisner Award nominated anthology Trickster: Native American Tales. He works for the Language Technology Program for the Cherokee Nation Education Services Group in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. REID GÓMEZ, PhD (Navajo) is a writer, scholar, and language advocate from California. She was raised in San Francisco and earned her PhD in comparative ethnic studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught in universities for more than 20 years. Her first novel was A Woman’s Body Was Found There. Gómez was awarded the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Emerging Writers Award in 1995. Currently, she is working of several pieces about Navajo slaves, and the effects of attempted extermination on the Navajo, Apache and Pueblo peoples. TERI GREEVES (Kiowa) is beadwork artist, who grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Currently she lives in Santa Fe with her husband and two sons. Greeves graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in American Studies magna cum laude. Her work combines Kiowa oral history with her personal and family experiences. ANDREA R. HANLEY (Navajo) has over two decades of professional experience working in the field of arts advocacy, exhibition development, and arts management, primarily focusing on American Indian art. She is currently the membership and program manager for the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. SUZAN SHOWN HARJO, PhDH (Southern Cheyenne/Muscogee), is a poet, writer, curator, lecturer, and policy advocate, who has helped Native peoples protect sacred places and recover more than one million acres of land. President of the Morning Star Institute, she is an award-winning columnist for Indian Country Today Media Network and guest curator and general editor of Treaties: Great Nations In Their Own Words. An honorary Doctorate of Humanities (Institute of American Indian Arts, 2011), she is a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian, former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, and past news director of the American Indian Press Association.
4
WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM
CONTRIBUTORS MELISSA MELERO (Northern Paiute/Modoc) is a mixed-media artist living in Hungry Valley, Nevada. She served as the program associate at Sierra Arts Foundation in Reno, Nevada. Melero has a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and a Bachelor of Science from Portland State University in Oregon. She exhibits her art throughout the United States. JESSICA METCALFE, PhD (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) earned her doctoral degree in American Indian studies from the University of Arizona. Her dissertation was on Native designers of high fashion. Metcalfe is the main author of the Native fashion website, Beyond Buckskin, and is the owner of the Beyond Buckskin Boutique. She has taught courses in Native studies, studio art, art history, and literature at tribal colleges and state universities. She has presented at conferences, lectured, and curated. Currently Metcalfe lives in Bottineau, North Dakota. DENISE NEIL–BINION (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation) currently resides in Norman, Oklahoma. She has just completed her master of arts degree in Native American art history from the University of New Mexico, and her research interests center on Native American female artists in Oklahoma. She will begin studies for her PhD in Native American art history at the University of Oklahoma in the fall. SARAH SENSE (Chitimacha/Choctaw) is an artist, curator, and writer from Sacramento, California. Sense’s art practice is weaving photographs with her family’s historic Chitimacha basketry techniques. In 2010 Sense began traveling and researching Indigenous art and culture in North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean Islands; and Southeast Asia, where she currently resides. NEEBINNAUKZHIK SOUTHALL (Chippewas of Rama First Nation) is a graphic designer and artist, working in portrait photography and body painting. She earned an honors BFA from Oregon State University’s graphic design program and the University Honors College, with a minor in fine arts. She created the Native American Graphic Design Project to increase the visibility of North American Indigenous graphic artists. below: Erin Shaw, The End of A Story that Has No Ending, 2013, 24 × 120 in.
Do you have comments, corrections, or general thoughts on what you read here in First American Art Magazine? Please share them with us. You can either email letters to the editor to info@ firstamericanartmagazine.com, subject line “editor,” or mail them to: First American Art Magazine Attention: Editor, 3334 W. Main St. 442 Norman OK 73072 SPRING 2013
5
First American Art Magazine, LLC Issue No. 0, Spring 2013, Revised on October 1, 2023
Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Copy Editors: Meghan Cunningham, Christine Eddington Layout and Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Chippewas of Rama First Nation) Consultants: Staci Golar, David Winfield Norman, Laura Paschall (Cherokee Nation), Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Chippewas of Rama First Nation) Logo Design: Peter Kahn Editorial Advisory Board: Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Maggie Ohnesorgen (Mestiza) Jim Rivera (Pascua Yaqui) Paula Rivera (Taos Pueblo)
Homahota Consulting, LLC Tribal-centric Consulting Services
Our Mission| Poimalamit Aaiya Homahota Consulting LLC works to empower Native Nations by supporting organizations in reaching towards their mission and achieving their quantifiable goals of service to Tribal Communities.
Our Vision | Popisa Homahota Consulting LLC envisions a national and global environment where Tribal Nations represent themselves, with their own stories and have an equal seat at the policy making table.
Our Values | Poaiyulli Homahota Consulting LLC is committed to tribalcentric nation building practices rooted in cultural context and academic and business rigor.
Practice Areas • Project Design and Management • Client Research and Analysis • Academic Writing and Lectures • Communications • Policy Analysis • Grant Development
Traci L. Morris, PhD founder and owner 520-891-1851 traci@homahotaconsulting.com www.homahotaconsulting.com
Thanks to: Jacquie Archambeau (Cherokee Nation), Samonia Byford (Cherokee Nation), Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, Tom Farris (Otoe-Missouria/Cherokee), Thomas Fields (Muscogee/ Cherokee), Laura Fragua-Cota (Jemez Pueblo), Kennetha Greenwood (Otoe-Missouria), Alfredo Jaar (ChileanAmerican), Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer (Hopi/Choctaw), Peter Løvstrøm (Greenlandic Inuk), Stephen MacMurray, Mary Ellen Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Marla Skye (Onondaga), Rick Stivers, Marcia Swain, Katja Vahl (Greenlandic Inuk), Frank Weaver (Paraguayan-American), and the Nunani Avannarlerni Piorsarsimassutsikkut Attaveqaat (NAPA) For subscriptions, visit www.firstamericanartmagazine.com/ subscribe.html. Subscription services, changes of address, and wholesale inquiries: First American Art Magazine, 3334 W. Main St. #442, Norman, OK 73072. First American Art Magazine, LLC welcomes queries about editorial submissions. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, or artwork. First American Art Magazine, LLC is not responsible for the content of any article or for the statements of any advertiser. The publishers reserve the right to accept or reject any advertisement at their sole discretion. Copyright © 2013 by First American Art Magazine, LLC. Cover and contents are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or part by any method without written permission, expect those specific images listed with Creative Commons licenses. All reasonable efforts have been made to identify and contact copyright holders, but in some cases these could not be traced. If you hold or administer rights for materials published here, please contact us. Any errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. Letters to the Editor are welcome and may be mailed to: First American Art Magazine Attention: Editor 3334 W. Main St. #442 Norman, OK 73072 or emailed to info@firstamericanartmagazine.com. www.firstamericanartmagazine.com info@firstamericanartmagazine.com ads@firstamericanartmagazine.com Telephone: (405) 561-7655 First American Art Magazine is a Papyrus font-free publication.
Editor’s Greetings
W
ELCOME TO THE PILOT ISSUE of First American Art Magazine! This is a labor of love and necessity. Many pockets within the Native American art world have amazing dialogue about Indigenous art, but I don’t see the much needed cross-cultural platform for these different conversations. Hopefully, this magazine will hopefully draw more people into the conversation, about Indigenous art, Indigenous cultures, and the issues we all face today through the lens of art. What makes Indigenous art so challenging to write about is exactly what makes it so important.
Why the Americas? Too often Native peoples of the Americas are divided by language barriers established by the people that colonized us. For millennia, we interacted and exchanged ideas and practices that span both continents—North and South America— from cultivating maize and tobacco to creating Indigenous language websites. We have a lot to learn from each other. Our histories haven’t stopped. Recently, Native and non-Native people from innumerable countries have acted in solidarity with the Idle No More movement, resisting attempts by the Canadian government to strip Aboriginal peoples of Canada of their sovereign rights.
I grew up in the Oklahoman Indian art world; my parents were curators and activists. At age six, I remember sorting art show invitations by zip code at the Center of the American Indian. When I was seven, my family lived on Bacone College campus in Muskogee. I visited Dick West, Cheyenne artist and art director, at the Ataloa Lodge. In high school I rebelled against art and actually Native art is diverse. There flunked an art class. Later on, as a are thousands of Indigenous bike messenger in San Francisco, I tribes, nations, and villages in was starved for Native cultures, and, the Americas, who speak thouwhile doing deliveries, discovered sands of different languages. To first the Zuni Pueblo’s cooperative respect Native peoples is to respect gallery on Union Street and then America Meredith, Bringing Harmony into the cultural sovereignty and people’s World, 2008, gouache on paper, 21 × 16 in. the American Indian Contempoinherent right to express their rary Arts gallery. AICA’s traveling own culture, religion, and worlexhibit, Indian Humor, convinced me to go to college. I was considdview. Each group has individuals with their own perspectives. This diversity is our strength. It’s a challenge to come to grips with such ering the Institute of American Indian Arts and saw in the show a dizzying range of viewpoints, but too many people have tried to catalog that most of the participating artists had attended IAIA. Art lump us into an undifferentiated stereotypes. We have a right to be can change the course of people’s lives. Native art is holistic. It is not separate from daily or ceremonial life; it’s not on a pedestal— it’s interwoven into our lives, from the dance regalia made by relatives to an exhibition space in a tribal health clinic. While this makes the art difficult to define, it also keeps art relevant and meaningful in the real world.
ourselves, and, as art writers, the challenge is to allow artists and curators to express their viewpoints. We don’t all agree, and we don’t need to. The world of Indigenous art is richer because of the wide variety of perspectives. Different writers reach different communities. My goal with First American Art Magazine is to put these different communities in touch with each other—sharing information about artists, exhibitions, venues, etc.
As a working artist, I see all the time that Native art could benefit from context — if the public came to the table with more working knowledge of Native art history and theory. Not everyone has the luxury of attending art school; many people have work, family, and other commitments, but art history and theory should still be accessible to anyone with a genuine interest, and I sincerely hope First American Art Magazine can further that goal. —America Meredith SPRING 2013
7
Recent Developments The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) celebrated its 100th anniversary. To honor this occasion, the Royal Canadian Mint released a 99.99 percent gold collector-coin featuring an owl shaman designed by the late Joannassie Nowkawalk, an Inuk carver from Inukjuak, Quebec.
Gatherings WAG hosted a symposium Inuit Art: Trajectories of Transformation, which explored contemporary Inuit art’s history and place in the art world. Organized by Darlene Coward Wight,WAG’s curator of Inuit art, this symposium was held in conjunction with “Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art.” With 115 artworks chronicling the history of Inuit art from the 1950s to the present, “Creation and Transformation” is the WAG’s largest exhibition of Inuit art to date. The gallery is building a new Inuit Art and Learning Centre, which will showcase items from its 13,000–piece collection. The 11th Congress of the Ecológico Indígena que Organizó la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Tolima (Indigenous Ecological Regional Autonomous Corporation of Tolima) met in March in Tolima Department, Colombia. The meeting included dances, songs, and plays addressing water pollution and global climate change, presented by 300 children from 36 Indigenous communities.
Projects For three years, Matika Wilbur (Tulalip/Swinomish) will travel across the United States in car and RV to photograph all federally recognized tribes across the United States, part of Project 562 (of course, there are now 566 tribes). Matika Wilbur is a documentary photographer who has already completed several major projects photographing Indigenous peoples in North and South America. More information about Project 562 is online at matikawilbur. com/blog.
Venues Indigenous protesters, including Guajajara and Pankararú people, occupied the Museu do Índio in the Botafogo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in late March. The protesters have been displaced by the closing of Aldeia Maracanã, their village, and are negotiating with the government to restore their land.
8
WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM
Pre-Columbian petroglyphs in Amambay Department, Paraguay. Photo: Solar Map Project “The horizontal line of the cross is actually a type of horizon, that divides heaven and earth, but also it’s a line of time, from the beginning to the end. The vertical line is the link between God and man, where God lives outside of time in heaven, and man lives inside time on earth. Man’s soul must have a good connection with God, if not, upon death the soul gets recycled,” writes Frank Weaver. “The shaman then went on to explain that the section on the solar map at the bottom of the cross represents the different eras of man.”
Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, recently opened the Goudi’ni Gallery, its new Native American arts gallery. Michele McCall-Wallace is the gallery director. Wiyot elders chose the name, Goudi’ni, which is the Wiyot term for Arcata. The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is creating Philbrook Downtown, to showcase its modern and contemporary collections, including the Adkins Collection and the inaugural exhibit, “Identity and Inspiration in 20th Century Native American Art.” Located in Tulsa’s Brady Arts District, the new art center will be open to the public on June 14th. Ziindi Zine, an independent Indigenous art publication, opened 1Spot Gallery in the Roosevelt Row Arts District in Phoenix, Arizona. The gallery features experimental Native artists, primarily from the Southwest.
Awards Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, announced its 2013 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellows: Julie Buffalohead (Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit-Aleut), Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee), Meryl McMaster (Plains Cree-Blackfoot), and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Coast Salish). The fellowship includes an exhibit at the Eiteljorg Museum, museum purchase of their work, a catalog, and a $25,000 grant. In April, Cecultah, the Hidalgo State Council for Culture and Arts, honored Juan Torres Maria de La Nopalera (Hñahñu) of Alfajayucan, Mexico, in recognition for his 60–year career as drum maker, flautist, and sisal weaver.
Petroglyphs In October of 2012, vandals used chainsaws to steal four petroglyphs from the Volcanic Tablelands, north of Bishop, California. Other petroglyphs were defaced. These date back possibly 3,500 years, and, for generations, the Bishop Paiute Tribe has conducted ceremonies at the site. The stolen petroglyphs were recovered in January, but the vandals have not yet been caught. Under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), defacing cultural artifacts on public, federal, or Indian lands can be a felony crime with potential prison sentences and fines. California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D–Los Angeles) consulted with California tribes to draft Assembly Bill 52 to strengthen legal protections for sacred and cultural sites. Gatto hopes the bill will be ready this August.
Julius Badoni (Diné), Imagine & Create, 2013, oil on canvas, 4 × 4 in.
Petroglyphs in Amambay Department, Paraguay, will be documented thanks to the Solar Map Project. Paraguayan– American documentary filmmaker Frank Weaver is partnering with Paï-Tavytera leaders, including Galeano Suarez and Ña Silvia, to photograph the rock art, record oral history about their origins and meanings, and create a documentary film about the people, the land, and the petroglyphs.
Publications The Inuit Art Foundation (IAF) is back after being closed for most of 2012. In Iqaluit, Nunavut, the foundation elected a new board of directors of respected Inuit artists. IAF will soon resume publishing its journal, Inuit Art Quarterly. The foundation has supported Inuit art for the last 28 years. Contemporary Native Art Magazine (CNAM) is a new magazine published by Silvester Hustito from the Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. CNAM showcases contemporary Indigenous art by established and emerging talents.
Market According to auctioneers Skinner, Inc., of Massachusetts, the demand for historical American Indian art is on the rise. A February sale of Inuit and Plains artwork, which grossed $1,777,912.50, was the most lucrative sale by Skinner’s American Indian and Ethnographic Art department in the auction house’s history. SPRING 2013
9