First American Art Magazine No. 5, Winter 2014

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

Art by Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

No. 5, Winter 2014

Jessica Clark Joe Feddersen Larry McNeil Wendy Red Star

Mapuche Silver Jewelry Fish Skin Sewing Plains Indians Review Ohio’s Ancient Earthworks

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C H E R O K E E

V I L L A G E

DILIGWA (Dee-lee-gwah): Hunting. Canoeing. Flint knapping.

You think hobbies, we Think Cherokee.

21192 S KEELER DR, PARK HILL , OK 74451 • (888) 999-60 07 • CHEROKEEHERITAGE.ORG

KESHi thezuniconnection

227 don gaspar santa fe nm 505.989.8728

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since 1981 fetishes jewelry pottery Mary Lovato: Mosaic Shell Pin/Pendant

Idyllwild Arts Summer Program The summer tradition that began in 1950 to bring the best artists in their fields to teach under the pines continues today.

Intensive hands-on workshops in Native American Arts such as Hopi Jewelry, Navajo Weaving, Cahuilla Pottery, and Native Plants; as well as music, dance, theater, visual arts, writing and filmmaking are offered to students from age 5 to 105. Each year more than 1,800 adults and children attend the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program.

Registration begins Feb 2, 2015 summer@idyllwildarts.org 951.468.7265 idyllwildarts.org

#iamtheIdyllwild

First American Art Magazine, LLC Issue No. 5, Winter 2014 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Online) Publisher Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Marketing Director: Barbara Harjo (Cherokee descent) Copy Editor: Meghan Cunningham Proofreader: Rosa Cays (Chicana) Layout and Design: America Meredith Spanish Translator: Rosa Cays (Chicana) 215 S. Muskogee Ave., Tahlequah, Oklahoma 918-453-5728 ar tscenter.cherokee.org

Editorial Advisory Board: heather athone (Chickasaw-Choctaw) Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Maggie Ohnesorgen (Mestiza) Paula Rivera (Taos Pueblo) Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole) Ken Williams Jr. (Northern Arapaho-Seneca) Advertising Representatives: Barbara Harjo (Cherokee descent), Oklahoma and West Coast Nancy Strickland Fields (Lumbee), Midwest and East Alex Ponca Stock (Osage Nation), Southwest and Great Plains Social Media: Jacquie Archambeau (Cherokee Nation), Staci Golar (Cornish-Welsh-American), America Meredith

Monday thru Friday 9 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Saturday 10 a.m. - 2 a.m. (and by appointment)

Not your typical ad, but we’re not your typical Indian arts shop either ...........

BAHTI INDIAN ARTS In the summer of 1949, Tom Bahti, a recent graduate of anthropology from University of New Mexico, opened Ghost Ranch Trading Post at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, New Mexico. That winter he moved to Tucson where he eventually opened Tom Bahti Indian Arts. The author of a series of books, beginning with Southwest Indian Arts and Crafts (1966), he was a widely recognized authority on Indian arts and culture and in the forefront of those supporting the modern movement in Indian art. His son Mark took over the store in 1972 and has also authored a number of books and articles on various aspects of contemporary Indian art. Mark and and his wife Emmi continue the commitment to working with established and emerging artists in a range of media.

Come visit us in Tucson, Santa Fe, or on the web: W W W. B A H T I . C O M

Thanks to: Jeri Ah-Be-Hill (Kiowa-Comanche); James Bailey, MATRIX Press; Timothy E. Black; Jeff Binion; Samonia Byford (Cherokee Nation); Jorge Iván Cevallos; Jonathan Cha; Kelly Church (OdawaOjibwe); William Ferguson; Teresa Fields (Athabascan); Teri Greeves (Kiowa-Comanche); Heather Gross; Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw); Denise Neil-Binion (DelawareCherokee); Mary Ellen Meredith (Cherokee Nation); Rebecca Rockom, Froelick Gallery; Hoka Skenandore (Luiseño-Oneida-Oglala Lakota); Tatiana Lomahaftewa Singer (Hopi-Choctaw), Jeff Strand, and Julie Tapley-Booth.

Subscription services, changes of address, and wholesale inquiries: Email: circulation@firstamericanartmagazine.com Mail: First American Art Magazine, 1000 Cordova Place #843, Santa Fe, NM 87505.

First American Art Magazine, LLC, is not responsible for the content of any article or for the statements of any advertiser. First American Art Magazine welcomes queries about editorial submissions. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, or artwork.

First American Art Magazine 1000 Cordova Pl. #843 Santa Fe, NM 87505 www.firstamericanartmagazine.com info@firstamericanartmagazine.com ads@firstamericanartmagazine.com circulation@firstamericanartmagazine.com Copyright © 2014 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, except 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.

First American Art Magazine is a Papyrus font-free publication.

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57th Annual Heard Museum Guild

Indian Fair & Market

Celebrating the Art of Basketry March 7 & 8, 2015

2301 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ | 602.252.8840 x2276 | heard.org/fair From the Heard Museum Collection, from left: Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O’odham),Basketry olla, 2006-2007, Eucalyptus wood, beargrass, sinew. Heard Museum Purchase, 4470-1. Jeremy Frey (Passamaquoddy),Pictorial basket, Black ash, birch bark, sage, sweet grass, leather, porcupine quills Heard Museum Collection, 4302-1A,B. Dorlene Gashweseoma Lalo (Hopi), Sifter basket, c. 2005, Yucca. Bequest of William F. & Virginia C. Waterman, 4666-93. Diane Douglas-Willard (Haida),Rattle-top lidded basket with frog fetish, 2001, Cedar bark, spruce root, ivory, glass beads. Estate of Dr. E. Daniel Albrecht, IL.1732.ALB-B-92A,B. Evelyn Fredericks (Hopi) demonstrates basket weaving technique. Lisa Telford (Haida, A Night on the Village, 2004. Red cedar bark, guinea feathers, cotton cordage, leather, ivory. Heard Museum Purchase, 4303-1. Sally Black (Navajo), Ye’ii’ Pictorial Basket, 1979. Heard Museum Collection, NA-SW-Na B-20. Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee), 10 Little Indians, 2013. Arches watercolor paper splints printed with archival inks, acrylic paint. Purchased at the 2014 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, Gift of the Heard Museum Council, 4781-1. Jennifer Sapiel Neptune (Penobscot), Basket, 2005, Sweet grass, dyed ash. Purchased by the donor at the 2005 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market. Gift of James T. Bialac, 4352-1.

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ISSUE NO. 5, WINTER 2014 FEATURES

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Fish Skin as a Textile Material in Alaska Native Cultures Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

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Mapuche Silver: Dreams, Tears, and the Work of a Retrafe Heidi McKinnon

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Ohio’s Ancient Earthworks America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

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ARTIST PROFILES Jessica Clark (Lumbee) Nancy Strickland Fields (Lumbee)

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Joe Feddersen (Okanagan-Sinixt) America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

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Larry McNeil 28 (Tlingit-Nisga’a) Lara M. Evans, PhD (Cherokee Nation) Wendy Red Star (Crow) 34 Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole Nation)

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DEPARTMENTS Recent Developments

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Seven Directions : Kelly Church (Odawa-Ojibwe)

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Exploring Native Graphic Design Publications Professional: Deborah Villa (Mestiza) Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa)

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In Memoriam: 71 David Lee Pecos (Cochiti-Jemez-Laguna Pueblos) Jamelyn Ebelacker (Santa Clara Pueblo) Advice: Photographing Your Art the Painless Way Christopher Short (Citizen Potawatomi)

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Literature + Art: Interview with and poetry by Natalie Diaz (Mojave-Pima)

by Reid Gómez (Navajo Nation) Images: Hoka Skenandore (OneidaOglala Lakota-Luiseño)

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REVIEWS Art Exhibition Reviews

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Book Review

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Show Reports

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COVER: Wendy Red Star (Crow), Winter, 2006, digital photographic print, 30 x 26 in.

Image courtesy of the artist. From Red Star’s The Four Seasons series, inspired by the artificial environment of a natural history museum in which the artist found antique Crow moccasins, alluding to the greater romanticization and misrepresentation of Native peoples.

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Editor’s Greetings

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HE NATIVE ART WORLD is vast. There is a dizzying variety in media, aesthetics, philosophies, perspectives, and general approaches to Indigenous art—how can one grasp them all? Today, over 52 million Indigenous peoples live in North and South America, and an estimated 650 to 930 Indigenous languages are still spoken. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Native artists are actively creating new works on two continents.

Our profiled artists range from emerging to mid-career to well established in their professional lives. They work in a broad array of media—glass, basketry, painting, printmaking, photography, textiles, installation, and more. Native peoples excel at using a wide range of tools to communicate their points of view.

Our faithful readers may have noticed that we always showcase the work of two women and two men in each issue.

Balance is important, as many of our dances reveal.

Such a broad cultural expanse is daunting, but also exhilarating. Most of all, it is humbling. No one can be the expert of all Native art. We are all beginners, learning and exploring, with so much more to understand.

Alutiiq scholar and author Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi writes about fish skin as an artistic material, highlighting how important other species are to our lives. This shimmering, multihued textile is both aesthetically pleasing and practical for its durable, flexible, and waterproof qualities. Artists and institutions are partnering in research, so that artists can bring this labor-intensive but fascinating artistic material back to their communities.

First American Art Magazine shares this unfolding process of inquiry into the myriad expanse of Indigenous art. We are grateful to our writers who have no shortage of superb artists or subject matter to cover.

Heidi McKinnon, Executive Director of Curators Without Borders, shares an introduction of Mapuche silverwork in southern Chile. The Mapuche successfully resisted invasion by both the Inca Empire and the Spanish and inspire tribes across the hemisphere. Her article shows us the importance of understanding an art from its community context. Among Mapuche people, the exquisite jewelry isn’t a decoration for the wealthy few, but prayers and invocations for protection.

As an avid student of precontact earthworks, I have long read about the monumental tumuli in Ohio, but nothing prepared me for actually seeing them in person. Ohio is the center of earthworks in every possible iteration—conical, platform, and effigy mounds and circular, square, even octagonal enclosures. It took being present in that environment to begin to grasp how our most ancient ancestors and subsequent generations utterly transformed the landscape of what is now Ohio. Due to disease and warfare in the last five centuries, we have lost so much of our own history, yet through the artworks they left our ancestors still speak to us.

Curators and authors present Native art to us in the most impressive ways, as our review section reflects.

These days surely are a golden age of Indigenous art exhibitions with diverse communities increasingly connecting through the arts. Our growing league of critics helps to make sense of these efforts and share them with the public.

America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), The Hero Twins Release Game into the World, 2011, acrylic, colored pencil, watercolor, and One-Shot enamel on panel, 24 x 30 in., private collection.

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The artistic ambitions of our communities reach out into the Seven Directions. They compel us all to take a look.

—America Meredith

Letters to FAAM

Randy & Nick Brokeshoulder

Troy Jackson

Traditional Hopi Katsina Carving

Ꭳ

ᏏᏲ! I enjoyed and was impressed by Roy Boney Jr.’s profile article on Cherokee Troy Jackson (no relation) in the fall Issue No. 4 of First American Art Magazine. I was touched

by Jackson’s sculpture, I’m Part White But Can’t Prove It. I relate to the tension that inspired the piece. I value the notion of exploring identity through sculpture, and Mr. Jackson’s efforts to join European culture and American Indian culture via his art is appreciated and commendable.

Boney’s story of Jackson’s experience with an acquaintance represented one area of challenge for me. Regarding the person that charged Jackson with being a “wannabe” because Jackson did not speak Cherokee, I raise the question of compassion. Boney quotes Mr. Jackson’s response: “I take this with a gesture of humility, but can’t help but believe he’s right, especially since I can’t argue with him in his own language.”

I take the humor inherent in the story, and further acknowledge that I cannot capture the full context since I was not present. I also admire Jackson for acknowledging a limitation. On the other hand, how do we best address these issues of race? I agree with the axiom that, “Language is culture, and culture is language” to the degree that communication provides inroads for kindness.

I always thought that language is part (not the whole) of a set of values in the Cherokee community, and what makes sense to me are the values we bring to the table and to that community.

Whether one is a “fullblood,” or fluent in the Cherokee language, or “registered,” or serves on the tribal council, seems to mean little if the concept of kindness, generosity, and compassion—historically key Cherokee traits—are lacking.

Jackson’s work, especially Thank God For Who I Am, SelfPortrait and I’m Part White But Can’t Prove It, represent the aforementioned traits quite well, I thought. Didn’t sound like an “Indian wannabe” to me…. ᏩᏙ to Cherokees Troy Jackson for his work and Roy Boney Jr. for sharing his work with us!

Bryan D. Jackson Kirkland, Washington

Pahlikmana katsina

by Randy Brokeshoulder

Hemis katsina

by Nick Brokeshoulder

We will have new carvings available at the

Greater Tulsa Indian Art Festival January 31st to February 2nd, 2015

Randy’s email: stack38granby@yahoo.com Nick’s email: nbrokesh@unm.edu

Judging

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HANKS FOR DELIVERING ISSUES of First American Art Magazine. Loved the article on judging—made my volunteering at SWAIA more interesting!

Jimmie Spulecki Volunteer at the International Folk Art Market Santa Fe, NM

We’re glad that the judging article was helpful. Hopefully art organizations will support more transparency about their judging processes.

We welcome letters to the editor! If we print your letter, we will send you a free copy of that issue of the magazine.

Please email your letters to us at:

info@firstamericanartmagazine.com or­mail letters to:

First American Art Magazine Attention: Editor 1000 Cordova Place, #843

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Contributing Writers JAMELYN EBELACKER (Santa Clara Pueblo) is a senior

new media arts major at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), where she served as the 2013–14 American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Congress vice-president.

Jamelyn currently serves as the 2014–15 IAIA Associated Student Government president.

LARA M. EVANS, PhD (Cherokee Nation), is associate

professor of Native American art history at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She earned her doctoral degree in art history with emphasis on contemporary Native American art at the University of New Mexico in 2005. She coedited Art in Our Lives: Native Women Artists in Dialogue. Evans also wrote a chapter in Action and Agency: Advancing the Dialogue of Native Performance Art and an essay in Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism. She is also a practicing artist, primarily working in painting and drawing.

MICHOLE ELDRED (Catawba Nation-Eastern Cherokee

descent) is a writer, curator, and educator. She received her bachelor’s degree in art and museum studies, at University of South Florida and her master’s degree in education from Berry College. Much of her work is focused on curating Indigenous art and historical exhibitions. She believes that the process of art making and enjoyment of the arts should be accessible to all peoples. Her work in writing art curriculum and teaching the arts to people with disabilities is reflected in the interpretive planning she creates when presenting exhibitions.

NANCY STRICKLAND FIELDS (Lumbee) is a graduate

of the Institute of American Indian Arts with a bachelor’s degree in museum studies and has been a museum professional for over ten years. She is the education coordinator at the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum in Oklahoma City and previously worked for the National Museum of the American Indian. Fields is currently finalizing her book, Lumbee Ghost Stories, Legends, and Lore, which chronicles the tradition of ghost storytelling within her tribe.

SUZANNE NEWMAN FRICKE, PhD (Ashkenazic-

American), wrote her dissertation in art history on 20th-century Native American pottery at the University of New Mexico.

She teaches art history at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. In 2012, she co-curated the exhibit Octopus Dreams, which traveled to six sites Russia and one in Albuquerque. In 2014, two museums in Russia displayed another show As We See It, curated by Dr. Fricke and India Young, who are preparing an accompanying catalogue. She is currently organizing a third show, which will also travel to Russia.

REID GÓMEZ, PhD (Navajo Nation), is the Mellon visiting

assistant professor of ethnic studies at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She is currently working on The Navajo Slave Project and finishing her fourth novel. Her work addresses extermination and slavery in the borderlands and bloodlands and language revitalization.

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SCOTT W. HALE is an accredited art appraiser for Native

American Art Appraisals, Inc., with offices in Los Angeles, Tulsa, Santa Fe, and New York City. He has been a curator and also writes for Western Art Collector magazine. Hale pursued his master’s and doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma, where he has also served faculty member.

FRANCI KING HART (English-American) is a freelance

writer, consultant, and fundraiser living in Nichols Hill, Oklahoma. Hart earned her bachelor’s degree in English and education from Southern Methodist University and her MBA from Southern Nazarene University. She is an alumna of Leadership Oklahoma, a former columnist of the Daily Oklahoman, and an avid collector Native American art.

THOLLEM MCDONAS is a peripatetic musician—a

pianist, keyboardist, and vocalist—as well as a collaborator, an activist, an educator, and an author. He has released over 40 albums of his own work and in collaboration with others on 18 different vanguard labels. As an author, he has contributed articles to Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Entasis, and Full Moon Magazine.

HEIDI MCKINNON is executive director of Curators

Without Borders, a nonprofit that designs exhibitions and educational programming for international development projects and underserved communities in conjunction with museum partners, government agencies, and NGO partners. She concurrently serves as director of exhibitions and community programs at the Sandy Spring Museum in Maryland.

McKinnon’s career focuses on historical memory, human rights, and Indigenous communities in the Americas, to which she brings over a decade of experience developing collaborative museum exhibitions both independently, at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

JEAN MERZ-EDWARDS has been studying and teaching art history since 2000 when she attended her first art history classes at Hunter College in New York. Recently, her studies include earning a master’s degree in art history from the University of Oklahoma, where Jean was awarded a certificate in women’s and gender studies and the Alice Mary Robertson Award for her scholarship on the life and art of Hopi-Choctaw Linda Lomahaftewa. Jean teaches art history and English at Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina, Kansas.

LINDA PERALA-HUNT (Finnish-American) is an

art writer, a painter, and a photographer, living in Durango, Colorado. She is a sales associate at Toh-Atin Gallery and served as art director of Sorrel Sky Gallery. Perala-Hunt writes for blogs and newspapers, such as the Durango Herald. She earned her bachelor of arts in fiber, textile, and weaving arts from the Memphis College of Art.

MASON RIDDLE is a critic based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, who writes about the visual arts, architecture, and design.

She was the director of the former Two Rivers Gallery at the Minneapolis American Indian Center where she curated multiple exhibitions. Riddle has written about numerous Native artists. Previously, she was the director of the Goldstein Museum of Design and the Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places program. Riddle holds a master’s degree in art history and museum practice from the University of Minnesota and has taught art history at the college level.

NADIA JACKINSKY-SETHI, PhD (Alutiiq), is an art historian and an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She works as a program officer for a grant program dedicated to supporting Alaska Native artists at the CIRI Foundation. Her research interests include Alaska Native art, cultural revival, and identity.

CHRISTOPHER SHORT (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) is a mixed media artist living in Arizona. Short incorporates graphics, engraving, and photography in his work, as well as video projection, strobes, flashlights, and custom laser hardware that he designs and builds. He exhibits throughout the Southwestern United States and teaches photography classes and produces videos for the Heard Museum and other Native

American organizations. Short has won four awards from the International Laser Display Association (ILDA) for his laserbased artwork.

NEEBINNAUKZHIK SOUTHALL (Chippewas of

Rama First Nation) is a graphic designer and an artist, working in a variety of media such as photography, body painting, and three-dimensional art at Neebin Studios. At Oregon State University, she graduated magna cum laude in 2011, earning an honors BFA through the University Honors College and OSU’s competitive graphic design program, with a minor in fine arts.

Southall works at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, where she photographs, designs, and manages media.

MARY JO WATSON, PhD (Seminole Nation of

Oklahoma), is director emeritus and regents’ professor of art history at the School of Art and Art History of the University of Oklahoma. She earned her BFA in art history, MLS in Seminole aesthetics, and PhD in philosophy from the University of Oklahoma. Watson’s curatorial practice spans decades. She serves on the Seminole Tribal Arts Council and several Native art committees including at the Oklahoma History Center and American Indian Cultural Center and Museum. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Heritage Society’s Hall of Fame in 2014. Dr. Watson developed the current Native Art History Program at the University of Oklahoma.

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Recent Developments MUSEUMS The new director of the Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, is Jose Rivera.

Rivera is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as director of education at Marin Museum of the American Indian.

ART FAIRS The fifth Indigenous Intercontinental Biennial of Art took place in Quito, Ecuador. Category winners include: Máximo Laura (Peru), textiles; Techung (Tibet) and Amanda Guerreño (Argentina), music; Nadia Sirry (Egypt), Rubén Ricaurte (Ecuador), and Mártin Gómez, (Peru ), painting; Manolo Colmenares (Colombia) and Oscar Hernández (Colombia), sculpture; Pascual Cori Huarachi (Bolivia), drawing; Víctor Neira (Peru), photography; Joel Herencia (Peru), goldsmithing; Las Lolas (Ecuador), performing arts and dance; David Martínez (Peru), comedy; Luciano Mogollón (Ecuador), Jorge Ponce (Argentina), and Pascual Misaico Huancahuari (Peru), printmaking. Luis Eduardo Paucar (Ecuador) won the Jumandi Young Talent Award.

The World Eskimo-Indian Olympics held annually in Fairbanks, Alaska, not only celebrates strength, agility, and stamina, but also the arts and humanities. Participants competed in textiles, fashion, and dance.

First places winners include: Gina Kallock for Native Dress, Indian Cloth; Tamera Caption for Native Dress, Indian Hide; Adrienne Aakaluk Titus for Native Dress, Eskimo Cloth; Tranquilynna Nageak and Shaylyn Nageak for Eskimo Native Baby Regalia, Fur; Elsa Carroll and Alice Carroll for Eskimo Native Baby Regalia, Cloth; Elsa Carroll and Alice Carroll for Indian Native Baby Regalia, Hide; and Janelle Chapin and Areena Dae Chapin for Indian Native Baby Regalia, Cloth. For Native Dance, Nagsragmiut Inland Eskimo Dancers of Anaktuvuk Pass were the first place among Eskimo groups, and the Troth Yeddha’ Dancers, from University of Alaska, Fairbanks, won first place among Indian groups.

SWAIA’s Santa Fe Indian Market featured 1100 artists, and this year’s Best of Show winner was Lola Cody (Navajo), for her 96 x 164-inch weaving. Classification winners were Gerald Lomaventema (Hopi) for jewelry; Chris Youngblood Cutler (Santa Clara) for pottery; Norma Howard (Choctaw-Chickasaw) for two-dimensional art; Bryant Honyouti (Hopi) for wooden Pueblo carvings; Marvin Oliver (Quinault) for sculpture; Lola Cody (Navajo) for textiles; Babe and Carla Hemlock (both Mohawk) for diverse arts; Joyce, Jessa Rae, and Juanita Growing Thunder (all Assiniboine-Sioux) for beadwork/quillwork; Sydney Freeland (Navajo) for moving images; and Jeremy Frey (Passamaquoddy) for basketry. Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa-Comanche) and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone-Bannock) won for best collaboration.

The 27th annual Northern Plains Indian Art Market in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, featured visual artists from the Great Plains of Canada and the United States. This year’s Best of Show winner was James Star Comes Out (Oglala). The “Best of Fine Arts” award went to Nelson Chasing Hawk (Sicangu). Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala) won the “Best of Tribal Arts” award. Division winners were Nelson Chasing Hawk for oil and acrylic paintings; Arthur Short Bull (Oglala) for watercolor, tempera, gouache, and casein; Charles Her Many Horses (Sicangu) for drawing; Roger Broer (Oglala) for printmaking; Nelda Schrupp (Pheasant Rump Nakota) for 3-D– additive process; Alfred DeCoteau (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) for 3-D–subtractive process; Nelda Schrupp for decorative metalwork; Todd Bordeaux (Sicangu) for mixed media; Megan Sweets (Yankton Dakota) for pottery; Charlene Holy Bear (Standing Rock Lakota) for traditional-style beadwork; Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala) for contemporary beadwork; Emil Her Many Horses for quillwork; Chantelle Blue Arm (Cheyenne River Sioux) for quilts; James Star Comes Out for textile and fabric items; Emil Her Many Horses for handmade dolls; Donald Montileaux (Oglala) for traditional paintings; and Dwayne Wilcox for tribal arts.

The Cherokee Art Market, with approximately 150 artists in Catoosa, Oklahoma, is hosted by the Cherokee

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Nation. The market celebrated its ninth anniversary. This year’s Best of Show winner was Benjamin Harjo Jr. (ShawneeSeminole). The “Innovator Award” went to Richard Casey (Muscogee) for his sculpture. The “Culture Keeper Award,” for a revived art form, went to Kenneth Williams (Northern Arapaho-Seneca) for his elk hoof bag set. Class winners were Benjamin Harjo Jr. for painting, Troy Jackson (Cherokee Nation) for sculpture, Jackie Larson Bread (Blackfeet) for beadwork/quillwork, Shawna Cain (Cherokee Nation) for basketry, Alvina Yepa ( Jemez Pueblo) for pottery, Marie Janette Martin (Cherokee Nation) for textiles, Antonio Grant (Eastern CherokeeNavajo) for jewelry, and Sean Rising Sun Flanagan (Taos Pueblo) for diverse arts.

ART SHOWS Sam Watts-Scott (Cherokee Nation) won the Grand Prize in this year’s Cherokee Homecoming Art Show at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma.

First place category winners were Robin Stockton for visual arts, Noel Grayson for traditional arts, Shawna Cain for traditional basketry, Jo Ann Richmond for traditional pottery, Charlotte Coats for contemporary basketry, Carolyn Pallett for contemporary beadwork, Teri Rhoades for jewelry, Karin Walkingstick for pottery, Troy Jackson for sculpture, and Dorothy Ice for textiles.

COLLECTIONS The University of Regina received a generous donation of over 1,000 artworks valued at 3 million dollars (US) from Dr. Jacqui Shumiatcher. She and her late husband Morris Shumiatcher collected the artwork, which includes 300 pieces by Inuit artists. These Inuit works will become the University of Regina Shumiatcher Inuit Art Collection to be overseen by the MacKenzie Art Gallery, located on campus.

The oldest continuing Indian college in the United States, Bacone College, located in Muskogee, Oklahoma, launched a yearlong effort to conserve its historic collection of Native American art, beginning with a weekend of conservation in September.

Oklahoma Department of Libraries, the Association for Tribal Archives Libraries and Museums (ATALM), and the Oklahoma Cultural Heritage Trust helped fund these initial conservation

efforts. Ataloa Lodge, the college’s Native American art museum founded by Mary “Ataloa” Stone McClendon (Chickasaw) in 1932, is closed for renovations, and its collection has been relocated to new archival storage.

David Warren (Santa Clara-Ojibwe) was awarded the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in recognition of his contributions to Native American education and art. Last year he was declared a Santa Fe Living Treasure.

Wayne S. Hyatt, a prominent art collector based in Atlanta, Georgia, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, donated a major collection to the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hyatt donated 364 pieces of Hopi art that he collected in Arizona from the 1980s to 2013.

REPATRIATION Spain returned 691 pre-Columbian ceramic artifacts, valued at over US $6.5 million, to Colombia. These artworks, some dating back to 1400 BCE, were seized by Spanish police in 2003 from a man accused of laundering money for drug cartels. Almost 200 other ceramics came from other South American countries.

The Museum of America in Madrid showcased some of the artwork in a temporary exhibit; however, a major exhibit of the ceramics is planned for 2015 at Colombian Anthropology and History Institute in Bogotá.

PROJECTS Pinnguaq, a video game developer in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, created Art Alive, a video game in which players interact with landscapes and objects from Inuit prints.

Ryan Oliver, who founded Pinnguaq with Tommy Akulukjuk in 2012, wants the game to educate youth about Inuit artwork.

Last year, Pinnguaq released Osmos, an Inuktitut-language game for the iPad.

Four ceremonial items have been returned to the Hopi Tribe, thanks to efforts by the tribe, the US Bureau of Land Management, and US Department of Justice.

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS Dempsey Bob (Tlingit-Tahltan) was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian order. Bob, a respected carver and educator, serves as senior advisor for the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art at the Northwest Community College, located in Terrace, British Columbia.

Three of the 32 artists, writers, and performers who won the 2014 United States Artists (USA) fellowships are Native American. Marcus Amerman (Choctaw) is the USA Rasmuson Fellow in Crafts and Traditional Arts, Natalie Diaz (Mojave-Pima) is the USA Ford Foundation Fellow in Literature, and Sydney Freeland (Navajo) is the USA Ford Fellow in Media.

The fellowships come with an unrestricted award of $50,000.

The 2014 Polaris Prize, given to the best Canadian album of the year, was awarded to Tanya Tagaq, an Inuk throat singer, for her album, Animism. Selected by Canadian music critics, the prize recipient receives a $30,000 (CAD) honorarium.

The US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced its 13 Lifetime Honors Recipients, which include Henry Arquette (Mohawk), a basket weaver from Hogansburg, New York; Yvonne Walker

Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa-Comanche) and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone-Bannock), Pocahontas Ring, Necklace and Earring Set, 2014. Winner of SWAIA’s Collaboration Award.

Image courtesy of Keri Ataumbi.

Keshick (Odawa), porcupine quill artist from Petoskey, Michigan; and Rufus White (Omaha), a singer and drum group leader from Walthill, Nebraska.

After efforts to stop a Paris auction of an Alaska Native painted wood panel failed, the Annenberg Foundation purchased the panel and donated it to the Sealaska Heritage Institute, located in Juneau, Alaska.

Previously, the Annenberg Foundation restored 25 Hopi and Apache ceremonial items purchased from the same auction house back to their respective tribes.

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) offered new regionally based fellowships to Indigenous artists from Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. The chosen fellows are Kevin Pourier (Oglala Lakota), Scenic, South Dakota; Jennifer Stevens (Oneida-Lakota), Green Bay, Wisconsin; Delina White (Leech Lake Ojibwe), Deer River, Minnesota; and Star Wallowing Bull (White Earth Ojibwe-Arapaho), Moorhead, Minnesota.

LEGAL ISSUES

The Hnatyshyn Foundation, located in Ottawa, Ontario, created a new Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Canadian Artists this year. The award is for professional Aboriginal artists under 30, and Meryl McMaster (Plains CreeBlackfoot), Jordan Bennett (Mi’kmaq), and Phillip Gray (Tsimshian-Cree) are the first three recipients of the prize.

Toakase F. Tovo Multnomah of Portland, Oregon, pleaded guilty to stealing Native American artwork valued at over $320,000 and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. She and her boyfriend John L. Kalamafoni stole over a hundred pieces of art from 91-year-old Margaret Sotta, for whom Multnomah worked as a home-care provider.

The family of two juveniles who defaced rock art in Carbon County, Utah, will pay for damages. Over Memorial Day weekend, the two juveniles carved their initials and the date onto the surface of the Nine Mile Canyon Pregnant Buffalo panel. Bureau of Land Management archaeologists estimated that restoration of the rock panel will cost $1,500. The youths were apologetic for their vandalism.

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Seven Directions: Kelly Church

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RIMARILY KNOWN FOR HER BLACK ASH basket weaving, Odawa-Ojibwe artist and educator Kelly Church also demonstrates and teaches black ash processing, basket weaving, and birch bark biting in the United States and Canada. She teaches youth to collect black ash seeds and organizes conferences around the black ash and other Great Lakes forest resources. Church has researched Anishinaabe artwork, from quilled birch bark boxes to basswood twined bags, in collections throughout the Northeast. She is a consultant to institutions and private collectors about black ash baskets and other Great Lakes artwork, identifying work and advising on conservation techniques. Check out: www.woodlandarts.com.

Kelly Church and her black ash baskets. Photo: Jeff Strand.

BELOW: David Martin (Pokagon Band Potawatomi) is an exciting, multi-talented artist. You can visit his tattoo and piercing studio called Bicycle Gallery and Body Art at 117 N. Main St. in South Bend, Indiana. Not only is Martin a phenomenal tattoo artist, he is also an accomplished painter, beadworker, and dancer.

NORTH: Wade Fernandez (Menominee) of Keshena, Wisconsin, plays it all! Catch a show with Fernandez on his upcoming tour schedule at various dates worldwide.

Winner of the Native American Music (NAMMY) award for Best Male Artist (2006), he plays contemporary rock, blues, world, soul, folk, and country, too! When asked what he is currently up to, the musician says, “Waewaenen! I am David Martin (Pokagon Potawatomi), oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

Kelly shares with us her top seven favorites in the Native art world today.

ABOVE: Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe of the Great Lakes is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto. This exhibit of modern and contemporary Anishinaabe artists from Canada and the United States, curated by David Penney and Gerald McMaster (Siksika Blackfoot-Plains Cree), will include new paintings by Christi Belcourt (Métis). If you missed the show at the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center in New York, you won’t want to miss this! The show runs through November 23, 2014, and there is an exquisite 144-page catalogue available from Smithsonian Books.

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Wade Fernandez (Menominee) simultaneously playing two flutes at Cenario, a concert hall in Vienna, Austria. Image courtesy of the artist.

Native North American Beadwork. This show, up through April 26, 2015, will not travel, so catch it while you can.

Fortunately, there’s a beautiful, hardcover catalogue by Lois Dubin accompanying the show, but nothing compares to seeing the minute details of the floral beadwork in person.

CENTER: Where I live (or close enough)—check out

Teri Greeves (Kiowa-Comanche-Italian), Abstraction: Kiowa by Design, 2014, high-heeled canvas shoes, glass beads, thread, 11.5 x 10 x 4 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

Healing Through Culture and Art, an exhibit of dance shawls of master beadwork artist Suzanne L. Cross, PhD (Saginaw Chippewa) at the Ziibiwing Center in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Having survived both a heart attack and open heart surgery, Dr. Cross created this series of thirteen beaded dance shawls to celebrate 13 moons of the lunar calendar and created “with a cultural approach to increase awareness and emphasize cardiac health and care.”2 The show continues through February 28, 2015.

currently in the finals for Artist of the Year and Recording of the Year in the NAMMYs (Native American Music Awards). But more importantly, I’m the father of five beautiful children. The youngest two are on tour with me right now, and the middle child (11 years old) will be going on a tour of Europe with me next week and will also be performing with me!”1 For more information, check out: www.wadefernandez.com.

SOUTH: State of the Arts Discovering American Art

Now is the major exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. To capture the true pulse of contemporary American art, the selection committee traveled over 100,000 miles to 1,000 locations to ultimately choose one hundred artists. This diverse cross section of contemporary artists includes two Native American representatives: Teri Greeves, Kiowa-Comanche beadwork artist from New Mexico, and James Lavadour, Walla Walla painter from Washington state. The show runs through January 19, 2015.

EAST: The long-anticipated Nation to Nation: Treaties

Between the United States and American Indian Nations is on view at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. Curated by Suzan Shown Harjo (Southern Cheyenne-Hodulgee Muscogee Creek), this show pairs historical and contemporary artworks and artifacts relating to the treaties between the United States and sovereign Indian Nations. Fortunately, this must-see event will show through fall of 2018.

WEST: On the Pacific coast in Los Angeles is the Autry National Center’s epic beadwork show, Floral Journey:

From the Nation to Nation exhibit: Unknown Muscogee Creek artist, bandolier bag, ca. 1814, wool fabric and tassels, silk, dye, glass beads, and cotton thread, Alabama. Image courtesy National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. Photo: Ernest Amoroso.

1. Wade Fernandez, e-mail message to author, October 17, 2014.

2. Suzanne Cross. “Healing Through Culture and Art Exhibition, Nov. 4, 2014–Feb. 28, 2015,” Michigan State University Museum, 6 October 2014, web.

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Exploring Native Graphic Design

Publications Professional: Deborah Villa

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EBORAH VILLA (Mestiza) is the creative powerhouse behind The Santa Fe New Mexican’s specialty magazines. As the creative director and senior editor, she produces publications for Santa Fe’s major art markets: the Santa Fe Indian Market, the International Folk Art Market/Santa Fe, and Spanish Market. Additionally, she puts together a variety of other magazines throughout the year, such as Bienvenidos, Winterlife, and Health & Wellness.

Remarkably, she is the only person on staff creating these magazines. “I design the magazine from scratch,” states Deborah. Tasks include selecting fonts, designing style sheets, determining advertising placement, and picking covers to be approved by the publisher. “You have to be detailoriented to do design,” says Deborah.

The ability to organize and manage time is also important. The grid is vital to establishing structure in her design process. “I started designing using a 12-column grid,” Deborah explains, further noting that more columns allow for greater design flexibility. Deborah emphasizes that the paper, the press, the publication, and the story must be taken into account when designing. “When you’re working with newsprint versus glossy, it’s all about readability.”

In addition to design, her work involves art direction, hiring photographers and illustrators, designers, editors, and writers. After many years of covering diverse subject matter in the various magazines, she has a good sense of who’s who and what’s going on in Santa Fe. In the last few years, she has hired editors and directed editorial content.

For the market magazines, she attends the shows and takes reference photos

By Neebinnaukzhik Southall for future articles and potential artists to cover. “I work a year in advance on all the magazines,” says Deborah.

“I [send] photographers out to all the markets to get photos for next year.”

Deborah’s level of expertise and bigpicture insight comes as the result of a rich history of creative work and a storied life. Her grandmother on her father’s side was a fullblooded Indigenous woman from Torreón, Mexico.

Deborah, a self-described “child of the sixties,” grew up in the Logan Heights barrio in San Diego, California, where her family has lived for many generations. As the Vietnam War raged on, Deborah watched as her brothers and members of her community were drawn into the conflict. “All the people in my neighborhood were sent to war,” reveals Deborah. The disparities within these circumstances affected her outlook and influenced her decision to work as a graphic designer.

After hitchhiking around the country and living in a commune, Deborah put herself through school, first attending Adams State College, where she studied ceramics and printmaking. She received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1978 to work as an artist in residence teaching in the schools and community of San Luis, Colorado. There, she taught ceramics and drawing. In her work she explored drawing on porcelain with a glaze pencil and silk-screen printing on tile.

Over time, she became disillusioned with the dynamics within the fine art world and “rebelled against fine art.”

“I did not want to do one painting so that only one person could buy it,” explains Deborah, bothered by the idea of catering to the elite to be successful.

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Preferring to create art that could be for everyone, she turned to printmaking, which led her to graphic design.

Desiring to fulfill a childhood dream of attending art school, Deborah moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art University, where she graduated with a BFA in graphic design in the early 1980s. “I think the most valid thing I learned at school was typography,” says Deborah, noting that certain design techniques later became obsolete with the shift to computers.

Every semester, she studied the history and nuances of type. “To me, it matters what fonts you use on different publications,” says Deborah. “You can tell an educated designer by their font choices.”

Inside and outside of school, San Francisco was an exciting place to be.

“I was meeting people from all over the world,” says Deborah. Punk rock was in full swing, and the music and poster art of such bands as the Talking Heads had a major impression on her. She met and befriended Stanley Mouse, who notably designed posters and album covers for bands such as the Grateful Dead in the ‘60s. “When I was a teen I had his posters on my wall,” she reveals. With the drummer for Jefferson Airplane for a roommate, Deborah met a lot of musicians, including many she had admired in her younger years.

Music and design continued to intersect for Deborah as art director for Tower Records, where she designed advertising. “My office looked onto the San Francisco Bay.” Other work perks included “free tickets for everything” and backstage passes to shows. After Tower Records, she freelanced out of her apartment studio on Beach and Hyde Streets, producing work

for nonprofit clients including Food First, Public Media Center, Mother Jones, and Greenpeace. Moving on, Deborah worked for Electronic Musician and Mix magazines for a few years in Berkeley.

“After the magazines, I got hired at the San Francisco Chronicle. I started doing newspaper features,” Deborah remembers. “We were working on the Macintosh and testing software for Adobe.” Designing on computers was then still new. On October 18, 1989, the Bay Area was hit with a major earthquake, and the electricity went out. “The back shop that put out the type couldn’t put it out,” tells Deborah.

“We stayed up all night with a generator hooked up to the Macs and put the type out.” Using floppy disks from the writers, the art department printed out the columns of type, pasted them up, and successfully put together the paper.

As a result of being part of the team that accomplished this feat, she was contracted as an art director by Apple in 1990, which had the earthquake edition of the paper hanging in their offices.

Deborah also worked at the Oakland Tribune until it folded.

She left San Francisco in 1993 and spent a winter in Red Lodge, Montana, where she shared an office on Main Street with a former colleague from Apple Computer. Working from a distance, they explored telecommuting with clients in California.

“I came to Santa Fe in 1996,” Deborah says. “I walked in to The Santa Fe New Mexican with my portfolio.” Although Deborah intended to do freelance work, the paper’s features designer had quit the day before, and she was hired to fill the position. There she worked on the copy desk, designed features for the paper, and worked on magazines.

Around 2004, Deborah took a break from The New Mexican and headed back to California. At Desert Magazine,

Deborah Villa at her home, 2014. Photo: Neebinnaukzhik Southall.

published by the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, she was hired to redesign the magazine. She art directed and managed photo shoots. Her first art direction project was on the red carpet with the Kirk Douglas family. She worked with photographers who shot food, architecture, fashion, and lifestyle photography. She was awarded an ADDY for publication design in 2005 for Desert Magazine.

However, a hostile work environment ultimately caused her to leave the magazine. “I left Palm Springs because of racial discrimination,” explains

Deborah, recounting several incidents, including one in which the publisher himself stated that he didn’t want “Hispanics” in his magazine. She then moved on to Diablo Magazine, produced in Walnut Creek in the Bay Area.

Upon returning to Santa Fe in 2006, she has since focused on producing beautifully designed magazines for The New Mexican. On September 27th she headed to the New Mexico Press Association’s award banquet to receive a hard-earned award for her work on the 2014 Bienvenidos.

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PROFILE

Lumbee Painter

Jessica Clark

By Nancy Strickland Fields

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OUR YEARS AGO at an American Indian cultural event in Charlotte, North Carolina, I discovered the art of Jessica Clark. While admiring the art in her booth, I was drawn to a print that featured a red barn positioned against a lush landscape. I recognized the style of barn and landscape as my tribal home in Robeson County, North Carolina. Scanning her other paintings and prints that featured people and places from our community, I thought, “This is it!”

This is what I have been waiting to see in Native art: a true, everyday depiction of contemporary Native people. Warm and engaging, Jessica introduced herself and offered her perspective about her art. Whenever she speaks about the cultural themes in her work, she exudes pride for Native people, and one can find this emotion in her colorful, compelling portraits and bucolic landscapes. Her documentary style of painting is a refreshing presentation of authentic Native identity. This summer I had the privilege of interviewing Jessica about her art, inspiration, and her journey as an artist.

Jessica Clark’s portraits and landscape paintings capture the essence of Lumbee people and their profound connection to their ancestral land in southeastern North Carolina. As much as her skill allows her to paint bold, colorful narratives, her innate ability to see into the hearts of people and places adds a soulfulness to her work that exceeds the aesthetic of nostalgic landscapes and Rockwellesque portraits. Using photography as a tool in her creative process, she studies the photographs to remember elements from the moment the photo was taken; these nuanced elements then enliven the paintings. Her work imparts the integrity of Lumbee who are strong, perseverant, and vibrant. Jessica states that the ultimate reason she photographs and paints is to document and preserve Lumbee culture. Her images are filled with themes of daily life, family, and Native culture, not leaving out the spectrum of reality and emotion: love, strength, and determination—all summed up in her intellectual sensibility of her medium, whether it be a camera or paint.

Jessica’s subjects are from her tight-knit community in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, defined by agrarian traditions apparent in the farms and fields spread throughout the region. Worn tobacco barns dot the landscape—some so old and out of use that they lean against the weight of time but refuse to completely fall over. Most homes sit in the midst of planting fields, which form a vast, Arcadian lawn. The people are intensely hardworking; a high social value is placed on the industriousness of a person. Stitching this community together is the Lumbee River that etches its way through the

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Jessica Clark in North Carolina. Image courtesy of the artist.

region with its black water and churning currents traveling to the Carolina coast. The river delineates the many communities within the region into what can be considered clans. Ancestors of the Lumbee people have inhabited its present boundaries for over 10,000 years and maintain a strong, inherent tie to the land. The tribe is essentially a large, extended family.

Whether tribal members live at or away from “home,” they are all linked together by kinship. As with any family, there is an expectation to be an upright person, and, in theory, everyone holds everyone else accountable to this expectation. For Jessica, this way of life and the people who sustain it are something to be very proud of and worth celebrating in her art.

The Art By virtue of grand scale, Jessica’s work, especially her portraits, are by no means understated. Her paintings average five feet by four feet. Her intense attention to detail, brilliant colors, and monumental scale create a hyperfocus on her subjects.

The paintings read as much as narratives as they do imagery.

I liken them to a blend of Norman Rockwell meets Norma Howard—nostalgic themes of idyllic, Americana through a Native lens. Jessica proclaims that early in her painting

JESSICA CLARK

Good Ole’ Days, 2011, oil on canvas, 30 x 70 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

career, she was intimidated by the genre of portraiture. In overcoming the challenge of painting facial features and intimate expressions, she dealt with her trepidation by tapping into her keen sense of observation to reflect the honesty and poignancy in her subjects.

Color is an essential key in her paintings.

For Jessica color represents life, and it is important that her work depicts her subjects as vibrant and thriving.

Jessica draws the viewer in with familiar themes and goes on to offer deeper meaning embedded in her compositions.

By exaggerating human features and focal points, she cues the viewer to narrative clues in the paintings.

For example, in the portrait of her grandmother Margaret Cummings Bullard, Lumbee, Jessica calls attention to her grandmother’s hand. As it rests on an American flag, Bullard’s strong hand, in the forefront, looks disproportionate to the rest of her body. One might interpret the grandmother as clinging to a memory of a fallen family member or giving in to exhaustion from worry about a deployed soldier. Jessica explains that the painting is more of a family portrait than just a singular focus on her grandmother and the flag. The flag represents Jessica’s deceased grandfather who was a veteran, the photographs on the table signify her large family,

the Indian figurines tell of her heritage and her son who painted them, and the potted plant denotes her love of gardening. One of Jessica’s lasting observations of her grandmother, who suffers from narcolepsy, an illness that causes her to succumb to frequent episodes of daytime sleep, is of her dozing in the chair. The scale of the painting allows the viewer to transcend dimension and virtually step into the picture plane to intimately observe the calm, quiet moment of her grandmother sleeping, just as Jessica had done, taking in the atmospheric details of the corner of the room, being still not to disturb the peaceful tableau. This complexity of observation and artistic skill enchants viewers in a personal way.

The task of observation is essential to Jessica’s artistic process. Whether it is time at the river or among a crowd of people, Jessica watches and listens. She finds wonder in the fleeting moments, ones that will never exist again: the ever-transitory play between light and shadow, the way sunlight filters through golden fall leaves and enlivens the harvested yellow field, or the vigor of a woman’s hand as she runs a sharp blade up the side of a corncob, firing milky, ripe kernels into a bowl, as in her painting, Indian Summer II. She always carries her camera, ready to capture these ephemeral moments.

Every Day Is a Good Day to Paint.

Jessica was introduced to painting as a young girl by watching the campy PBS painter Bob Ross. His optimistic “happy trees” and clouds and effortless brush strokes opened the girl’s eyes to the possibilities of painting, especially when Ross encouraged his viewers by saying: “Every day is a good day to paint!”

As a child, Jessica demonstrated a natural talent for painting, and she recalls her gift as “a quality that made her unique and a skill she used to help her fit in with other kids.” In high school she experimented with collaging images on canvas and developed her aesthetic.

Painting was her passion, her time to meditate and release her creative ideas through a medium with which she felt most comfortable. She had never considered painting to be anything more than her personal interest until destiny proved otherwise.

During her senior year in high school, Jessica gave birth to a son. She had plans to enlist in the Navy, but those plans changed with the responsibility of being a single mother. Instead, she started college at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where she explored various disciplines and careers until her junior year, when she arrived at WINT ER 2 0 1 4

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the decision—to her parents’ dismay— that she would pursue her true passion in life: art. “My mother always wanted me to be a teacher. My dad really wanted me to go to the military, but he did always tell me that if I didn’t use my talent that I would lose it like he did,” she recalls. “He painted and made art in high school as well, so in the end [my parents] supported my decisions.”

Graduating from the University of North Carolina, Pembroke, with a bachelor of fine arts degree with a concentration in painting, she landed a job outside of her degree, a job at Walmart. After what felt like an eternal two years on the job, she could no longer ignore her desire to further her skills as a painter and enrolled in the master of fine arts program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

When she moved from Robeson County, she prepared for the rigors of graduate school and the opportunity to challenge herself as an artist, but she was caught off guard by the reality of living away from her Native community and the unexpected comments from her new cohort. Peers and instructors unacquainted with Native people would often ask her unsettling, stereotypical questions. Since she had always lived close to home, Jessica had never had to defend or qualify her “Indian-ness,” especially to people with no understanding of Indian identity. She always took the high road in these situations and took them as opportunities to correct and educate those who were genuinely interested in learning about her culture.

If any good came from this experience, it was to prompt a new period of self-examination that she expressed in her work. Jessica’s art grew more introspective, focusing on themes that spoke directly to unawareness and stereotypes she faced daily as a Native person living in urban Georgia. Ironically, Savannah was once a Yamacraw town governed by Muscogee Creek leader Tomochichi (ca. 1644–1739), who later granted

Unity Powwow I, 2010, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

the town to James Oglethorpe to maintain diplomacy and fair trading among the Creek and Yamasee people.

There was Jessica at the very place, several generations later: an aboriginal enigma.

A poignant work from this time, Unity Powwow I addresses the non-Native viewer. Jessica created a painting that features a father helping dress his son for a powwow. She intentionally presents the father wearing contemporary

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Western clothing: an orange shirt, jeans, and sunglasses, while his son dons a traditional gustoweh (Haudenosaunee men’s headgear) and finger-woven belt.

The connection between father and son convey the message that Native culture is alive and continues to be passed down from one generation to the next. Jessica felt empowered and gratified by this painting. It marked a turning point in her perspective as an artist. It held a greater meaning beyond her own

JESSICA CLARK

Margaret Cummings Bullard, Lumbee, 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

personal explorations of people and landscape and took her work beyond herself to give voice and dignity to her people.

Another important evolution of Jessica’s work during graduate school came from the rigors of her instructors’ critiques, which challenged her to push her ideas and technical skill.

The professors wanted her to better understand the ranges of color by mixing and experimenting with various palettes, to enhance her brush strokes, and to develop an organic nature to her technical ability instead of executing degrees of exactness in her compositions.

In her studio, she implemented these suggestions. Inspired by how large her

studio was, Jessica decided to paint on the largest canvas possible. “Why not go big?!” she recalls. Painting on a large scale enabled her to focus on the areas her instructors wanted her to develop.

Yet she still placed precise brush strokes and defined color transitions in her composition. She felt frustrated adapting to a different technical style of painting from her original style, which she had become comfortable with over time.

Ultimately, it would be a meeting with the Old Masters who would teach her how to reflect and become more visceral with her technique.

In 2009, Jessica traveled to France to study Renaissance artists. Because of museum restrictions about standing too

close to paintings, a professor advised her to place her hands behind her back and lean in with her body to look more closely at the art to avoid reprimanded by museum security guards. Jessica visited the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, where she came face-to-canvas with one of her favorites, Claude Monet, and his Water Lilies. She placed her hands behind her back and leaned toward the image, her view coming into focus with the artist’s technique. The Impressionist artist’s brushstrokes seemed to be quick smudges of pastel colors on the canvas.

Each layer of paint told of Monet’s natural understanding of how light and color achieved shape—without intense, literal formation of defined lines and denoted space. This was her “aha!”

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PROFILE

moment. By studying the Monet, Jessica learned how to relax her hand, loosen up, and let her intuition develop the work as much as her technical ability.

From that moment, she fell in love with painting all over again. She toured the City of Lights, examining art by Leonardo de Vinci, John Singer Sargent, and the like to learn by their example.

Because of the influence these artists have had on her work, they still inspire her the most today. Her first painting to reflect this artistic progression is of her Aunt Alceon, Alceon Bullard Jones, Lumbee. Jessica says this painting captures the personality of her aunt—a carefree, confident woman who is also an artist.

With her newly developed color palette, Jessica chose to paint her aunt and used bright fuchsia to match her aunt’s lipstick against her wide, energetic smile.

Evolution of Confidence – Exhibitions In 2010 Jessica completed her master of fine arts degree in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

She presented her master’s thesis show at Fahm Hall Gallery on the SCAD campus. The exhibition showcased the culmination of her academic, artistic, and personal growth during her time in Savannah. Jessica turned to her own family and friends as subjects to define the postmodern Native. She aspires to dispel stereotypes by sharing 21stcentury themes to which people can connect. Her narrative portraiture focuses on the subjects’ personalities as opposed to a naturalistic representation of the figure.

Vickey Felicia Clark Locklear and Ethan Aubrey Sheppard, Lumbee is a work from her thesis. Jessica calls the viewer’s attention to the forced smile and longing in the subjects’ eyes as the painting reveals Ms. Locklear’s personal story.

The baby sitting on her lap tells of her love for children and the ever-present void of never having had her own.

Vickey Felicia Clark Locklear and Ethan Aubrey Sheppard, Lumbee, 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

Beyond her beautiful face and the angelic gaze of the baby, an air of melancholy, despair, and resolve read through the portrait. Vickey was a second mother to Jessica and her cousins and helped provide for them, remaining a constant in their lives. She died suddenly in November 2013. Art isn’t just about contemporary themes and dispelling stereotypes, for it can serve as a memorial to those people and times that are no longer present today.

A collection of Jessica’s lithographs features barns. These examples of “landscape portraiture” harken back to the artist’s childhood memories of working in the tobacco fields and aches

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of nostalgia. Antiquated tobacco barns feature prominently within the Lumbee landscape. This series takes the tradition of tobacco cultivation between Lumbee and Southeastern people into the present day.

“I used a method of lithography to create the series of prints,” says Jessica.

“The methodical process involved in printmaking reminded me of the manual labor involved in ‘putting in’ tobacco and farm work. Every time I see an old barn, I remember being ten years old and waking up at dawn to work in the tobacco fields. When we would take the tobacco to the barns. There was a pleasing smell of wood, spice, and dirt

JESSICA CLARK

LEFT: Lumbee Pinecone I, 2014, Pen, ink, and watercolor, 14 x 14 in.

RIGHT: Lumbee Pinecone Patchwork: Abstract I, 2012, pen, ink, and watercolor on paper, 24 x 24 in. Both images courtesy of the artist.

intensified by the heat from the barns.”

Jessica recalls it as a carefree, happy time in her life, when all the family worked hard together, an experience that reinforced her values of family.

The classic red she paints the barns speaks to time and memory. Today, old barns are vestiges of decades gone by, and each day another vanishes from the landscape. Jessica’s goal is to document as many of these barns around the community before they are lost to time.

“Documenting these old barns is my way of preserving an important chapter of Lumbee history in the postmodern era,” she says.

Jessica’s thesis exhibition received acclaim for her original, heartfelt depiction of Native people and lifeways.

People took notice of her work. This defining moment for her as an artist proved to be a catalyst for her career.

She became highly sought after to publicly discuss her work, and she received and accepted invitations to exhibit in France and throughout the southeastern United States.

Through all the challenging moments

that pushed her artistic abilities, her purpose for painting still holds its personal, integral meaning. It provides her with fulfillment, reflection, and creative expression.

Meditation is central in her process of painting her most recent work.

Recently, Jessica created a series of largescale paintings featuring Lumbee pinecone patchwork designs. The pine-cone patchwork design plays a prominent role in Lumbee culture and was traditionally used as a quilting pattern. The quilting pattern was created by folding small, colorful pieces of cloth into angles sewn together in concentric layers to resemble the bottom of a long-leaf pine cone. As a painting, the prismatic design resembles a mandala. Committed to monumental compositions, Jessica creates ambitious depictions of the pattern, often incorporating landscape scenes in the background. These paintings, such as Lumbee Pinecone Patchwork: Abstract I and Lumbee Pinecone I, are visual meditations.

Painting the Future

In addition to her success as an artist, Jessica honed her artistic and academic skills into a teaching career at Lumberton Senior High School where she currently teaches art full time. She balances her career between commissions, teaching, and curating arts exhibitions of fellow Southeastern Native artists. In January 2015, she will exhibit at the Native American Resource Center at University of North Carolina, Pembroke.

“The visual arts are a part of who I am, and I hope to continue growing as an artist, creating a dialogue about contemporary Native American art, southeastern Native American art in particular,” she says. “Through the years, I have learned that there is no ‘right way’ to make Native art. My art is Native because I am. By painting my people, land, and culture, I am dispelling stereotypes, preserving our people and way of life, while also celebrating our Native American identity, people, art, and culture. This is only the beginning.”

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PROFILE

Okanagan-Sinixt Printmaker, Glass Artist, and Basket Weaver

Joe Feddersen

F

By America Meredith

ORTY-FIVE MILES SOUTH of the Canadian border, at the base of the Okanogan Highlands, lies Omak, Washington. The Okanogan River runs through the town of 4,835 and defines the western edge of the Colville Indian Reservation. In 1953, Joe Feddersen was born in Omak, and in 2009, he returned to his birthplace, where he creates his own artwork and curates projects that bring together other artists.

Feddersen’s father was German-American, and his mother was Okanagan-Sinixt from Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.

The Okanagan and Sinixt are closely related Interior Salish bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

Omak and the Colville Reservation are part of a semi-arid, mountainous terrain that alternates between high, grassy steppes and forests of western larch, Douglas fir, and ponderosa pine. Rivers, rich with salmon and steelhead trout, carve steep river valleys. This territory is part of the Plateau, an intermountain region west of the Rocky Mountains and east of the Cascades, spanning both the United States and Canada.

Native people here have been active traders and artists, known for their carving, basketry, and later pictorial beadwork.

This landscape—geographical and cultural—informs Joe Feddersen’s art practice. He works in printmaking, glass, basketry, photography, digital art, and more, while immersing himself in each medium, exploring each to the fullest. His work, across all media, reflects the visual lexicon of Plateau artwork. Though often boldly geometric in appearance, Feddersen’s works are subtle and layered in meaning.

Tsimshian scholar Mique’l Askren writes that Feddersen’s “visual vocabulary … has indigenized the urban landscape.”1 Feddersen familiarized himself with his tribe’s symbolic vocabulary—what the artist calls “vital signs”2—to the point where he can incorporate new imagery, while maintaining its aesthetic integrity. His ancestors drew imagery from the world around them into their artwork. Feddersen does the same: power lines, QR codes, television aerials, parking lots, as well as the mountains, rivers, and forests. Meanwhile, Feddersen’s color palette is intuitive—purely his own.

As an artist, he speaks to many audiences, and his art is in public collections throughout the nation, including the Whitney Museum of American Art. He won the coveted

Joe Feddersen with Voltage Tower, monotype, 2014, 90 x 66 in., MATRIX Press, University of Montana, Missoula. Image courtesy of MATRIX Press. Photo: James Bailey.

Eiteljorg Native American Fine Art Fellowship in 2001 and Pilchuck Glass School’s John H. Hauberg Fellowship in 2009. He has had over 40 solo exhibitions, and more are planned.

Instead of resting on his laurels, Feddersen is dedicated to giving back to his community. He taught printmaking for two decades at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Upon retiring from teaching, he returned to his hometown of Omak to work as a full-time artist. There he curates group art projects and encourages the next generation of artists, including his niece Carly Feddersen, a student at IAIA. Feddersen kindly took time off his schedule to meet with First American Art Magazine and discuss his development as an artist and some of his recent and current projects.

Did you create art before you went to school?

I’ve been doing art as long as I can remember. In the household we grew up at, we were really encouraged to do whatever we wanted to do. I remember we used to use the table saw to make things.

1. Mique’l Askren, “Joe Feddersen,” in Manifestations, ed. Nancy Mithlo (Santa Fe: Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 2011), 94.

2. heather ahtone, “Reading Beneath the Surface: Joe Feddersen’s Parking Lot,” Wicazo Sa Review 27, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 81.

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JOE FEDDERSEN

Installation view of the Role Call series, 2012, fused-glass sculptures. Each one is approximately 19.5 x 15 x 0.5 in. Image courtesy of Froelick Gallery.

When you were a kid?!

When we were kids, yeah. And we all have our fingers! Once in a while a piece of wood would fly across the room, but we have all our eyes and all of our fingers. It was a different time when I grew up. Kids had a lot more freedom to do things. We didn’t feel hovered over.

We could make things. I always felt I was an artist when I was a kid. That was my leaning in high school. It was natural to go on to college. I grew up in a really small town; I grew up in Omak. Being an artist, I didn’t really know you could be one [as a career].

I remember going to this college, and you had to declare your major.

I remember thinking, “Well, I can’t declare art; I’ll declare mathematics.” If I declared math, I’d be really rich! [laughs] That was before Microsoft, but it all turned out okay.

I never had five-year plans; I just knew I was an artist, and you have to do what you do. I have friends who have told me that they have these goals they have to do by the time they are 30 or 40. I just do my work, and things seem to work out.

That’s really interesting. Some people are just self-motivated; they don’t need the external motivation. You feel inspired to create art without setting goals?

Goals, like to be in so many museum collections? I guess that happened, but that wasn’t my goal.

You earned your BFA from the University of Washington and your MFA from University of Wisconsin, Madison. How did the formal arts education change your perspective?

It has its good points and bad points.

One of the good points was the networking. Because I was from such a rural area, I didn’t really know what being an artist entailed. And you’re surrounded by other artists. I was really, really fortunate because, when I went to UW, they had one of those Native American art historian conferences. I was blown away. It was one of those rare times they actually invited Native artists to it. I got to meet Jaune Quickto-See Smith, George Longfish, Truman Lowe, and all these people. That was a really exciting time, and the galleries

that supported Native art, such as Sacred Circle Gallery in Seattle, really helped with networking. It’s just that feeling that you aren’t alone; you have friends.

It was a tremendous, great thing for me.

We all helped each other.

You mentioned there were bad points, as well. Did you encounter resistance when referencing your tribes or using Native themes in your art?

The institutions aren’t really focused on Native art or culture.

That’s one thing nice about what’s going on at Evergreen College. Did you know that Evergreen is working on a master’s program for Native art? I think that’s really important, because it gives you colleagues to work with—with common ideas.

That’s fantastic! Are you still teaching?

I taught at Evergreen for 20 years. I’m retired now; I’ve been retired for four or five years. I moved back home. I have a studio and work on projects. It’s really good. I’ve always wanted to come home.

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to live—probably because it’s the most beautiful place in the world. It’s great to be around family and have friends at home that drop by. It’s really low key.

It’s nice to be home.

It’s impressive how many different media you work in. As a professional artist, did you start with printmaking?

I started in printmaking; that’s what my degree is in. Printmaking is a lot about process. It can be other things. I like the way of figuring out things … how to do things. I like the methodology of it, and I think that translated to other media.

How did you get into basket weaving? Was your mother a weaver?

No, actually Elizabeth Woody taught me. It was kind of a fluke how things fit together. I was teaching at Evergreen, and there are these times in your career where you go, “What am I going to do next?” I was thinking, “What am I really interested in?” I was interested in the patterning of the baskets and printmaking. I started this suite of works called Plateau Geometrics. I knew all of these techniques of printmaking—from etching, screen print, to lithography.

I want to celebrate this process and do work based on home. I made these pieces the size of handbags, referencing the patterning. I was really interested in the patterns that had ambiguity to them.

Right, the patterns are so multifaceted. And you’ve carried that on to other media, such as glass. How did you learn about the symbols and how the weaves are connected to stories?

I came home and one of my elder friends was there. I spent a whole afternoon talking to Elaine Timentwa Emerson.

I’ve known her since I was a little kid.

She is not only a friend but one of Colville Confederated Tribes’ respected master basket makers. We spent the whole afternoon, and she was like this means this, this means that, and it was

Cloud I, 2002, silagraphy (silicon-based printmaking process), relief stencil, etching print, image: 15 x 15 in., paper: 25 x 20 in. Image courtesy of Froelick Gallery.

really intriguing where she said this one means this, but in the next valley over it means something else. That last sentence really made me understand the personal connection and context to the work. It’s very individual.

With language it’s the same thing.

Every community has their own expressions, and you just have to roll with that. Nothing’s set in stone.

So, I was talking to her. Lizzie [Woody] was learning how to make baskets from Mary Dodds Schlick. I asked her, “Lizzie, could you teach me?” and she taught me how to make them. 3 It just took off from there. I didn’t really want to mimic other people’s baskets, so I thought I should make up my own designs. Designs are always related to place; where you are, and where I was there were parking lots. I thought these

would work really well. You always look around you; that’s really important.

I think we view the natural world as good; if something references a mountain or a tree, we think, that’s good, but your art deals with railroads, power lines, and roadways.

You aren’t saying these are bad; these are just part of our world, and we should embrace them.

At least acknowledge them. Some of the old baskets had trains on them, clotheslines with clothes on them.

Sometimes they get overshadowed, but the art is always about what’s around us.

That connects to space-based knowledge. It seems like you are invested in the land as an inspiration for the art. How has your land influenced your art?

3. Elizabeth Woody counters, “While I taught Feddersen simple twining of traditional root baskets, his intensity and instant absorption of instruction immediately overwhelmed my abilities in the craft. The will of an obsessive weaver was intrinsically a part of him.” Elizabeth Woody, “Joe Feddersen: Geometric Abstraction—the Language of the Land,” in Continuum 12 (New York: National Museum of the American Indian, 2003), 3.

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JOE FEDDERSEN

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith agreed to do one for it, and her son Neal Ambrose. I had my nieces and nephews.

It was multi-generational. We had Michael Holloman and his son Van. James Lavadour did a piece. The poets included Elizabeth Woody and Sherman Alexie—I think 24 poets ended up participating.

We had days for communal work.

This book was about bringing people together, so we had them all send in their work as relief plates—linocuts.

We had work days at Evergreen; we printed all of these prints for everybody to have two books, and 15 books for institutes. The books were donated to these various institutes like the Heard Museum, the Eiteljorg, Seattle Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, and others.

Will these be on public display, or will people have to request to see them?

Part of the requirements about the institutes accepting them was they have to display them sometime within the next five years. It kind of helps the younger artists to all of a sudden have a résumé with 15 institutes on it.

Charmed 2, 2013, 164 fused-glass “charms” suspended from a 96-inch chrome pole, 80 x 96 x 6 in.

Image courtesy of Froelick Gallery. Photo: Rebekah Johnson.

I think of myself as a landscape artist.

My work is about the land.

How do you engage with other artists from the Plateau region?

Recently I did a project with Evergreen State College to make a handmade book. That was made possible with a grant from the Longhouse at Evergreen.

Sometimes I worked with Bill Ransom [a popular science fiction writer and poet] on these book projects. I wanted to do a book project about Plateau art and poetry. We just finished it last spring.

This book was to bring together Plateau artists. I noticed that we are always going out in the world, and I wanted to do a project that brought the Plateau people back together. We ended up with 24 people. Of course, it’s not comprehensive, but it’s a starting point.

I wanted to catch the breadth of the Plateau. We had people as far north as the Shuswap. I asked the artists to send me a linocut, and I asked the poets to send me a poem to be included. So I had all these artists’ linoleum blocks. The people were just wonderful.

It was just wonderful to have all of these people working together and getting to know each other over a couple of days with a common goal. And then when everybody gets these books, they are for the most part unsigned. It’s like a scavenger hunt. [laughs] It’s a little incentive that when you’re in a town, to call them up and say, “Hey, can we exchange books to have them signed?”

That was part of it—to get people to talk to each other. The project was really well received, and I’m really happy with it. I hope it’s just the starting point of more projects like this.

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PROFILE

Okanagan I, 2002, relief print stencil silagraphy (silicon-based process) on a 72-panel grid, 72 x 144 in. Image courtesy of Froelick Gallery.

of artists from the Plateau Region. It’s really nice to have something to bring people together like this.

What is the name of the book project?

Terrain. I wanted a name that talked about the land—the texture of the land.

You are known for your glasswork.

That’s such an enticing medium; people just love it. How did you get into glass?

I was one of twelve artists that was invited to be part of the Continuum project at the Smithsonian. They did these twelve shows at the [George Gustav] Heye Center in New York, as a prelude to the opening of the new museum [the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC].

Back in the early aughts?

Around 2000. It was really funny; I was talking to Nora Naranjo-Morse. She was up at Evergreen. She was the ceramic artist, and she had to do something really impressive, because she was the ceramic artist. It made me think—I was just going to give a bunch of work— but then I thought, “Well, I’m the printmaking artist of this whole group,

I should make them a print.” I made a print for them that was 12 feet high and 60 feet across. If it weren’t for Nora, I would have never thought about pushing it that much. Then I was going to offset it with the baskets, but the baskets were only six inches high and four inches across. They would have been dwarfed by this piece.

I talked to my friend Cappy Thompson [a prominent glass artist from Seattle] and told her, “Cappy, I want to make these in glass,” and she introduced me to Preston Singletary. I worked with Preston to make these basket forms based on my smaller pieces. They were 16 and 18 inches high, and about 12 inches across—they were pretty good-sized baskets. Black and white, like the pieces I was working on—the sally bags.

Preston was fantastic to work with.

Since then I’ve done several projects. I’ve worked at the Glass Museum in Tacoma and so on. Right now I’m fusing a lot of glass at home; I’m trying to do things I can do in Omak.

Your recent installation, Charmed, had a over a hundred individual pieces of fused glass. How long did that take or is it an ongoing process?

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I don’t really know how long these things take. They take until the due date. Charmed was commissioned by Sun Valley Art Center [in Idaho]. It was a group of artists they had with four total shows about hybrid culture. Initially, they wanted me to do a piece for them, and I thought I wanted to do a wind chime, that would be whimsical and have an element of time and sound. Then I thought I could create a petroglyph wall. I’m interested in contemporary petroglyphs with popular culture and urban pieces. Then the other idea was a charm bracelet. The installation became all those things. When the wind hit it, it made this beautiful wind-chime tinkle, like a chandelier.

Was it in an interior or exterior space?

It was in an interior space. It was situated off the door, so that wind could come in through the door. The shadows that happened on the wall became the petroglyphs.

That’s awesome! It does seem a challenge, since we see art so much through books or computers, to give people an experience that they can be engulfed in with the original art—the sound, and the motion.

JOE FEDDERSEN

LEFT: Snipe Women Steal Salmon, 2014, twined basket of waxed linen, 8.75 x 5.25 x 5.25 in.

RIGHT: How Coyote Got Its Name, 2014, hand-engraved, blown glass sculpture, 10 x 6.75 x 6.75 in. Both images courtesy of Froelick Gallery.

It was shown at the CN Gorman Museum in Davis, California. It was shown in the Art Gym [at Marylhurst University] in Portland. I’m going to show it again—this may be the last time—at Spokane Falls Community College in Spokane.

I liked the quote by Elizabeth Woody that your use of glass spoke to “human fragility.” Was that one of your intentions working with the medium?

Like in coyote stories, there’s lot of answers to everything, and that sounds like a really wonderful way of thinking about it.

I don’t know if you had this MFA experience, but with mine, they tried to teach you to be deliberate with everything, but it seems like things that just happen and fall together tend to be the most meaningful.

You know, like the coyote stories— there’s no real answer; there’s no moral—it’s just where everyone is at

that particular time. Each person gets something different from it, and that’s important.

And that’s art: multifaceted, working at different levels. What is some advice that you would have for emerging artists?

The really important thing is to follow your bliss and do what you really want to do. Being successful in the art world is about tenacity. It’s about being really engaged in what you want to do.

I’ve been fortunate that I’m really curious and I’m interested in working on projects and doing different things. It’s that kind of drive and my curiosity that keeps me going.

We all have our reasons for making art.

There’s no one reason.

When I was at Evergreen, one of my students said, “My mom’s an artist. Can she come in and talk?” My first thought was, “Oh gwah, a Sunday painter?” And she was, kind of, but what she brought

to the class was really beautiful. She said, “The art world is huge, and there’s a place for everybody. You should go for it, and do what you want to do.” I thought that was so profound.

That is. That you don’t have to fit into a mold; you can find your own space.

There’s no one way to find success.

What project are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on a public art project for the Washington State Arts Commission. It will be a large fish trap constructed in glass with an aluminum armature. It’s going to be at the Spokane Falls Community College. The fish are really important to the Plateau people, with the Columbia River and the fisheries being one of our mainstays.

Joe Feddersen is represented by Froelick Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

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PROFILE

Tlingit-Nisga’a Photographer and Printmaker

Larry McNeil

L

arry McNeil (Tlingit, from the Dakl’aweidi Kéet Gooshi Hít, Killer Whale Fin House in Klukwan, Alaska) is a photographer, printmaker, and scholar.

McNeil often works with humor, irony, and visual puns, as we see in his 1977 self-portrait Real Indians, made while he attended the Brooks Institute, School of Photographic Arts and Science, in Santa Barbara, California. He later attended University of New Mexico for his MFA in photography.

His photograph 1491 from the Feather Series demonstrates the high aesthetic standards of his photographs and prints, with tonal subtleties and a pareddown compositional emphasis. Many of McNeil’s works after the Feather Series combine areas of smooth, subtle gradations along with areas of complex visual texture, usually with layers of narrative pictorial elements.

Some works, such as In the True Spirit of the White Man (2003), include dense blocks of text. It might at first seem that the spill-patterned space that takes up the left half of the composition exists to balance the visual denseness of the right half. However, the seemingly random spills and spatters conceal faint glimpses of skulls seen in romantically lit three-quarter views. Taken all together, the text, the flag-retouched automobile, and the faint skulls produce a nuanced critique of Manifest Destiny, the photographic history of Edward Curtis, and performed identity. In any of McNeil’s work, seeing a patterned area is a cue to look more closely at the layers of texture. There is usually more to that area of the photograph or print. For instance, look for the Tlingit

By Lara M. Evans formline designs in the paint job of the classic car in Tonto’s Earthen House (2013).

The following interview with Larry McNeil was completed in September 2014. He discussed his artistic practice, changes in the field of photography over the past 30 years, and ideas about possible futures for photography, Native artists, and scholars of Native art. His work is on exhibition, along with Will Wilson (Diné), in Indelible at Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC, through January 15, 2015.

Why is art important to you, personally?

Life is very short, and there is so little time to figure out the magic and mystery of the universe. I think that making art is our way of making some kind of sense of our everyday experiences, especially the more inexplicable parts of our existence. I think that art still has to do with beauty, especially finding a kind of grace in the different kind of ruins we all encounter along the way. Maybe an easy answer is we simply try to make the best of things, hope to figure it out as we go along, and perhaps even make something memorable that can help other people on their journeys.

What media are you working in right now? What appeals to you about the different media you choose to work in?

Photography has been a passion my entire adult life, and it’s very conducive to capturing those peculiar or magical moments. In a way, it’s kind of like writing, because literature is like that, too. You can teach someone grammar and technique, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be any good at telling a story that

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Detail of self-portrait with his Hasselblad camera, 2013. Photo: Larry McNeil.

is poetic or full of life. I suspect that this is true of any art form; that what really breathes life into it is the essence of that person’s character. An example of that could be the Real Indians photograph. I had a bent sense of humor, and it became a part of the photograph. I still smile when I see that photograph, especially as I realize that it helped set me free with how I use photography and take a kind of ownership of the media.

Lithography was a natural for me because, with photography, I’d been building images with collaged layers just like a lithographer does with plates, like the First Light, Winter Solstice lithograph. I’d imagined how I wanted the lithograph to look but had flex with how it unfolded as each plate was made, and how the inks interacted with each other. Using inks still makes my heart beat a little faster; it’s way different than any photographic material, because you can make something luminous and even use what amounts to invisible ink to play tricks with the viewer.

LARRY MCNEIL

of this is the Demented Coal Paradox photograph. I thought it was finished and even exhibited it in its earlier incarnation. I’d asked some fellow artists if they’d be interested in collaborating with me on the gas mask, but it was bad timing, and everyone was already struggling with their own various deadlines. I was visualizing a gas mask made to look like a spruce root weaving, like the beautiful Tlingit spruce root woven hats. Anyway, I figured out how to get the look I’d imagined, and that was what the final print looked like later.

On the other end, most of the time it’s pretty clear that a print is finished, especially after working on it for weeks.

There comes a point when I add another element, and it just looks wrong and subtracts from the power of the image instead of adding something to it. That’s my obvious indicator that it’s finished; no second-guessing is necessary.

1491, from The Feather Series, 1992, platinum photograph. All images courtesy of the artist.

Many of your works make use of theory, philosophy, and history, as well as popular culture. What does your research process look like?

How do you develop a work from beginning to completion? Does every piece turn out great the first time? How do you know when a piece is done?

I’ve always loved reading and learning things like theory and history. I think this has its origins in listening to stories our grandparents used to tell us about how life was in the days before White Man arrived on our shores and life as they were growing up. The stories were often funny and full of distinct personalities that had to do with ironic situations and the battle of good and evil. The In the True Spirit of White Man image was a very natural evolution of using stories, histories, and even formal art theory as part of what it’s about.

From an historical perspective, I’d been studying Edward Curtis’s photography for decades and always had problems with his overall premise of us being a

poetic “vanishing race,” as if millions of us spontaneously decided to get on horses one day and collectively rode heroically off into the sunset. I decided to make art about it, but decided to use humor instead of doing the stale “angry Indian” bit. I can’t help it; I see the humor in the dark side of humanity too, and, if I ever find myself being the last person alive, I’d probably make jokes about it. To the dog, of course, since there would be no more humans, and I’m sure the dog would find the jokes to be very amusing, wagging his tail in agreement.

My theory with the creative process is that if you work with a pure heart and never give up, even when things are at their darkest, sometimes the photo gods will have mercy and toss you something to help you on your way. Well, that, plus you keep on working no matter what you encounter along the way.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always know when to stop or keep on going with a print. A good example

You often work in series. What does working in series do for you as an artist? Is working in series something you recommend for aspiring artists?

Working in a series is like writing multiple chapters in a book; sometimes you can’t say everything you want in just one chapter. With a series, all of the prints bounce ideas off of each other, and a cool kind of synergy happens that couldn’t happen with just one print.

The most recent example of this was Tonto’s Earthen House where the print fit in with the other images about the global climate crisis. The bicycle that I’d used for five years as a bicycle commuter was propped up against the house, and I was inferring that the time of gasguzzling cars was nearing an end. I’ve always loved 1959 Cadillacs because they epitomized the 1950s, when a revealing part of American culture was to own the biggest, most audacious car on the road.

It’s acknowledging our love of big cars that exists to this day, even as the planet is sinking into environmental ruin. Real beauty-and-the-beast stuff.

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PROFILE

Tonto’s Earthen House, from The Home Planet, Global Climate Change series, 2013, platinum print photocollage.

I ask my young art students to make work with a series of prints, because it gets them in the mindset of making a portfolio of images that all relate to each other in a manner that makes sense to the viewer. It shows that none of the work was accidental, and they’re smart, enthusiastic, and hopefully kind of fearless about being artists.

How would you say your work has changed over the years?

I don’t know how to answer that and am still figuring this one out. My work has kept its satirical edge, and whenever I notice that it’s absent or diluted, I start questioning its authenticity, because if it doesn’t have that edge, it likely means that I [may have] changed as a person, too, and that would freak me out a bit.

The technical parameters of photography and the public uses of photography have changed since you began making photographicbased artwork. There has been a shift from chemical processes to digital editing, and printing processes to digital screen-based production.

How have those factors created shifts in your work? Where do you see photography, especially art photography, going next?

I was one of the early proponents for the shift to digital photography and had one of the early digital curricula approved back in 1993. That was nearly a decade before many other schools and was also before digital cameras were even being made for consumers.

The curriculum committee gave me a hard time with it and couldn’t grasp the significance of what digital media could mean for artists.

Even in 1993, it was becoming clear that the future was with digital media, especially photography and maybe even printmaking, 3D processes, and video.

It was still kind of a shock to witness the demise of film so incredibly fast though, nearly overnight. By around 2003, it was clear that digital media was bumping film and analog out of the scene, and we as a photography area at our university had to strongly advocate that we keep our analog darkrooms and labs.

Our most popular classes in the entire art department are the digital photography classes. Lots of young people have grown up already loving photography with their iPhones and social media. The irony is that many of them have never shot film in their lives, so for them, film is this cool retro thing to play and experiment with.

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The shift in my own work has been fun, because I’ve been able to mix up the analog and digital tools and make something completely new. Back in the mid-‘90s, some of our professional films started disappearing, and a quick fix was to try making digital negatives as an emergency stopgap. My first platinum photographs (a classic 19thcentury process) to be made with digital negatives were exhibited in 1998 at the Barbican Gallery in London with the Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography exhibition and book that Veronica Passalacqua and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie had a lot to do with organizing. The photograph 1491 has become kind of a flagship photograph because so many people can relate to both its message and visual aesthetic. My most recent exhibition at the Smithsonian NMAI has more platinum photographs that are even more hybridized because no film was used in some instances, but digital negatives were necessary to make the platinum prints.

I predict that photography will evolve to the use of smaller cameras, and things like clunky DSLR cameras will be history as everything is miniaturized. When we don’t even need cameras is when things will make

LARRY MCNEIL

Real Indians, 1977, platinum photograph, 40 x 28 in.

a turn for the surreal. Let’s not talk about that one publicly yet.

Is photography an important medium for Native artists to work in? Are there special challenges for Indigenous artists who work in this medium?

Photography has long established itself as a medium of creative expression, but as to whether it’s important for other artists to use, who knows? I think it’s

important to use whichever media best expresses one’s ideas, including video, sound, 3D printing, drawing, painting, installation, and so forth.

Digital photography is likely one of the easiest media to access because nearly everyone has a smartphone and wireless connectivity, which is an easy pathway to experimenting with photography.

It still takes talent and hard work to transform it into something interesting though. If you want a fast track to

photography, it’s still best to take photography classes.

How many artist interviews have you given over the years? Are interviews important for artists’ careers? If so, why? If not, what other type of publication or exposure would you say is important?

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PROFILE

Demented Coal Paradox, from The Home Planet, Global Climate Change series, 2013, platinum photograph.

and viewer. We have this interaction going on with viewers already, so it’s good to speak more directly to them, especially if they collect your work or are considering adding you to their collection. They may want a clearer idea of who you are and what you’re doing with your art. I’m good with that. Video interviews are great, too, because they may be broadcasted to different venues, and the viewer often gets a sense of your personality, what you look like, and how you think.

What is the best question anyone has every asked you about your art?

What is the worst question you have ever been asked about your art, and why do you think that bad question was asked?

Jennifer McNutt at the Eiteljorg asked an entire series of questions that got to the heart of what my work was about, and since it was a video interview, we were able to have a very nuanced conversation.

Things like humor came across, and I’d be laughing at some of her questions, because she intended for them to be funny, because some of the work was funny, too. Written interviews are good, too, especially since our art may be nicely reproduced along with our dialogue.

At my very first photography conference, an audience member

asked, “How does it feel to be a Native American practicing a white man’s art form?” I quickly answered, “First of all, it’s not a white man’s art form, because the physics of the camera obscura were discovered by an Islamic scientist roughly 2,000 years ago, and this formed the basis for what photography was to become nearly 1,800 years later.” That actually drew applause from the audience, and that ended the conference. It was really quite silly, but I couldn’t let that dummy get away with such an inane question, especially in front of an audience.

Do you collect work by other artists?

Oftentimes, we Native artists don’t think of ourselves as collectors.

What do you collect, and how and why did you begin?

Yes, absolutely, and in all media. I have a beautiful Chilkat weaving, Ravenstail weaving, silver jewelry made by master artists, ceramics, but mostly other photographs and prints. I love collecting art from fellow artists; it makes me feel like the world is true. It pleases me that my art is on lots of friends’ walls, because my work kind of epitomizes me and how I navigate the world with my work. I started collecting art while in the seventh grade, when our Uncle Judson Brown gave my brother and I silver killer whale pendants. He was a

very wise man and knew that we had the wherewithal to recognize the beauty and meaning of his gift.

As Native scholars and Native institutions gain resources and expertise, there is a new interest in keeping records and building archives related to the work of contemporary Native artists. For example, James Luna has arranged for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe to be the archival repository for his records, including photographs, sketches, performance notes, and other ephemera.1 Do you keep other kinds of records that might be archival? How do you think about the long-term impact of your work as an artist, as a teacher, mentor, and scholar? In other words, how do you keep yourself organized? Any tips you think others might find useful?

I’ve been speaking to one of the really cool archivists at the NMAI about this very topic a lot lately. I think it’s critical that artists have some kind of plan in place where a part your life’s work has a permanent place in at least some archive somewhere. Especially since some of us are used to winging it and just kind of floating along sometimes. Good for Mr. Luna to get moving on this; it shows wisdom and foresight, and hopefully it’ll inspire other artists to think about this, too.

1. See: Kim Baca, “Sharing his Legacy: James Luna Donates His Archives to IAIA,” First American Art Magazine 4 (Fall 2014): 70–73.

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LARRY MCNEIL

First Light, Winter Solstice, 2007, six-color lithograph print on white Somerset satin paper.

I got a wakeup call last year when I was hit by a car while bicycle commuting, sustained a serious injury, and was very, very lucky to have survived. We never know how long our lives are going to last, and I think it’s a good idea to talk to an estate attorney or other expert who can give advice about your archive and work. So here’s a message for all of my artist friends, especially those under 40: Start thinking about estate planning now, even if you’re broke, because if you’ve been working for at least a decade on your career, you have a track record that has value beyond a dollar amount.

A lot of artists take their online presence for granted, such as social media sites and especially email, art sites, and blog accounts. These need to be properly archived, because this digital information is sometimes temporary. It’s kind

of mind-numbing how quickly this information is sometimes lost, and it’s becoming such a trend that there’s even a term for it: “digital amnesia.”

For example, I archived my original website from the mid-1990s and other sites where essays have appeared about me and my work that have long since disappeared from online servers.

I’ve been talking to the NMAI about how to make a proper archive out of emails in all of their incarnations, because this is where lots of correspondence resides, as opposed to physical file cabinets and journals like in the past. All of the email programs need to be able to be archived into a dynamic database program that may be organized in different manners just like a real database program. This would be a real lifesaver for future historians.

I’m not sure what the long-term impact of my work is going to be. I suspect that part of it has to do with being a photographer and scholar who worked at the height of what the analog processes represented, and how it evolved into digital media. Part of my work is very ancient, too, especially the stories that have been passed on for millennia and contextualized with 21st-century life. I recently made some new prints that were specifically created for people born after 2031, and I’m very curious as to what they’ll have to think about all this.

Gunalchéesh, thank you, for taking the time to read this, and hopefully you had a nice mug of coffee while checking it out.

—Larry McNeil

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PROFILE

Crow Interdisciplinary Artist

Wendy Red Star

S

By Mary Jo Watson

ITUATED IN SOUTHEASTERN MONTANA, the Crow Nation and its people have survived the incursion of the American movement west in the 19th century and vast reductions of their original lands. Despite predictions of their demise, there are “more Crows in the Yellowstone Valley than there were in 1855; more of them speak the Crow language and occupy a selfgoverning tribal homeland.”1 Joseph Medicine Crow reports, “The Sun Dance and the Tobacco Society ceremonies are still quite strong.”2 The Apsáalooke, the name the Crow call themselves, have “a view of the world in which all entities and all phenomena are interconnected, animal with plant with land with human and with spirit.”3 Wendy Red Star, like many Natives throughout the United States, is perplexed at the lack of correct information about Indian tribes. According to Red Star, this is especially true in her home state of Montana where she received little to no information in public schools concerning the Apsáalooke people. Because so much stereotypical disinformation persists in the national American psyche and throughout the world, Red Star focuses her talents in the visual arts to dismantle, refute, and set right these mistaken concepts. She underwent a substantial art education while formulating concepts about Crow Nation ideology and history.4 Her innovative ideas, sometimes with biting irony, resulted from her birthright and her education. Red Star graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture in 2004 from Montana State University, Bozeman. She received her master of fine arts in sculpture from the University of California, Los Angeles, where her interest in photography developed.5 Since she graduated, Red Star’s schedule has been a whirlwind of prestigious national and international exhibitions, lectures, and appearances on discussion panels.

Among many awards for which she was selected is the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship in 2009. In the same year, she was selected for a residency at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of Arts in Pendleton, Oregon. Many of her exhibitions were in museums and galleries in Paris, France, and London, England, and she is presently working on a

Wendy and her daughter Beatrice. Image courtesy of the artist.

future exhibition in Sydney, Australia. These are just a few of her many fine exhibitions and awards.

Wendy Red Star is cautious and thoughtful about her time concerning her many responsibilities and her creative works.

Red Star has a full-time job in Portland, Oregon, where she works with different Indian tribes at the nonprofit Native Arts and Cultural Foundation; however, her most important responsibility is to her seven-year-old daughter Beatrice, of whom she is extremely proud. Beatrice continues the artistic tradition of Red Star’s family, including 19th-century ledger artist Medicine Crow and painter Kevin Red Star.

Red Star’s art reflects her culture, highlighting the very distinctive characteristics and aspects of the Crow Tribe of Montana. She is respectful of traditions, yet she values her contemporary generation and uses all the tools available in the powerful information age. Her media and materials push the boundaries of both two-dimensional painting and threedimensional objects; she works with photography, painting, textiles, installation art, performance art, found objects, and design. Red Star’s inquisitive and determined mind seeks truth through exceptional and creative art techniques.

1. Frederick E. Hoxie, Parading through History: The Making of the Crow Nation in America, 1805-1935 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 4.

2. Joseph Medicine Crow, From the Heart of the Crow Country: The Crow Indians’ Own Stories (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 7.

3. Rodney Frey, The World of the Crow Indians: As Driftwood Lodges (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 4.

4. Timothy P. McLeary, The Stars We Know: Crow Indian Astronomy and Lifeways, (Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, 2011). McLeary is Red Star’s mentor in understanding Crow astronomy.

5. Wendy Red Star, in discussion with the author, August 20, 2014.

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WENDY RED STAR

Installation view of girl’s elk tooth dress, historic photo of Amy Bright Wings Red Star, and adult woman’s elk tooth dress at the Saint Louis Art Museum, 2009. Dresses by Wendy Red Star. Images courtesy of the artist.

A successful exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2009 forwarded Red Star’s mission to showcase Plains Indian artworks and Crow contemporary life.

A large case held two Crow dresses, one for a child and one for a grown woman, expertly sewn by Red Star.

Between the two dresses hung an historic photograph of a child in a similar dress. The beautiful little girl is Red Star’s grandmother, Amy Bright Wings Red Star (1921–2013).6 The adult dress was red wool trade cloth covered with thirteen rows of white elk teeth; the child’s dress had eight rows of elk teeth. The exhibit also featured a large beaded band for a man’s robe, two pairs of leggings, and one pair of moccasins. Two finely painted, tribally specific parfleches (rawhide containers) completed the exhibition.

Her series, the Fancy Shawl Project, showcased contemporary Crow life through photographic transfers sewn onto dance shawls, complete with brilliant, multicolored fringe. All part of daily life, the images on the shawls included cookie-cutter government houses, basketball, sweat lodges, and “rez” cars—older cars, left in a random pattern throughout the reservation.7 She shows the public that this is the real life on her reservation, and these are real people who inhabit that space.

Once a year, when the spectacular Crow Fair occurs, horses, tipis, and traditional dress are on display in astounding numbers. However, the day-to-day life on any reservation in the United States is not the romantic scene of “yesteryear” but the gritty reality of today’s reservation Indians.

“Living around these cars and houses, though, they have come to present a resilient and proud community to me,” Red Star writes, “a community that overcomes obstacles to keep its culture alive. I see beauty in these objects, and in their particularity they somehow make me proud to be a part of evolving Crow culture.”8 The rez car theme continues in her 2007 series of C-print collages, Rez Cars in the Town of Pryor, Montana.

One 8×10-inch print, X Car, features the backside of a faded Ford Tempo.

The roof liner of the damaged husk sags, the rear windshield is shattered, and there is no license plate. Someone decided to decorate the back end of the car with a huge swath of silver spray paint in a large X. The print

6. Wendy Red Star, in discussion with the author, September 21, 2014.

7. James H. Nottage, ed., Art Quantum: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 86–89.

8. Wendy Red Star, “Crow’s Shadow Artist’s Statement” (Pendleton, OR: Crow’s Shadow, 2010), 1.

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Installation view of Wendy Red Star’s Wild West & Congress of Rough Riders Of The World at Bumbershoot, Seattle, Washington, 2014. DumDums lollipops pour from an open gash in a life-sized Gen. George Armstrong Custer piñata-like sculpture. Image courtesy of the artist.

crops wheels off from the car body, rendering it utterly immobile. The X echoes the marks made on so many treaties that delineated reservation lands.

Completely different is her series The Four Seasons, inspired by a visit the artist made to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. While at school in Los Angeles, Red Star felt homesick and sought out the Native American section of the museum, where she saw a pair of moccasins on display made by a Crow ancestor. Seeing a familiar sight in such an artificial environment inspired her to create these works. Each season features the artist modeling her Crow attire in an absurdly concocted scene. Red Star uses Styrofoam popcorn packing material and a plastic blow-up animal,

as well as other unusual materials, straight from a discount arts and crafts box store.

Red Star’s fascinating and significant works concerning her worldview and ideology appear through many different lenses, including Crow logic and aesthetics. How can a photograph, a print, a montage, and staged background present her ideals and ideology through a quizzical, odd confrontation with a fabulous selfportrait found in Fall from the The Four Seasons series?

The self-portrait in Fall pokes fun at the nostalgic, romanticization of American Indians and presents what some might call a very fine “Indian

princess.”9 The traditional clothing, fan, beadwork, bag, and moccasins are authentic and dramatic. Her red wool overdress contains elk teeth in horizontal rows on the bodice and vertical rows on the long sleeves, also lined with five rows of different colors.

The exquisite beadwork covering her neckline is duplicated on her shoulders.

The bag, moccasins, hair ties, fan, and headband are equally superior along with the bone choker and long, beaded earrings. Here one sees the authentic, honored role that women beaders held and continue to hold today in the tribes of the Northern Plains.10 Yet, Red Star’s prints, installations, and various art presentations at times complicate traditional ways of thinking.

9. Until the middle of the 20th century, images and literature about American Indian women were limited to the role of “princesses” or drudges answering only to men. Literature concerning Indian women began to change in the later 20th century. See: Asebrit Sundquist, Pocahontas & Co: The Fictional American Indian Woman in Nineteenth-Century Literature: A Study of Method (Oslo, Norway: Solum Forlag, 1987); Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen M. Sands, American Indian Women: A Guide to Research (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991); Laura F. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman, eds., Women and Power in Native North America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). Contemporary writers, such as Swedish historian Gunlög Fur, are reexamining the roles of women. See: Gunlög Fur, A Nation of Women: Gender and Colonial Encounters Among the Delaware Indians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).

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WENDY RED STAR

Fall, 2006, digital photographic print from The Four Seasons series. Image courtesy of the artist.

The abrasive, unnatural, and unreal appear in The Four Season’s series, including Fall. This is primarily due to the blow-up elk and the awkwardly painted background, which features a faded mountain range visually obscured by vegetation and trees.11 The forefront of the image is littered with obviously fake leaves and grasses and includes a partial bison skull. All the tenets of a “Plains Indian Princess” seem to be in evidence, but this misrepresentation shocks the viewer as does the fake red and yellow bouquet she is holding. Or

are they real? Red Star is adamant that there are overwhelming stereotypes of the Plains Indians, and her creativity and artistic voice are to be a shield and barrier to stop such representations.

She and her regalia stand in sharp contrast to the flurry of kitsch that surrounds her.

The Winter scene is equally strong.

Red Star sits facing the viewer with a calm yet determined expression. She is wearing her traditional clothing and beaded jewelry and bag, but in this

image her deep blue underskirt covers her propped-up right knee where her right arms rests, a snowball in her grasp. Her left arm arches into the landscape, and her hand holds fake red flowers above a stack of perfectly round Styrofoam snowballs. In spite of the beautiful “princess,” the surrounding landscape is made to look like an outrageously faked, ominous setting.

At the forefront of the picture plane is a cloth cutout in an undulating pattern that matches the deep blue in her dress.

This river fools no one; instead of a

10. Lois Sherr Dubin, North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc,.1999), 260.

11. Red Star’s use of an animal figure, whether in Styrofoam or on a map, is reminiscent of Norman Akers (Osage) painting a great elk in the middle of a road map of Oklahoma and Kansas in Okesa II, 2010, oil on panel, 48 x 44 in.

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PROFILE

Soft-sculpture animals inspired by Medicine Crow’s drawings of zoo and circus animals he observed in Washington, DC, 1880.

running stream, there are wrinkles in the cloth. Styrofoam popcorn packing materials are scattered over the white snow background. To her left are four black birds, possibly Christmas ornaments, in front of a black-horned bison skull with four brilliant, faux red cardinals sitting on the skull in a semicircle. On either side of her are spindles of dead vines with the same popcorn appearing somewhat like marshmallows ready for toasting. Dark clouds with faint highlights of white and some blue fill two-thirds of the picture plane. In the upper middle of the scene are ornamental snowflakes and two tiny white birds, one to the right and left. Other indistinguishable small creatures flank the “princess.”

All four of these season scenes feature improbable, nonsensical attributes, yet they are characterized by remnants and signs and symbols that represent the popular vision of the “Indian princess.”12 Her critical statement resonates with all serious viewers of her work.

One of Red Star’s latest projects from last September is a powerful performance piece at the Bumbershoot 2014 festival at the Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington. She chose ten artists to accompany her in this first allIndian work at this particular site, titled Wendy Red Star’s Wild West & Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Included in the performance are photography,

12. James H. Nottage, ed., Art Quantum: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 80-90. This article presents all works in The Four Seasons.

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video games, painting, a giant war bonnet, and a life-sized sculpture of Custer lying dead on the gallery floor.13 Once again Red Star punctuates the absurd nature of stereotyping through ridiculing the American Buffalo Bill Wild West shows. Her inspiration comes in part from learning that her own relative, Medicine Crow, had been a Buffalo Bill employee.

Joseph Medicine Crow writers, “Medicine Crow was a warrior from the time he first went on the warpath at the age of fifteen until his last battle in 1877.”14 Medicine Crow was later seen as a great visionary and had three dreams that foresaw the future of the Crow people. His three

13. Wendy Red Star, in discussion with the author, September 24, 2014.

14. Joseph Medicine Crow, From the Heart of the Crow Country: The Crow Indians’ Own Stories (New York: Orion Books, 1992), 42.

WENDY RED STAR

Installation view of Wendy Red Star, an exhibition at the Portland Art Museum, curated by Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson. From left to right are handtinted digital prints of Medicine Crow (ca. 1848–1920) by Wendy Red Star and Beatrice Red Star Fletcher; a beaded Crow jacket over pants, and a mixed-media mosaic with photos of Medicine Crow and Wendy Red Star dressed as Medicine Crow. Image courtesy of the artist.

predictions for the Crow people came to pass, including the coming of the railroad, which Medicine Crow saw as “something black, with round legs, puffing smoke and pulling boxlike objects behind it, coming down the Valley of Chieftains of the Little Big Horn River.”15 The second vision included the coming of white people and that Medicine Crow would be a great leader of his tribe. The third great vision was that he “saw a whiteman’s type of house with a large corral nearby, situated on the top of a hill overlooking the junction of the Little Bighorn River and Lodge Grass Creek.”16 These visions came true, as did another vision of the Crow people having “horse buffalo—cattle.”17 Wendy Red Star focused on her ancestor Medicine Crow in her installation at the Portland Art Museum, which was a scathing critique of the idea of the Indians being on show while entrepreneurs such as Buffalo Bill made money on the looks and actions of “real” Indians such as Medicine Crow.

Medicine Crow was a well-respected

warrior and was one of a number of delegates who were sent to Washington to negotiate a land giveaway for the American government. He fought against relinquishing more land for the Northern Pacific Railroad. While in Washington, his delegation visited the Washington Zoo. They saw animals, which Medicine Crow drew, that were not known in Montana or in the Americas. Wendy Red Star discovered his drawings of these animals. She decided to transform them into stuffed toys that she calls “zoo softies.”18 The animals are fanciful—not real but parts of different animals joined together.

One is a “giraffe, lion, spotted mule (circus zebra), with a yellow body, spotted at the top half and black horns with a black mane. The other is a “big snake with legs,” a crocodile.19 At the Portland Art Museum, Red Star resurrected not only the animals of Medicine Crow, but also presents him as a human being—something other than an object in a wild west show. She accomplishes this with 21st-century technology. She dressed herself as Medicine Crow including the white

15. Joseph Medicine Crow, From the Heart of the Crow Country: The Crow Indians’ Own Stories (New York: Orion Books, 1992), 44.

16. Ibid.

clay in her hair, clothing, and jewelry; the similarity is riveting. He was by all photographic accounts in numerous history texts a handsome man, and Red Star is an Indian beauty. His exact image is re-created by Red Star by digitally manipulating their images together, and their facial similarity is astounding. Each image is in a faded blue-grey presentation. Notations in red written by Red Star provide fascinating clues to what Medicine Crow might have been thinking at the time of the original photographs. The details in the side view of Medicine Crow provide a wealth of information about the details of preparing hair, clothing, hawk and eagle feathers, and the great assortment of jewelry. This is a momentous work in Red Star’s career.

Seeing the next direction that this young artist Wendy Red Star next will be interesting. Her energy, intellect, and passion are formidable, and the future looks to be not only singular but also thought-provoking—and probably spectacular.

wendyredstar.com

17. Ibid.

18. Information provided by the Portland Art Museum, 2014.

19. Ibid.

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Fish Skin

as a Textile Material in Alaska Native Cultures The importance of salmon goes beyond the question of calories. It is part of our identity. We need salmon to continue as physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy people.

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi

—Nora Dauenhauer (Tlingit)

My grandfather brined salmon in large buckets and hung the strips from racks in a smokehouse (see fig. 1). We savored the strips of smoked salmon all year long and shared it with friends and family.

VERY SUMMER I looked forward to heading to fish camp in Kasilof, Alaska, with my extended family. Some of my earliest memories are of watching my mother pick fish from the nets and later clean the salmon on the beach. She sliced the salmon up its belly, removed the eggs, and cleaned out the kidney with a spoon. The first fish of the season was often boiled, but we also preserved it by smoking and canning the meat.

Fishing is the most important subsistence activity in Alaska. Every summer millions of pounds of fish are harvested as a food source that can last the whole year. Beyond the importance of fish as a food and means of economic survival, fishing also serves important cultural roles within Alaska Native communities. As a communal activity, fishing binds people together in the activity of harvesting and putting up fish. Many Alaska Native people have

E

deep symbolic collections with fish— oral traditions describe fish as spiritual beings that reward individuals who treat them respectfully.

Alaska Native peoples, known for their resourceful use of materials, not only consumed the meat but also used the skins of fish as an important textile material.2 Historically, Alaska Native women transformed the skins into usable leather valued for its warm, durable, waterproof, and windproof qualities.3 The processed skins from lamprey eel, jackfish, whitefish, blackfish, halibut, burbot, grayling, and Arctic char, as well as all five species of salmon (Chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink), were

1. Nora Dauenhauer, “Five Slices of Salmon,” in First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim, ed. Judith Roche and Meg McHutchinson (University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1998), 100.

2. In addition to wearing the skins, fish fat can be boiled and used as glue, fish eggs were used to tan hides, and fish bones were occasionally used as decorative material.

3. Historically, women oversaw the household economy and labor, including processing and sewing materials to be made into clothing. A woman was admired for her skill in making durable clothing. A young girl had her own sewing kit and learned to imitate her mother and female relatives in constructing the family’s clothing. If a woman was a sloppy seamstress, her irregular stitches were believed to drive away game. Usually women prepared clothing in the fall or autumn.

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used to construct bags, boots, mittens, pants, parkas, quivers, line, blankets, window coverings, hats, drinking containers, tent coverings, and diapers.

Native Alaskans are not alone in using fish skin as leather. Ainu, Saami, Hezhen Chinese, Canadian Inuit, and several Siberian tribes also use fish skin to construct clothing. According to scholars Gudmund Hatt and Kristen Taylor, “If one were to mention the sorts of skins used in arctic clothing in a sequence based on their importance and the geographic distribution of their use, then reindeer skin ought to be mentioned first, followed by bird skins and fish skins.”4

ABOVE: FIGURE 1. Salmon drying in a Bristol Bay smokehouse. Photo: Suresh Sethi.

OPPOSITE: Close-up detail of the stitching on fish skin boots in the Sheldon Jackson Museum collection (Sitka, Alaska). Photo: Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Alutiiq).

BELOW: Steve McCutcheon (1911–1998), Katrina Cutting King Salmon at Piamute, 1964, photograph, Yukon River, Alaska, collection of Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage Museum, B1990.014.5AKNative.23.28. Image courtesy of the Anchorage Museum.

Although using fish skins as a textile material was once common in Alutiiq, Athabascan, Iñupiaq, Tlingit, and Yup’ik communities in Alaska, very few artists work with fish skins today. In recent years Alaska Native artists worked to revive the use of fish skins. Because there was a break in this tradition, artists are experimenting with the technology required to process and sew the material. In some cases, artists have consulted museum collections to learn by examining the construction of historical fish skin artifacts. In other cases, artists have learned on their own by experimenting with the material to learn its properties. Recently, artist workshops focused on fish skin have sprung up around the state, where artists learn from and work with each other to share their techniques and methods.

This article provides information on the use of fish skin as a textile material among Alaska Native artists and efforts that are underway to revive fish skin sewing in Alaska’s communities.

Beginning with a historical overview of the use of fish skins in Alaskan cultures, the article then shares the methods involved in processing and sewing fish skins, and examines the work of some of the artists who continue to practice and pass on this tradition.

4. Gudmund Hatt and Kirsten Taylor, “Arctic Skin Clothing in Eurasia and America: An Ethnographic Study,” Arctic Anthropology, 5, No. 2 (1969): 6.

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Historical Uses of Fish Skins Accounts by ethnographers and collectors in Alaska in the late-19th and early-20th centuries record that Alaska Native people from throughout the state used the skins of diverse fish species as an important leather resource.

In the late 1880s, Smithsonian collector Edward Nelson observed, “On the Lower Yukon very poor people utilized even the skins of salmon for making their frocks.”5 Similar observations were made during the same time period by the collector Reverend Sheldon Jackson who noted “the Natives [of Kodiak Island] made shirts out of the skins of codfish and salmon.”6 Working in the interior part of the state in the early 20th century, anthropologist Cornelius Osgood recorded that the Deg Hit’an Athabascan people created fine fish skin garments, and that “practically every adult has several fish skin bags.”7 In the 1950s, Frederica de Laguna found that the Tlingit people from the Yakutat area still constructed halibut skin bags, including larger examples up to three feet in height that were used as storage bags for clothing, furs, and food, as well as smaller examples that were used to hold seal oil or sewing supplies.8 According to Willie Beans (Yup’ik) of Mountain Village (1909–1998), “I myself wore [fish skin boots] for long time traveling all over. Your feet don’t get cold and they are waterproof… they were very light.”9 Aside from their waterproof, windproof, strong, and lightweight qualities, using fish skin as a textile material had several other benefits. Frank Andrew from Kwigillingok (1917–2006) describes fish skin garments as versatile.

When out in the wilderness, hunters might use a fish skin parka as a garment during the day and then reuse it as a tent

FIGURE 2. Joel Isaak’s fish skins in the process of “freeze drying.” Photo: Joel Isaak (Kenaitze).

at night. “When they were going to use them, they stuck the ice pick in the ground after clearing the area, and they placed the hood over the ice pick’s top, loosely tying the fastener on so that the air could circulate. And they pulled the sleeves inside. Then they put weights around the inside bottom and used it as a shelter.”10 Marlene Nielsen of Kokhanok remembers that in emergencies, fish skin clothing could be eaten. “There are a lot of stories in our culture about famine, and that’s why Mom always says when we eat smoked fish we should save the skin, because that’s what used to save people a long time ago. People could survive by eating pieces of their clothing.”

Fish skins also had symbolic use.

According to Cornelius Osgood, salmon skin cradles were used for a baby born after the death of another child because “it is believed that the salmon skin will keep away the evil spirits.”11 Wearing fish skin and other animal skin clothing created a connection with and honored the animal. Many Alaska Natives believe

that using the harvest well encourages the animals to return so that they can continue to sustain the community. In addition, wearing fish skin or having the ability to work with fish skins can be a marker of identity, reinforcing a person’s relationship to his or her culture.12 Although Alaska Native people continue to use fish as an important food supply, by the mid-20th century the use of fish skin clothing dramatically declined.

With a few exceptions, fish skin boots and parkas were replaced by rubber boots and commercially manufactured rain gear. As Alutiiq artist Coral Chernoff from Kodiak Island explains, “We didn’t have to make gut or salmon skin parkas because we could just go to the store and buy them.” Marlene Nielsen described another reason why the practice of fish skin sewing may have declined: “People don’t want to take the time or do not have the time to spend.

It is a very time-consuming process to work the skin. People don’t have a lot of time to do this; we have jobs, we have to take care of children and cook.”

5. Edward William Nelson, The Eskimo about Bering Strait (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 31.

6. Sheldon Jackson, “A Cargo of Alaska School Teachers,” in The Chautauquan, 8 (1888), 491.

7. Cornelius Osgood, Ingalik Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), 155.

8. Frederica de Laguna, Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972), 426.

9. Sheldon Jackson Museum archives file folder, unpublished notes from a visit to the museum by Willie Beans, Wassilie Evan, and Andy Paukan (1989), Sitka, Alaska.

10. Ann Fienup-Riordan, Yuungnaqpiallerput: Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 194.

11. Cornelius Osgood, Ingalik Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), 284.

12. Chase Hensel, Telling Ourselves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 136.

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Processing Fish Skins For those who find the time to process and sew fish skins, they can attest that the time-consuming process requires patience and skill. After removing the fish head, tail, and entrails, the meat is separated from the skin, and the remaining fatty parts are scraped from the skin using a dull ulu, spoon, bone implement, or seashell. Care has to be taken to remove all of the flesh without puncturing the skin. Historically, the skins would be soaked in urine for one or two days to remove excess oils. According to Rita Blumenstein, originally from Nelson Island, urine from an unweaned baby was preferred for this purpose.13 Today artists have modified the technique. Instead of soaking the skins in urine, they use lye or another soap or detergent. Once the skins are clean, they are worked for hours by manual manipulation through massaging and stretching the skins until the fibers break down and become pliable and soft. The fish scales may be removed from the outside of the skin but are often retained for both functional and aesthetic purposes. The scales provide beautiful decorative

ABOVE: FIGURE 3. Fish skin parka, Alaska, collection of the University of Pennsylvania, NA3225.

BELOW: FIGURE 4. Unknown Cup’ig artist, Boy’s boots, pre-1905, made with salmon skin, Nunivak Island, Alaska, collection of the University of Pennsylvania, NA232. Both images courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

13. Rita Pitka Blumenstein, “Fishskin and Gut the Yup’ik Way,” in Innerskins/Outerskins, ed. Pat Hickman (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, 1987), 22.

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ABOVE: FIGURE 4. Fish skin hood, Alaska, collection of the Sheldon Jackson Museum, IIH17, Sitka. Photo: Berry McWayne.

BELOW: Unknown Yup’ik artist (attributed), Parka, ca. 1910, chum salmon skin, sinew, hide, grass, from the mouth of the Yukon River, Calista Native Corporation, Alaska, 43.3 x 37 x 7.9 in.

Collection of Smithsonian NMAI, DC, 9/7029. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian NMAI.

If a seamstress is not going to use her skins right away, she might keep the fish skins in alcohol solution, which helps to keep the skin color bright. Alternately, she might keep skins in the freezer until they are ready to use or store them dried in a cool and dark place. When ready to use, the fish skins can be rehydrated so that they will not tear when they are sewn. Historically, seamstresses used sinew or thin strips of salmon skins to connect the skins together using a couching stitch, a running stitch, or an overstitch.15 The advantage of using these thread materials is that fish skins and sinew will swell when they are wet, and this swelling helps to tighten up the seams to reinforce a garment’s waterproof quality. Although some contemporary artists continue to use these traditional sewing materials, other seamstresses opt to sew with synthetic sinew. On some historical artifacts, seamstresses decorated the seams with ribbons, seashore grass, yarn, hair, or added strips of dyed sea mammal esophagus or leather as welting. These decorations add strength to the seam while also providing embellishment.

Design Conventions

crisscross patterns, and in the case of fish skin boots, help provide traction when walking across the snow, ice, or slippery mud. Some artists color the skin using natural dye made from shredded alder or willow bark, which

also helps in the tanning process.14 Others cure the skins by hanging them outside so that they become soft and white, or leave the fish skins their natural color (see fig. 2).

Fish skin artifacts in museum collections demonstrate that Alaska Native seamstresses followed established design conventions. When making parkas, artists often used the outline of the fish as part of the clothing design. In some examples, the fish skins are aligned head to tail, creating an elaborate quilt-like pattern. Seamstresses commonly made clothing with strips of vertical fish skin with contrasting undyed skins sewed next to skins dyed red with alder bark (see fig. 3). On many garments the dorsal fin is removed, and the remaining space is patched using contrasting skin or gut material to create a decorative pattern.

In some examples, the fins are left on as decorative elements. Because fish skins will not fray or tear easily, fish skin garments are not typically hemmed, although sometimes decorative fringe is added to the bottom of a garment. Fish

14. Fran Reed, “The Poor Man’s Raincoat: Alaskan Fish Skin Garments,” in Arctic Clothing of North America: Alaska, Canada, Greenland, ed. JCH King et al. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 51.

15. Ibid, 50.

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skin garments typically have a loose fit. This has several advantages. Loosefitting clothing allows for air circulation while helping to retain body heat. In addition, loose-fitting clothing could be layered over other garments if needed for additional warmth.16

Fish Skin Boots Fish skin boots were made in a wide variety of designs with both short and tall boots. Seamstresses often attached wide strips of fish skin to the sides of a boot, so that the boot could be securely tied around a person’s ankle (see fig. 4).

To increase the insulation, the fish skin boots were often worn with woven grass socks. When boots became too worn to wear, they were sometimes recycled and transformed into fish skin bags.17

Fish Skin Mittens Fish skin mittens (occasionally made thumbless) and gloves were worn when paddling or when working with fish nets.18 One pair of gloves from the Lower Yukon Delta was sewn using contrasting strips of undyed and alderdyed skins and embellished with fringe around the wrists. Fancy gloves like these may have been used for special occasions or possibly when dancing.

Fish Skin Bags Fish skin bags were made in a variety of shapes. Some bags served as storage containers for clothing or skins and had drawstrings along the top of the bag to close it. Some small bags were made into a kakivik, or kakiwik (also known as a “housewife”), a bag with a rounded U-shaped top and a pouch at the bottom where a woman kept her needles, thimbles, awls, and other sewing implements. On occasion, seamstresses used fish skin in conjunction with other materials such as leather or grass when constructing bags.

TOM: Audrey Armstrong (Koyukon Athabascan), Chief Bowl, Chinook salmon skin, hide, abalone, dentalia, glass beads, thread. Image courtesy of the artist.

BOTTOM: Rochelle Adams (Athabascan), Fish skin container, fish skin, hide, glass beads, thread. Image courtesy of the artist.

16. Fran Reed, “The Poor Man’s Raincoat: Alaskan Fish Skin Garments,” in Arctic Clothing of North America: Alaska, Canada, Greenland, ed. JCH King et al., (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 49.

17. Cornelius Osgood, Ingalik Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), 155.

18. Marie Meade and Ann Fienup-Riordan, Ciuliamta akluit/Things of Our Ancestors: Yup’ik Elders Explore the Jacobsen Collection at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 267; James W. Vanstone, “Nunivak Island Eskimo (Yuit) Technology and Material Culture,” in Anthropology, new series, No. 12 (Chicago Field Museum 1989), 36.

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ABOVE: Joel Isaak (Kenaitze), Tiq’u Vava (Dried Salmon Mask), 2013, embossed sockeye salmon skin. Images courtesy of the artist.

BELOW: FIGURE 5. Marlene Nielsen (Kokhanok Yup’ik), dolls made with Dolly Varden char skins. Image courtesy of the artist.

traditional style clothing. A few artists have a regular practice in working with fish skin and have been instrumental in passing on their knowledge to others.

Audrey Armstrong (Koyukon Athabascan)

Contemporary Expressions Today fish skin is used to make some of the art forms described previously, although there are also variations.

Artisans from Chevak in Western Alaska are known for their fish skin dolls, which are specialty collector items. Eve Mendenhall (Iñupiaq), originally from

Kotzebue, makes fish skin necklaces.

Jarrod Galanin (Tlingit) from Sitka has experimented with making fish skin belts and wallets. Rochelle Adams (Athabascan), originally from Beaver, makes beautiful fish skin containers.

Both Coral Chernoff (Alutiiq) and June Pardue (Alutiiq), originally from Kodiak, make fish skin shoes, scissor containers, knife sheaths, and dolls with

One of the most active artists working with fish skins is Audrey Armstrong.

Although Armstrong grew up watching her mother sew with animal hides, she did not get a taste for sewing until she was in her twenties. Armstrong began sewing animal skins through an apprenticeship with Charlotte Douthit (Gwich’in) and immediately loved it. She started experimenting with fish skins in 2002 and studied under Fran Reed, a non-Native textile artist who learned the art of fish skin sewing from elders in the Gwich’in Athabascan community of Venetie in the 1980s.19 Before Fran died in 2008, she asked Armstrong to continue working with fish skins and to share her work through teaching.

Armstrong teaches fish skin sewing workshops around the state of Alaska and shares her skill with classes at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She introduces her students to fish skin processing and sewing by making a

19. Fran Reed (1943–2008) moved to Fairbanks in 1969 and began working with natural materials available to her in Alaska, including fish skin, gut, and quiviut (muskox fur). She became well known for her abstract fish skin baskets and shared her knowledge of working with the material through fish skin sewing workshops.

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self-taught and uses fish skins to make earrings, mask forms, and dolls (see fig.

5). For Nielsen, using fish skin to make art is an extension of the subsistence activities that she takes part in with her family. “We put away at least 200 fish for winter use. We smoke and dry the fish.

We try to use the entire animal.” When Nielsen was growing up, the only fish skin artifact that she remembered seeing was a fish skin mask hanging on the wall of a family member’s home. The mask was so old that no one remembered who made it or where it came from. Nielsen decided to start experimenting with using salmon skins to make her own mask forms. “I feel there are not a whole lot of people who do work with fish skin, so I wanted to try to bring it back.”

Like Armstrong, Nielsen values teaching what she has learned to her family and others in her community. “I hope that others will learn how to do this, because it is so important that we retain connections to our culture.”

Joel Isaak (Kenaitze) FIGURE 6. Joel Isaak (Kenaitze), fish skin dress, 2013, modeled by Terzah Tippin Poe (Iñupiaq). Photo: Jonathan Cha.

traditional Athabascan-style bag from two whole salmon skins. Audrey’s bags are often embellished with shells, fish vertebrae, hide, bones, and beads. Some of her students have invented new uses for fish skin, such as backpacks and lanterns.20 Whether or not her students decide to continue working with fish skins after the class, Armstrong says she likes her students to gain an appreciation of how to use all of the parts of an animal, and she loves creating new friendships during the course of her classes.

Marlene Nielsen (Yup’ik) Marlene Nielsen from Kokhanok, Alaska, harvests fish year round from Iliamna Lake, including dollies, trout, pike, and, salmon. Nielsen is entirely

One artist who is taking fish skin art in new directions is Joel Isaak. Isaak, who grew up fishing with his family in Soldotna, Alaska, explains his interest in using fish skins as coming from “a goal to learn more about my culture and to pass the information on to others before it is lost.” Since beginning his work with fish skin, Isaak has experimented with fish skin masks, sculptures, and clothing.

For a fashion show in Anchorage in 2013 that celebrated Indigenous clothing design, Isaak created a salmon skin corset, a salmon skin evening dress with matching heels (see fig. 6), and a halibut skin motorcycle jacket. By transforming traditional material into clothing that is stylish and contemporary, Isaak’s work pays homage to Alaska Native cultural traditions and the continued importance of using resources from the land while at the same time showcasing the continued ingenuity of Alaska Native people.

Although still in his twenties, Isaak actively shares what he has learned

through workshops around the state.

In 2013, he taught a workshop at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. In 2014, he co-taught another set of workshops with Marlene Nielsen in Bethel. Isaak left Alaska to begin an MFA program in 2014 at Alfred University in New York, but he intends to keep working with fish skins and find new uses for the material.

As more artists learn fish skin sewing techniques and experiment with this material, we can expect to see an increase in the use of fish skin in art forms coming from Alaska.

Acknowledgments Research for this paper began in 2011 when I attended Audrey Armstrong’s fish skin sewing workshop in Kasitsna Bay. Since taking that class, I became intrigued by the history of fish skin sewing in Alaska. Working as the curator at the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka, Alaska, from 2011 to 2012, I was enthralled with the museum’s collection of incredibly detailed 19thcentury fish skin clothing collected in the Yup’ik, Athabascan, and Iñupiat regions of Alaska. In 2012, I organized a series of artist residencies at the museum and invited Marlene Nielsen, Coral Chernoff, and Audrey Armstrong to examine the collection and share their fish skin work. The Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage hosted another fish skin residency in December 2012 with the same group of artists.

Since then, other fish skin workshops have been organized by the Alaska Native Arts Foundation in 2013 and in 2014. In addition, the Alaska Native Arts Foundation has held exhibitions focused on fish skin and helped to organized fashion shows that feature fish skin arts.

I am grateful to the artists who shared their work with me, and to the Alaska Humanities Forum and The CIRI Foundation for providing funding to support this research.

20. One artist who learned skin sewing from Armstrong is Emily Johnson (Yup’ik), a choreographer and director of Catalyst Dance Company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After learning how to sew fish skin bags from Armstrong, Johnson went on to create fish skin lanterns and to lead workshops teaching others how to make the fish skin lanterns, which then became part of Johnson’s dance performances. For more information about Johnson’s work, see www.catalystdance.com.

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Mapuche Silver Dreams, Tears, and the Work of a Retrafe

By Heidi McKinnon

N

Mother Moon remained there in the darkness, never returning to the daylight or her husband. She cried until her tears became rivers, which flowed down the mountains, creating lakes and seas.

OT LONG AGO, a young Mapuche woman in southern Chile had a dream about a piece of jewelry. In her dream she could see the design, the form, and the texture of the silver. She knew why she dreamt about it. She was struggling with something personal, and it would help her spiritually to have this piece of jewelry made.

Soon after her dream, she visited a local Mapuche silversmith and asked him to make a brooch for her. That is all she said.

Weeks later, the silversmith called her to talk about the work. He had finally seen it in his dreams and described it to her. He described the exact design and shape of the brooch she saw in her own dreams, and she knew that it was time to have this piece made to wear during ceremonies.1 This is not an uncommon practice for commissioning ceremonial Mapuche silverwork in Chile today.

Women and Silver Silver is deeply associated with the moon and feminine energy in Mapuche culture. Only women and spiritual leaders traditionally wore silver jewelry during ceremonies.2 Mapuche communities in both Argentina and Chile have oral histories that recount the origins of

One day a Mapuche woman, a domo, climbed a nearby mountain to comfort the moon in her suffering and wipe her tears. For her gift of generosity and tenderness, Mother Moon turned her tears into silver as they fell, adorning the domo in the silver jewelry that would mark the sacred bond between Mother Moon and Mapuche women forever.

TOP: Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Tupu (shawl pin), silver. Photo: Daniel Huencho.

ABOVE: Carlos Brandt, Chilena en Traje de Mapuche, postcard, 1899, Concepción, Chile.

silver, all of which are based on the relationship between the sun and the moon. What follows is a compilation of some of these stories.

The sun and moon were a loving couple, until one morning when Mother Moon found Father Sun in an amorous embrace with the Morning Star. In her hurt and anger, she confronted the Sun, who became angry and hit the Moon so hard that she flew across the daytime sky and landed in the night.

Realizing his mistake and his loss, as well as his inability to right the wrong he had done to his wife, Father Sun shed tears himself, which fell to the earth in the form of gold. To this day, we can still see the bruises and marks on the Moon’s surface from the Sun’s violence against her.3 Following the oral histories, silver is considered older than gold. It carries positive, mystical connotations, while gold is often related to fostering the negative energy in an individual.4 Silver has the power to protect women, evoke dreams, bring luck, restore health, and increase fertility. It is equated with transparency and knowledge.5 It is used by Mapuche spiritual leaders called machi. When a

1. Daniel Huencho in discussion with the author, 2006.

2. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 14.

3. María Espósito and Oscar Armayor, Arte Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guadal, 2008), 98; Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 11–12.

4. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 17.

5. María Espósito and Oscar Armayor, Arte Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guadal, 2008), 98–99.

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woman is covered in silver pendants, coins, and beads, the sound Mapuche silver pieces make as she walks is thought to protect her from bad spirits.6 Gold is not often used and considered a metal best worn by people who are strong spiritually, as it became associated with negativity, conquest, and tragedy after European contact.7 Wearing Mapuche silver involves many layers of meaning that transcend its mere decorative nature. Each piece has its own significance, importance, and curative powers.8 Silverwork has always been worn on occasions other than the ceremonies themselves. It is worn for prayer and initiations, when healing the sick, during social occasions, for travel, and to feel confident in one’s daily life.9 Ceremonial silver accompanies one in death as well.

Obviously, jewelry is a cultural marker.

It connotes socioeconomic status and historically was used as a means of identifying the geographic community where a person lived.10 Collections of

silver were owned by the male heads of a family, and their use by the wives and daughters of a leader, or lonko, reflected the prestige of his lineage.11 On a more mystical level, silver is considered a conduit between the spiritual and the earthly worlds; Mapuche women are also considered the conduit between these worlds.12 Each piece of silver expresses a visual language and symbolic interpretation of the Mapuche worldview through its design, form, and symbols.13 As Mapuche culture and ideology have changed through the centuries, so have the meanings and interpretations of the silverwork, though not significantly.

Prior to the 20th century, Mapuche women wore only silver made by a Mapuche silversmith, or retrafe, due to the sacred nature and significance of the shapes and their spiritual connection to silver.14 Silver objects belonging to foreigners, huinca, even if given as gifts, were not considered appropriate to

Daniel Huencho, a Mapuche retrafe living in Nueva Imperial, in the Araucanía Region of Chile. Image courtesy of the artist.

wear.15 A lonko would never trust that a foreign silversmith could create work that transmitted the nehuen, or life force, to the piece.16

Antecedents

Unknown Mapuche artist, Belt ornament, 1880–1920, silver, Chile, collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 22/5062. Photo: NMAI Photo Services.

Archaeological evidence suggests the earliest pieces of Mapuche metal jewelry were made of copper.17 Most of the remains found are pectoral pins, called tupu, and earrings, called chaguai.18 Metallurgy arrived in southern Chile from the northern Andean communities such as the Aymara and Quechua.19 The use of both silver and gold in metallurgy has been documented by several early Spanish chroniclers as well, making it clear that Mapuche silversmiths were working with silver, copper, and gold before the Spanish invasion.20

6. María Espósito and Oscar Armayor, Arte Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guadal, 2008), 98–99.

7. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 17.

8. Daniel Huencho in discussion with the author, 2014.

9. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 52; Daniel Huencho in discussion with the author, 2014.

10. Carlos Riesco Ladrón de Guevara and Mario Andrés Salazar Castro, Plateros de la Luna (Santiago: La Biblioteca Nacional, 1988), 11.

11. Ibid.

12. Carlos Martínez Sarasola and Andrés Barragán, Mapuches del Neuquén: Arte y Cultura en la Patagonia Argentina (Buenos Aires: Luz Editora, 2002), 121.

13. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 13.

14. Ibid., 51.

15. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 16; Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 51.

16. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 16.

17. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 13; Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 17; Museo Regional de la Araucanía and Raúl Morris von Bennewitz, Plata de la Araucanía: Colección Raúl Morris von Bennewitz (Talagante, Chile: Ilustre Municipalidad de Talagante, 1980), 17; Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 19.

18. María Espósito and Oscar Armayor, Arte Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guadal, 2008), 105–110; Carlos Martínez Sarasola and Andrés Barragán, Mapuches del Neuquén: Arte y Cultura en la Patagonia Argentina (Buenos Aires: Luz Editora, 2002), 254; Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 18.

19. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 17.

20. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 18.

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Tupu The tupu is one of the most ubiquitous forms of jewelry in the Andes. It consists of a long silver pin, 10 to 15 centimeters long, with either a flat disc with perforations in the form of a cross, or a spherical ball attached at the top. The spherical tupu, often called a punzón, was typical of the Aymara region, and the flat disc tupu was used by both Quechua and Aymara peoples.21 Tupus are still worn today as they were historically, on the chest to fasten a shawl or woolen blanket around the shoulders. Later forms of Mapuche silver were made to hang from the tupu.

Chaguai Earrings of rectangular or trapezoidal laminate silver with no perforations or incised designs are the most classic pieces of Mapuche adornment. Some of the oldest chaguai were the largest, reaching 20 centimeters in width.22 They were not worn through perforations in the ear lobe but were hung from the top of the ear.

Earrings have evolved in size, design, and style over the centuries, but remain true to the shape of their ancient antecedents.

expanded the metalworking techniques of the retrafe.24 To understand how Mapuche silverwork flourished as an art form, an overview of the changes associated with contact is needed.

After the 1546 Spanish invasion of Wallmapu, the Mapuche territory covering much of southern Chile and Argentina, a century of territorial wars ensued, during which the Mapuche nation remained undefeated. Spain recognized Mapuche independence and the boundaries of Wallmapu with the historically important 1641 Treaty of Quillín.25 Spain had never been forced to sign a treaty with a Native nation until this point,26 making it the first treaty with a Native nation in the Americas. Mapuche communities maintained independence from the Spanish crown and the subsequent Chilean state for another 200 years—governing all lands south of the Bío Bío River, nearly 2.5 million acres,27 well into the 1880s.

Chile gained its independence in 1818, which is often referred to as the

beginning of the second invasion.28 At first, the fledgling nation of Chile remained uninterested in Mapuche affairs as other wars were underway and trading relationships remained intact.

As Chilean prospectors encroached on Wallmapu territory and the Chilean state saw a greater need for agricultural land following increased demand for wheat exports during the California gold rush, the formal invasion began by 1869.29 In 1883, the War of Extermination ended with Mapuche communities confined to over 2,200 reservations, or reducciones, totaling 1.3 million acres or 5.6 percent of their original territory.30 Further encroachments into the Mapuche homeland occurred steadily over the next hundred years. By the mid-1970s, under the Augusto Pinochet regime, the Indigenous Peoples Law further reduced their landholdings to 865,000 acres, and attempted to eliminate traditional communities altogether.31

Several forms of chaguai evolved over the centuries that did require perforations of the ear, including semicircular earrings with incisions or dangling silver trinkets, and bell-shaped earrings with triangular incisions and perforated linear designs.23 Sizes of chaguai have varied through the centuries, but the trend has been toward smaller earrings. Certain earrings are worn by girls before katan pillun puberty initiations, and other shapes are used after marriage.

Contact Though silver may have been mined or acquired through trade with the Aymara to the north, Spaniards brought silver into Mapuche territory in large quantities and

ABOVE: Daniel Huencho hammering a design on a tupu. Photo: Daniel Huencho.

21. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 24.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., 24–25.

24. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 20, 96; Museo Regional de la Araucanía and Raúl Morris von Bennewitz, Plata de la Araucanía: Colección Raúl Morris von Bennewitz (Talagante, Chile: Ilustre Municipalidad de Talagante, 1980), 23, 25.

25. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 9; Patricia Richards, “Expanding Women’s Citizenship?: The Representation of Pobladora and Mapuche Women in the Chilean State” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 2002), 135–136.

26. Patricia Richards, “Expanding Women’s Citizenship?: The Representation of Pobladora and Mapuche Women in the Chilean State” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 2002), 135.

27. “Mapuche.” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, September 26, 2014, web.

28. Malú Sierra, Mapuche: Gente de la Tierra (Santiago: Editorial Sudamericana Chilena, 2000), 35; “Mapuche.” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Sept. 26, 2014, web.

29. Ricardo Ferrando Kaun, Y Así Nació La Frontera: Conquista, Guerra, Ocupación, Pacificación, 1550–1900 (Santiago: Editorial Antártica, 1986), 426; Patricia Richards, “Expanding Women’s Citizenship?: The Representation of Pobladora and Mapuche Women in the Chilean State” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 2002), 135–136.

30 Patricia Richards, “Expanding Women’s Citizenship?: The Representation of Pobladora and Mapuche Women in the Chilean State” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 2002), 135–136; “Mapuche.” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, September 26, 2014, web.

31. “Mapuche.” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, September 26, 2014, web.

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Introduction of Metallurgy Several plausible scenarios can explain how metallurgy techniques passed from the Spanish to Mapuche retrafe in the midst of conquest and colonization. During the initial wave of the invasion, the Spanish settled within Wallmapu territory and enslaved thousands of Mapuche, some of whom learned the craft as apprentices to blacksmiths. Mapuche also took prisoners during skirmishes, and those who had skills in metallurgy were coerced into demonstrating their techniques. Quechua troops or Spanish deserters captured by the Mapuche or who escaped the Spanish army during the invasion of Wallmapu may have shared their knowledge of metalwork.32 In the early 17th century, Spanish chronicler Gonzáles de Nájera wrote the first account of women wearing earrings made of silver instead of copper, stating that the silver “came from chalices and communion plates taken from churches in the Spanish towns that were sacked and destroyed” during the 1598 general uprising.33 Within a generation of the Spanish invasion, Mapuche retrafe and Mapuche women were showing an affinity for silver, which would only grow over time.

A Renaissance in Silver During the centuries after the signing of the Treaty of Quillín with Spain, trade replaced warfare, and economic stability increased within Mapuche communities due to the early introduction of cattle and horses by the Spaniards. The Spanish were no longer considered the enemy but trading partners. Mapuche community leaders, or lonko, became cattle ranchers, regularly traveling across the Andes into present-day Argentina to tend to their livestock, which were then driven back across the mountains and sold to the Spanish.

Four Mapuche girls modeling trariloncos and other silver jewelry. Photo: Daniel Huencho.

Silver became the predominant metal used in trade and jewelry production following the introduction of Spanish silver coins from the mines in Potosí, Bolivia, in the early 18th century. As trade for cattle, horses, and eventually agricultural goods increased with the Spanish, and later the Chileans after independence from the crown, many lonkos and other powerful men amassed great wealth in the form of cattle herds and stockpiles of silver coins.34 Many of these coins were transformed into jewelry by retrafe, who pounded them into thin metal sheets or melted them and poured the molten silver into sand-casting molds to create new forms of art worn by the wives and daughters of these powerful lonkos. By the 19th century, almost every lonko is said to have had his own personal retrafe to make jewelry for his family and horses from his wealth in silver.35 The position of the retrafe, with his important religious and cultural functions

in a community, was historically passed down through a lineage, as many other positions in Mapuche culture.36 Silvia Rinque, a Mapuche retrafe from Argentina, believes that women were the original retrafe in their communities due to their deep connection with silver and their role as mediators between the spiritual and everyday worlds.37 Most historians believe retrafe were historically men.

During the 18th century, silver replaced copper, and new forms and jewelry designs emerged.38 A renaissance in Mapuche art was underway. The entire 18th century is considered the second of several phases in the history of Mapuche silverwork, the first being the precontact period until the introduction of quantities of silver.39 Copper was set aside in the first half of the 18th century, when silver was pervasive as a currency and subsequently became the metal of choice worn by women.40 Retrafe developed their skills to create a uniquely

32. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 25.

33.Ibid., 23.

34. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 96.

35. Joaquín Molina, Mapuche: Arte de los Pueblos del Sur (Buenos Aires: Fundación Nicolás García Uriburu), 96; Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 101; Carlos Riesco Ladrón de Guevara and Mario Andrés Salazar Castro, Plateros de la Luna (Santiago: La Biblioteca Nacional, 1988), 11; It is important to note that jewelry was used as a bride price to acquire both women and cattle.

36. Daniel Huencho in discussion with the author, 2014. Other positions passed down through a lineage include the machi, the choike, the trutrukatufe, and the tayilfe.

37. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 17.

38. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 2; Von Bennewitz sees two phases, while Reccius and Furman use four phases. I would suggest that there are currently five.

39. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 18.

40. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 23.

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Mapuche approach to the art at this time.

By the 1750s, retrafe created numerous unique pieces of ceremonial jewelry using hand-hammered silver sheet metal and sand-casting techniques. Their designs came to define specific communities, or lofs, garnering prestige and power for the lonko in the process.41 In the late 18th century, more new shapes and designs emerged in women’s jewelry that still exist today, such as the sikil and trapelakucha.42 Retrafe began designing adornments for men and horses for the first time. Lonkos amassed collections of exceptional jewelry.

ARTISTIC Decline At the beginning of the 19th century, a third phase of Mapuche silverwork emerged.43 Trade with newly independent Chile remained steady to mid-century, so experimentation continued with jewelry.

Nickel alloys were adopted in this phase,44 and jewelry was sometimes melted and

reworked according to the style of the day, as had been the case in previous centuries.45 The creation of borders for the new republics and border patrols halted cattle trade between Chile and Argentina in the late 19th century.46 Following the War of Extermination, Mapuche communities were confined to reservations, or reducciones, and silver became scarce.

As the toll of war, starvation, and economic instability in Mapuche communities increased, jewelry production and innovation decreased drastically,47 and families began to sell their collections for food and agricultural goods. Some families were forced to migrate to cities to simply survive. Chilean forces continued burning villages and killing Mapuche people after the war officially ended.48 At the same time, thousands starved, and the army was obligated to feed disenfranchised, landless families for decades.

During the 20th century, innovation slowed. Aside from the effects of war and economic disenfranchisement, access to silver coins—fundamental to the work of a retrafe— ended after 1920, when the government began using nickel and other metals in its currency. With the decline, some historians mistakenly asserted that there were no Mapuche retrafe by the end of the century.

Today’s Path On any afternoon in the spring or summer in Chile, one might find Daniel Huencho sitting in his open air studio with a leaky corrugated roof, checking the dryness of his sand molds or firing up his blowtorch to melt silver while listening to Pink Floyd or Judas Priest. Daniel is a retrafe, a Mapuche silversmith, from the town of Nueva Imperial in the Araucanía region of southern Chile. He is one of no more than half a dozen traditional Mapuche silversmiths in Chile who still use ancestral sand-casting techniques.

Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Sikil akucha (women’s pectoral ornament), silver, Chile.

In Mapudungun, the Mapuche language, rexan or retran means metalsmith, whether

it refers to someone who casts in copper, bronze, or silver. A retrafe is a Mapuche metalsmith whose role in his community has a magical-religious connotation.

“Once a retrafe has learned the techniques of metalwork and the occupation of a metalsmith, then the ancestral knowledge, the significance of the ancestral symbols, and the use of these symbols on a piece of jewelry is transmitted solely through dreams,” says Daniel.

“The path of a retrafe is transmitted through peumas, dreams, which are sent from the ancestors,” he continues. “The ancestors select the person who will become a retrafe. You do not choose it for yourself.”

Over the years during my visits to Imperial, I have heard this comment more than once and have seen how friends, family, religious leaders, and acquaintances in Daniel’s community show respect and reverence for his occupation, his ancestral knowledge, his wisdom, and his intellect.

Outside of Imperial, his death metal t-shirts, leather jacket, tattoos, combat boots, and waist-length black hair do not garner quite the same respect from the average Chilean on the street.

After having a personal realization through his dreams, Daniel began his journey to become a retrafe with instruction of a local silversmith in the 1980s. He studied ancestral techniques on his own and sought out collectors and scholars. This led him to Dr. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz, author of the classic reference book, Mapuche Silver.

Having access to the Morris von Bennewitz collection was a profound education for Daniel, who studied some of the oldest pieces of sand-cast silver available and tried to recreate the techniques at home.

Soon Daniel apprenticed himself to an elder who learned sand-casting techniques through oral tradition passed down from the retrafe he knew in the early 20th century. Daniel regards him, and other elders he has met along the way, as his “ancestral library,” for all of the knowledge he has gained listening to their oral histories.

41. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 23.

42. Ibid.

43. Carlos Riesco Ladrón de Guevara and Mario Andrés Salazar Castro, Plateros de la Luna (Santiago: La Biblioteca Nacional, 1988), 18.

44. Ibid., 18–19.

45. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 63.

46. Patricia Richards, “Expanding Women’s Citizenship?: The Representation of Pobladora and Mapuche Women in the Chilean State” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 2002), 136.

47. Carlos Riesco Ladrón de Guevara and Mario Andrés Salazar Castro, Plateros de la Luna (Santiago: La Biblioteca Nacional, 1988), 18.

48. Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 63.

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Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Kilkay (necklace), sand-cast silver, Chile. Photo: Daniel Huencho.

Sand Casting Winter in southern Chile is characterized by rain. Everything is humid, cold, and wet, including Daniel’s open air studio.

He does not make sand-cast silver in the winter. Sand casting was likely a seasonal occupation historically as well.

Daniel adds the sand to his homemade, wooden frames, carves out the design on both halves of the mold, and leaves the sand to dry for several days in the summer.

When the sand is dry, he smelts the silver in a makeshift fireplace using a blowtorch to speed up the process. He pours the molten silver into the molds. When the silver has set and cooled, he works on the details. Today in Chile, few silversmiths follow this process.

The Role of the Retrafe Today

pride in their heritage and push for social change. The role of a retrafe has changed.

If Daniel is not in his studio, he could be teaching or attending a political meeting.

Retrafes balance their traditional ceremonial work, their work in the community, and commercial demand for Mapuche silverwork. Today, the retrafe is also a contemporary silversmith using ancestral symbols. A commercial piece of jewelry does not have the same importance as a ceremonial piece.

Daniel sees his place in Mapuche society in this way: In my opinion, the retrafe plays a predominant role within the community and at the same time adjusts to making modern jewelry. The difference between a Mapuche and a western silversmith is that the pieces made by a retrafe are destined for a system of communication with our ancestors whose method of communication is the dream.

The role of the retrafe today is to reeducate Mapuche themselves ... Beyond its magical-religious connotations, Mapuche silverwork has a relationship to the political and social state in which the Mapuche people have historically found themselves.

If we could talk about a historical line, from the abstract to the very concrete, Mapuche silverwork has suffered a metamorphosis. Therefore, the use of Mapuche silver has to adapt to the new economic requirements of a people who have suffered religious and economic dispossession.

In the 21st century, like many Indigenous silversmiths, we adapt to be able to honor our ancestors. I would like to share with this spinal column that we Indigenous peoples are part of in the Americas, the ancestral knowledge that I have, which was transmitted by a culture that precedes the European, and that persists, as our ancestors are still alive in our blood.

More than 1.5 million Mapuche live in Chile today and 200,000 in Argentina.

They are the third largest indigenous community in the Americas49 and continue to be a powerful force in Chilean society, fighting to recover lands and pushing for more autonomy from a state that prosecutes protesters as terrorists.50 The 21st century has heralded yet another phase in Mapuche silverwork, as a renewed interest in traditional art forms emerges across Chile and Argentina. People like Daniel Huencho are not only continuing a living tradition but using their knowledge to inspire younger generations to take

Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Yiwe (ceremonial chalice), silver, 2.75 x 4 in., Chile.

49. “Mapuche,” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, September 26, 2014, web.

50. “Chile must stop using anti-terrorism law against Mapuche indigenous group – UN expert,” UN News Centre, July 31, 2013, web.

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Changes in Shape, Form, and Design Through Time tubes up to two inches long that hung in successive rows. These hollow silver chains were separated by bronze or silver beads, and attached at the bottom to a small oval or circular plaque with an anthropomorphic figure at the center, which was either cut, engraved, or sand cast. Medallions hung from the plaque. The sikil was attached to a tupu or hung with thread from a silver collar called a traripel.

T

HE CLASSIC SHAPES and designs of Mapuche silver jewelry continue to be, as they were historically, made for women’s use. Aside from the tupu and chaguai, the pieces that first emerged in the 18th century include the sikil, trapelakucha, and trarilonko.51 Each of these hallmarks of Mapuche silver has undergone a stylistic evolution from the 18th century that continues today.

Sikil The sikil is a chest pendant, which first appeared in the late 18th century, whose shape and symbolism refer to female fertility and connections with the earth.52 The original shape was made of a series of three to eight threads or fibers joined at the top and strung through small, hollow, silver

The sikil shape changed in the 19th century from chains made of hollow tubes to three or four successive, rectangular, silver plates with a larger decorated plate at the top to connect to the traripel. In the 20th century, wide, silver, linked chains replaced the small rectangular plates that form the body of the piece. With this new shape, called the sikil akucha or prendedor akucha, the top plate remained, was enlarged, and shaped in the form of two condors facing one another. This most recent form is the largest of the Mapuche chest pendants and considered a source of protection for women.53

Trapelakucha The trapelakucha is a also chest pendant that originated in the 18th century.

Similar to the evolution of the body of the sikil¸ the trapelakucha body was originally made of hollow tubes, then plates, and finally wide chains.54 The

51. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 18–19.

52. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 20; Raúl Morris von Bennewitz and Juan Carlos Gedda O., Mapuche Silver (Santiago: Editorial Kactus), 54, 60.

53. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 39.

54. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 22.

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bottom of the pendant has always been, and continues to be, a sand-cast or laminated plate of silver with a cross design or cutout shape. The cross may symbolically refer to many things in the Mapuche worldview. Some believe it refers to the Southern Cross constellation or the sacredness of the number four in Mapuche culture.65

in the 20th century. These days most silver is inherited. Occasionally, people are buried with certain pieces, but very clandestinely, because of the history of looting. Local plants such as maqui (Chilean wineberry) and canelo (winter’s bark tree) are smoked in the kitra pipe.

Trarilonko The contemporary trarilonko is a wide, silver chain with disc-shaped pendants worn on the head and fastened in the front with blue ribbon. The earliest forms of the trarilonko were made of wool or leather with small silver studs and fastened at the back of the head.56 In the 18th century, various forms of silver chains and clasps emerged, but the pendants remained free of designs.57 By the 19th century, the chains grew more complex, and simple designs were incorporated on the pendants.

Symbolically, wearing a silver chain on the head is associated with wisdom, clear thought, and reflection. Some of the most well-known Mapuche fighters and leaders, such as Lautaro and Caupolicán, are believed to have worn trarilonko during their lifetimes.58

Kitra The kitra is a silver pipe with a slender stem and a horse’s head by the bowl.

A human figure rides the pipe, as one would ride a horse, and water birds are located in front and behind the figure.

The kitra is used symbolically to help the soul of a deceased lonko, machi, or other spiritual leader travel across the waters and reach the other side on her or his spiritual journey. Both women and men were buried with their ceremonial silver before graves began to be looted for their jewelry beginning

ABOVE: Aylen Antu (Mapuche), Daniel Huencho’s daughter, models her father’s sikil akucha and trarilonko. Both photos: Daniel Huencho.

OPPOSITE: Daniel Huencho (Mapuche), Kitra pipe, silver, Chile.

55. Silvia Rinque, Platería Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Artemisa, 2012), 39.

56. Ibid., 104.

57. Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Platería Araucana (Santiago: Banco O’Higgins, 1983), 21–22.

58. María Espósito and Oscar Armayor, Arte Mapuche (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guadal, 2008), 105.

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Moonrise at the Octagon Earthworks in Newark, Ohio, Monday, Oct. 29, 2007. Sequence taken every 3 minutes beginning at 9:31 pm and ending at 10:10 pm. Photo: Timothy E. Black.

Ohio’s Ancient Earthworks N ART MOVEMENT of massive earth sculptures flourished in the 1960s.

American artists hired teams with expensive earthmoving equipment to create spirals and other immense shapes called “Land Art.” However, centuries before the Land Art movement, Native Americans created far larger and more ambitious ceremonial earthworks, using tools as simple as bison-scapula hoes and woven burden baskets.

Wave after wave of precontact societies— such as the Glacial Kame, Adena, Hopewell, and Fort Ancient—flourished in the rich prairies and woodlands of the Ohio River Valley. Ohio’s very landscape has been sculpted by generations of Native Americans over thousands of years. “Woodland societies lived in worlds of their own creating,” writes archaeologist Mark F. Seeman. “They not only interpreted the landscape in ways that were meaningful to them but added to it a variety of buildings, monuments, pathways, fields, and public spaces.”1

Although monumental Indigenous earthworks span eastern North America, from the Gulf of Mexico into the Northern Plains and the Canadian Shield, the epicenter for these earthworks is Ohio.

In October 2013, my friend Linda Lomahaftewa and I were surprised by an email from Marti Chaatsmith of the Newark Earthworks Center and Christine Ballengee Morris of Ohio State

By America Meredith

A

University, Newark. They invited us to explore these amazing sites, and of course we readily agreed. This summer we were treated to a VIP tour of earthworks, famous and obscure, in southern Ohio.

Below are some of the things we learned from our trip.

Earliest Ohioans Since they don’t know what the first Native peoples called themselves, archaeologists created names for different societies and eras. Precontact North Americans are divided into the Lithic stage (unknown–8000 BCE), Archaic period (8000–1000 BCE), and Woodland period (1000 BCE–1500 CE). When glaciers receded and Ohio warmed, Lithic-stage peoples settled the land. The earliest

1. Mark F. Seeman, “Hopewell Art in Hopewell Places,” in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, eds. Richard F. Townsend and Robert V. Sharp (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 65.

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known evidence of humans in Ohio are sloth bones, butchered by humans, that date back to 11,788–11,485 BCE.2 In the Archaic period, early hunter-gather societies in Ohio developed distinct cultures, two of which are the Red Ocher people (3000–500 BCE) and Glacial Kame people (8000–500 BCE). The latter are so named because they buried their departed loved ones in kames, natural gravel mounds formed by receding glaciers.

Rather than discrete ethnic groups, these groups are “interaction spheres,”3 that is, ideological and trade networks.

Adena Glacial Kame societies are believed to have developed into what we call the Adena culture (800 BCE—1 CE). This early Woodland culture spanned southern Ohio, as well as Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. They lived off Ohio’s rich game, fish, and wild plant resources, but they also began cultivating crops collectively known as the Eastern Agricultural Complex. These crops included squash, goosefoot, sumpweed, sunflower, and other Native plants. The dispersed population lived in small hamlets of conical bark-lined houses. The peregrine falcon eye and sun-cross, so common today in Native American iconography, were first evident in Adena artwork.

Adena people began firing pottery and building artificial earth mounds. Primarily they constructed conical mounds but also circular enclosures—rounded walls of earth with openings, usually to the east. While the exact use of the earthen enclosures are unknown, it’s widely believed they were used for ceremonial purposes—dances, processions, or other public ceremonies; the earth walls marking sacred space. Conical mounds were often constructed around charnel houses, which were burned and then heaped with earth.

A new charnel house was built on top of the mound, and the process was repeated over time. These mounds could reach as high as 75 feet tall. Hundreds of Adena

earthworks once existed but very few remain today, having been leveled by American farmers and pot-hunters in the 19th century.

Serpent Mound With so little known about the earthworks, debates rage among different archaeologists, Native American tribes, linguists and other scholars, and others with far-out “Ancient Aliens” conspiracy theories about the mounds. One point of contention is the date of Great Serpent Mound. The largest effigy mound in the United States and the largest snake effigy in the world, the Great Serpent Mound of Adams County, Ohio, is easily the most beautiful earthwork I’ve ever seen. Built on a precipice within an ancient meteor crater, this mound is 1,348 feet long.

Its head faces northwest; its body forms seven undulations and terminates in a three-coiled tail. Initially, archaeologists believed the effigy mound was constructed

by Adena peoples. Then, radiocarbon dating from the 1960s and 1990s gave a date of 1070 CE; however, recent carbon dating reveals the initial construction of the mound began around 321 BCE with reconstruction happening 900 years ago.4 The serpent mound doesn’t contain artifacts or burials, but adjacent conical mounds contain both from the Adena era.

The Serpent Mound is believed to be a calendar, with the undulations aligning toward points on the horizon corresponding to significant lunar events, as well as solar events such as solstice and equinox sunrises. Its head is thought to align with the summer solstice sunset. If this is true, then this beautiful, undulating earthwork is the summation of a vast corpus of astronomic knowledge.

Unfortunately, the popularity and mystery of the Great Serpent Mound has attracted the attention of the more outlandish of the New Age movement and UFO enthusiasts.

In 2012, the mound was desecrated when vandals buried hundreds of “orgonites”— metal bits and quartz crystals set in resin—

throughout the mound. The Newark Earthworks Center and tribes who had been forced out of Ohio, particularly the Eastern Shawnee, are trying to set the historical record straight and provide facts to counteract the outlandish theories.

The Hopewell Exchange Adena descendants created the Hopewell Tradition or Hopewell Exchange (200 BCE—500 CE), a multiethnic, multilingual, ideological interaction sphere, centered in Ohio, with a trade network spanning most of eastern North America into the Rocky Mountains and continuing into historic times. The relatively egalitarian Hopewell people were hunters and horticulturalists, who grew some maize, but it was not a significant part of their diet. Their small hamlets showed no signs of warfare; thus, their era is known as Pax Hopewelliana.

Speculation abounds regarding which tribes today are descendants of Hopewell.

Recent DNA studies showed Ohio Hopewell shared genetic similarities with Kickapoo people, but also enigmatically Baja Yuma and Nuu-chuh-nulth peoples.5 Two thousand years ago marks approximately one hundred generations, so the potential for complex migrations, intermarriage, and displacement are high.

Tentatively, the Hopewell Tradition is believed to include Algonquian, Iroquoian, and some Siouan language speakers.

The Hopewell Tradition left an incredible legacy of artwork—mica and copper cut-outs, fine textiles of milkweed and stinging nettle thread, stone platform pipes, obsidian points, and even objects of silver and meteoric iron. Archaeologists consider “copper bycymbal earspools, metal panpipes, platform effigy pipes, [and] zoned rocker-stamped pottery with iconographic motifs” to be the defining characteristic of Hopewell sites.6 Earthworks of awe-inspiring, mathematical sophistication are another defining characteristic. The geometric

2. Brian G. Redmon, H. Gregory McDonald, Haskel J. Greenfield, and Matthew L. Burr. “New evidence for Late Pleistocene human exploitation of Jefferson’s Ground Sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii) from northern Ohio, USA.” World Archaeology 44, no. 1 (2012): 75–101.

3. Olaf H. Prufer, Sara E. Pedde, and Richard S. Meindl, eds. Archaic Transitions in Ohio and Kentucky Prehistory (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2001), 116.

4. Edward W. Herrmann et al., “A new multistage construction chronology for the Great Serpent Mound, USA,” Journal of Archaeological Science 50 (October 2014): 122.

5. Mills, Lisa A. “Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound Group” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2003), 102.

6. Mark F. Seeman, “Hopewell Art in Hopewell Places,” in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, eds. Richard F. Townsend and Robert V. Sharp (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 58.

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purity of their circular and square enclosures would delight any 1960s Minimalist artist.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Also known as the Mound City Group, the Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park includes five separate sites all near Paint Creek outside of Chillicothe, Ohio.

Mound City proper contains 23 mounds.

The US Army built Camp Sherman on the site during World War I and destroyed many of the mounds, which were later reconstructed based on 19th-century surveys.

Siep Earthworks are part of the park, as are the Hopewell Mound Group, High Bank Earthworks, and Hopeton Earthworks.

The Hopeton Earthworks, now leveled, were once a rectangle-shaped, earthen enclosure attached to a circular enclosure, flanked by smaller, detached, circular enclosures. The earthen walls formerly stood twelve feet high. Two parallel earthen walls formed a causeway leading to the river.

Newark Earthworks This two-thousand-year-old complex once had far more features, but three sections remain: the Great Circle, the Octagon Earthworks, and the Wright Earthworks.

Together they encompass 3,000 acres of land and are the world’s largest earthen enclosure. The Octagon Earthwork is a lunar observatory, tracking the 18.6-year cycle of the moon. The ideal viewing place is on top of the oval-shaped Observatory Mound, which overlooks the Octagon.

Today, the Octagon is part of a golf course at Mound Builders Country Club, which limits access to the site.

The Great Circle Earthworks are immense; the earthen walls, eight feet fall, are 1,200 feet in diameter, surrounding an interior ditch that may have once held water. The Great Hopewell Road, two parallel earthen embankments, was a straight pathway running southwest from the Octagon and Observatory Circle toward Ramp Creek and continuing for possibly 30 miles, or possibly 60 miles all the way to Chillicothe. The road is believed to be a ceremonial path aligned with the Milky Way for pilgrims who once brought offerings to leave at the Newark Earthworks.

All these Hopewell sites relate to one another, whether by positioning or shared units of measurements. Seven different Hopewell complexes have square enclosures measuring exactly 27 acres.

Both earthworks and long-vanished wooden structures were aligned along cardinal directions or significant celestial events. They might likely correspond to constellations.

Fort Ancient Site Hopewell people built Fort Ancient in Warren County, Ohio, along the Little Miami River. The site’s name is a misnomer, since it was not a defensive fortress but a ceremonial site. This complex is the largest prehistoric hilltop enclosure in the United States, with 18,000 running feet of earthen walls enclosing 100 acres. Ditches flank the interior walls. The walls have 60 openings, believed to align with significant lunar and solar events. Four circular, stone mounds, set in a square, are also thought to be a visual calendar.

Centuries after the Hopewell founders abandoned the site, Fort Ancient people built a village and established a cemetery inside the enclosures.

Fort Ancient Peoples While Glacial Kame, Adena, and Hopewell traditions show cultural continuity, the Fort Ancient peoples (1000–1680 CE) are believed to have immigrated into the Ohio River Valley from elsewhere. They were also a mixed society, probably of Siouan and Algonquian speakers,7 most likely the Shawnee.

Aerial view of Serpent Mound (ca. 321 BCE) near Peebles, Ohio, on Monday, April 2, 2012.

Photo: Timothy E. Black.

“Material artifacts recovered from Petersburg, Madisonville, and Lower Shawnee suggest that there are basic continuities between historically known tribes such as the Shawnees and the Fort Ancient villagers of the Middle Ohio Valley,” writes Stephen Warren, associate professor of American studies and history at Indiana University. “When Shawnee migrants returned to Lower Shawnee Town in the 1720s, they returned to a spot that their ancestors had known very well. Archaeologists have unearthed Fort Ancient projectile points ‘in direct

7. Stephen Warren, The Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 12, 35.

8. Ibid., 29.

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were built by a lost race of Moundbuilders.

“The idea that Indians themselves drove off or killed the glorious Moundbuilders made it easier to rationalize their inevitable demise as a form of historic justice.”11 Despite the fact that Squier and Davis found direct evidence of continued use of the earthworks into the historic era, they still subscribed to the Moundbuilder myth. The History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” theory that the Serpent Mound is a landing strip for UFOs can be seen as a contemporary variation of the Moundbuilder myth, with the same racist undertones. These historical revisions and fantasies attempt to erase Native Americans from their own homelands and creations.

Reconnecting Aerial view of the Great Circle Earthworks (ca. 160 BCE), Newark, Ohio, Friday afternoon, January 25, 2008. Photo: Timothy E. Black.

association’ with trade goods carried by Shawnee migrants when they returned to Ohio.”8 Fort Ancient people built a village near the Great Serpent Mound and restored the Adena monumental effigy in the 11th century. They also settled at the Hopewell site of Fort Ancient. Not so much builders of mounds, these peoples served as stewards of the earthworks.

Erasure Fort Ancient sites were mostly abandoned by 1680. Plagues, initially introduced to mainland North America by the de Soto expedition and other Europeans, killed countless Native peoples, followed by centuries of warfare. During the Beaver Wars of the late 17th century, many Indians of Ohio fled attacks by the Iroquois Confederacy from the east. In the 18th century, Ohio was repopulated notably by the Miami, Shawnee, Delaware, and Wyandots. The newly formed United States fought the Ohio tribes in the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), which resulted in the land cession Treaty of Greenville. This 1795 treaty was signed by the “Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees,

Ottawas, Chippewas, Pattawatimas, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias.”9 That treaty was broken by the United States and Ohio, and in 1831 the Senecas, Shawnees, and Odawas were coerced into signing a removal treaty that ultimately forced them into Indian Territory.10 Ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from Ohio continued with Ottawa signing a removal treaty in 1833 and the Wyandots signing one in 1843. Today these tribes are all in Oklahoma, and there are no Indian tribes left in Ohio.

Throughout the 19th century, the budding field of archaeology took notice of the earthworks left in Ohio. Detailed surveys of the sites were made, some more accurate than others. The most famous of these are found in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848), the Smithsonian Institution’s first publication, by Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis. They subscribed to a theory that American Indians could not possibly have built such sophisticated, mathematically complex forms, so they

While Ohio has no federally recognized tribes, it does have American Indian residents.12 The Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO) serves the local Native population and hosts annual powwows. Other groups are reaching out to displaced tribes and seeking to reconnect them with their ancestral homeland in Ohio. The Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Miami Tribe of Oklahoma partnered in 2001 to launch the Myaamia Project to research and revive the Miami-Illinois language and culture.

The Newark Earthworks Center, part of Ohio State University, Newark, specifically wants to bring Native peoples back to the earthworks. Recently the center curated an art show by Candi Wesaw (Pokagon Potawatomi) and gave a Pokagon Potawatomi group a tour of the Octagon Earthworks. The center maintains a blog, brings lecturers to OSU campus, provides tours of the earthworks, and gives presentations to tribes in other states. They fund research and publications. Essentially, they do whatever it takes to create awareness and bring the Native voice back to Ohio.

Newark Earthworks Center www.newark.osu.edu/earthworks

9. “The Treaty of Greenville 1795.” Lillian Goldman Law Library: The Avalon Project, New Haven CT: Yale Law School, 2008, web.

10. William D. Welge, “Timeline of American Indian Removals,” Oklahoma History Center, August 29, 2013, web.

11. David J. Meltzer. Introduction to Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, ed. David J. Meltzer (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Classics of Anthropology, 1988), 2.

12. For example, the award-winning Tohono O’odham jeweler James Fendenheim grew up in Canal Fulton, Ohio.

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Kansas City, Missouri

The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

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PON CONTACT WITH THE AMERICAS, the European concept of “art” was largely defined and produced by artists sponsored by church and state. Art was approximate to divinity, and religious sculptures and paintings were hailed as some of the greatest achievements of humankind. However, in the 16th century, most Europeans understood Natives not as humans, but rather as new types of organic species devoid of the identifying human characteristics of civilization and religion.

To the colonists, the Indigenous Native populations lacked culture.

By extension of this reasoning, being devoid of culture, Native Americans were supposedly incapable of art. Europeans initially perceived Natives in the same way as were the newly encountered species of flora and fauna, and post-contact, great efforts were made in the collection (many ethically, many not) of Native objects.

However, such objects, understood as natural curiosities rather than art, were acquired not as much for their aesthetics as their rarity and exoticism. Accordingly, Native objects were housed and displayed in secular institutions, museums, developing throughout Europe. Many of these objects have remained in institutions such as the Weltmuseum Wien in Austria, the Bernisches Historisches Museum in Switzerland, the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch and Linden-Museum in Germany, and Musée de Confluences and Musée du quai Branly in France— until now.

The museum exhibit, The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky, currently on display at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, presents Native objects as art, while returning them (albeit temporarily) to their home in North America, many for the first time since their removal abroad centuries ago.

The history of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is notable for this exhibit.

Unlike many of the other lending institutions, which rose from an already existing collection (e.g., the City of Tulsa created Gilcrease Museum after acquiring the core of the collection from Thomas Gilcrease in 1955), the NelsonAtkins started from scratch, first creating the museum and then going about the business of collecting. From this seeming inversion, the museum has built one of the finest Native art collections in the country and, in 2010, reinstalled the gallery to critical acclaim in even non-Native art venues like the Wall Street Journal.

That this exhibit of Native Plains art be presented in the American Great Plains was of particular importance to its organizing curator, Gaylord Torrence, the Fred and Virginia Merrill Senior Curator of American Indian Art at the NelsonAtkins Museum. Torrence, known for his outstanding studies of Native Plains art, The American Indian Parfleche: A Tradition of Abstract Painting (1994) and Art of the Red Earth People: The Mesquakie of Iowa (1989), was approached by the Musée du quai Branly to curate an exhibition of

its historic Native Plains collection. One of Torrence’s requirements was that The Plains Indians not just travel to the United States, but specifically Kansas City, where the descendants of the artists could experience these ancestral works.

“A powerful sense of place is embodied in Plains art,” Torrence says. “In its varied forms and materials, as well expressed beliefs and concepts, the works are representations of the Great Plains of North America. It is important for these objects to be seen here in Kansas City on the eastern Plains. We must remind ourselves as well that Kansas City was once the heart of French America—and Plains peoples and the French have a shared history here.”

The Plains Indians presents 137 artworks, spanning four centuries, from numerous lenders (38 Native nations, 39 museums, and 17 individuals), from six different countries. As such, the exhibit provides perhaps the most significant survey of Native Plains art, one reminiscent of the museum’s previous Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art curated by the venerable Ralph “Ted” Coe in 1977.

Unknown Otoe-Missouria artist, Man’s Coat, ca. 1895, wool cloth, glass beads, silk ribbon, metal sequins, brass buttons, 35 x 54½ in., Oklahoma. Collection of William Lewis Knight.

Photo: Joshua Ferdinand. All images in this review courtesy of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

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Equally noteworthy as the exhibit is its installation. Museumgoers first notice tipis set on the museum’s grounds amid iconic sculptures like Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker (1902) and Claes Oldenburg’s Shuttlecocks (1994). Although a large-scale banner hangs in the entry to the original Beaux-Arts building (1933), designed

by Wright and Wright, the exhibit is installed in the museum’s Bloch building (2007) designed by Steven Holl. Like the contrast of the two buildings, the juxtaposition of the historic collection in such a contemporary framework yields one of the more striking elements of the exhibit. A side wall of the entryway supplies a list of Native Plains nations in both their English and Native names, while the back wall displays a text didactic against a mural-sized historic photograph, a motif used throughout the exhibit. One of the more notable features of the installation, designed by Laura Pastine (full-time architect, firsttime exhibit designer), are the buttresses mimicking tipi poles. Underneath the natural overhead lighting casts dramatic shadows on the Arthur Amiotte quotation about the Plains peoples’ balance of tradition and adaption, another theme of the exhibit.

At the entrance, visitors are presented with seven different sections, chronologically based, but thematically unified. The first section, “Ancient Peoples,” presents the earliest examples of Native Plains art, with the Adena Human Effigy Pipe (ca.

100 BCE–100 CE) serving as the oldest object in the exhibit. Discovered in Chillicothe, Ohio, the pipestone figure represents a man with earspools, a kilt, and feathered bustle, and alludes to the continued use and significance of the pipe in Native Plains cultures, as evidenced by other examples in the exhibit. Trade is an important influence, as vividly demonstrated by the Shell Gorget Mask (ca. 1500–1700 CE), a Chickamauga-style marine shell maskette possibly created by Mississippian peoples from the East but collected from an Arikara site in South Dakota. The holes positioned as eyes and mouth refer to the human form, an image widely depicted in Native Plains art. The maskette also underscores the history of trade and the interaction among these early peoples.

Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone-Bannock), Adaptation, 2011. Shoes designed by Christian Louboutin (Chaotic 100 ankle boots); glass and 24k gold-plated beads, polyester tassels, 6.5 x 3.75 x 8.5 in., collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, purchase: the A. Keith Brodkin Fund for the Acquisition of Contemporary American Indian Art, 2011.42.A,B. Photo: Joshua Ferdinand.

Such interaction, however, was not always positive, as the many objects of war in the section “1700–1820: Life on the Great Plains” indicate. Owl feathers and bear claws are symbols of strength and augment the red, sacred “life color” power of the Northern Cheyenne Shield (ca. 1780), protecting its bearer during battle. That the audience learns of the exact identity of the maker, a warrior named Oak, and its history and the role it played in the escape from Fort Robinson on January 9, 1879, adds to its power.

Yet, the exhibit reminds the viewer that objects of power are equally beautiful, as evidenced by the Pawnee War Club (ca. 1800). The form is designed not only for its efficacy but its appearance. The hard angular corners of the “gunstock” form are rounded and enhanced by chevron notches with circular terminals in the elongated curve of the backside of the club’s handle. War and religion are depicted by the “shooting star” motifs on each side of the club, celestial elements of religious significance in the Pawnee cosmogony.

No history of Native Plains art is complete without considering the American Bison, and The Plains Indians focuses on its significance in Native Plains cultures. A strength of the exhibit is the number of painted buffalo robes.

Typically, such an exhibit presents one, whereas nine robes are on display in Kansas City. Two in the third section,

“1820–1860: Cultural Florescence,” demonstrate the exhibit’s emphasis on documentation and identification of the artist. A Lakota Robe (ca. 1830) collected by the German Prince Maximilian on June 1, 1833, is placed alongside a contemporary painting (albeit a reproduction) by the European artist Karl Bodmer, who chronicled Maximilian’s travels in North America, in which the identifiable features of the box-andborder composition of the robe are clearly depicted. Similar documentation is undertaken not just to record an object’s collection history, but also the artist responsible for the creation of the object. Another Mandan Robe (ca. 1830) was painted by Mató-Tópe (Four Bears, 1795–1837). Rather than the robe, it was Mató-Tópe himself who posed for the American artist George Catlin in 1832. While many artworks in The Plains Indians are only credited by their Native Plains identities, it is admirable to be able to credit an individual, early Native Plains artist.

Like the Bison, the Horse also assumes a prominent role in The Plains Indians. The fourth section of the exhibit, “1860– 1880: Death of the Buffalo,” provides two such related objects. The Comanche Bridle (ca. 1860) illustrates the use of the Horse in Native Plains life, and the use of silver decoration in Native Plains art. The bridle’s crescent pendant is a motif whose vein runs throughout the WINT ER 2 0 1 4

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affiliation. Today, artists’ adoption of new media propels the fluidity of Native Plains identities, and Native artists are now at home as much in Paris as they once were in Kansas City.

Joseph No Two Horns, He Nupa Wanica (1852–1942, Hunkpapa Lakota), Horse Effigy, ca. 1880, wood (possibly cottonwood), pigment, commercial and native tanned leather, rawhide, horsehair, brass, iron, bird quill, 38.5 in. long, Standing Rock Reservation. Image courtesy of the South Dakota State Historical Society, 1974.002.122. Photo: Chad Coppess.

exhibit. So, too, is the contrast between Native Plains and European artistry. The Horse Effigy (ca. 1880), by the Hunkpapa Lakota artist Joseph No Two Horns, with its front legs tucked under and rear legs fully extended, renders a greater understanding of a horse’s movement than the art of either Bodmer or Catlin, whose “rocking” horses would, in fact, never be able to move. While No Two Horns may have been exposed to the sequenced photography of his European contemporary Eadweard Muybridge, it is unlikely, yet his leaping horse creates a more nuanced perception of the animal and its conformation.

Beadwork is extensive on objects from each section, but in particular the fifth, “1880–1910: Islands of Former Ancestral Homelands.” A Lakota Cradleboard (ca.

1890) bears resemblance to its Southern Plains counterpart, the carrier attached to wooden slats with tacked decoration.

This section of the exhibit also addresses the influence of Peyotism during this time, with several objects bearing its symbolism. However, another messianic movement, Faw Faw, is responsible for the Otoe-Missouria Man’s Coat (ca. 1895). The coat is a reflection of a culture in transition and an emblem for the movement that prophesied the disappearance of European influence and a return to traditional Native Plains lifestyles. It is somewhat ironic that, in addition to bearing images of Humans, Bison, and Horses, like the cradleboard, it also bears icons of the United States flag, a complex and contradictory symbol to sovereign Native nations.

The sixth section, “1910–1965: Lives Coming Together and Apart,” continues the examination of a peoples’ life in flux and the balance of tradition and adaptation. This section includes other peyote pieces, notably the painting Calling on Wakan Tanka (1962) by the Yanktonai artist Oscar Howe. Like many of the artist’s paintings, the influence of Cubism is pronounced, with figures rendered by hard lines and angles, but the central peyote button is the source of inspiration and subject of the figures’ appeal to tradition. Yet, the Dakota Quilt (ca. 1915) by Rebecca Blackwater serves as a counter of adaptation. Paintings on hide have served as calendars and were tools of recordkeeping for Native Plains cultures. Blackwater’s quilt accomplishes the same purpose as its predecessors but with new materials.

The exhibit culminates in the seventh section, “1965–2013: Artistic Revival in Contemporary Life.” The idea of adaptation is most firmly punctuated by two artworks, not just in materials, but also identity. Jamie Okuma (LuiseñoShoshone-Bannock) is a Native artist but not of Plains descent. Horseshoes (2014), her adaptation of Plains-style beadworking on runway footwear, recontextualizes Native Plains moccasins as haute couture (despite the objections of a prominent French designer). The inclusion of Brad Kahlhamer’s painting Around the Camp also challenges the tribalism inherent in Native identity.

Kahlhamer is a Native artist who was adopted by German-Americans and remains ambiguous about any tribal

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An overwhelming contribution to the study of Native Plains art, The Plains Indians, suffers from some minor blemishes. The positioning of some objects in their vitrines did not allow for a 360-degree view of objects that demand one. For example, the back of the Faw Faw Coat is equally as decorated as the front and would have been visible by rotating the stand 45 degrees. The differences in the exhibit between the installation in Paris and the one in Kansas City also raise questions. There are any number of reasons why some works were only exhibited in one venue or the other, but the substitution of T.C. Cannon’s (Kiowa-Caddo) painting Chief Watching (1976) for Grandmother Gestating Father and the Washita River Runs RibbonLike (1975) is puzzling, though both are equally impressive artworks. However, the placement of the most recent artwork against the most ancient artwork as installed in Paris creates a striking juxtaposition and reverses the temporal matrix of the exhibit that the Kansas City installation does not.

Immediate comparison and contrast of the old and new would have created an interesting dialogue for the Nelson-Atkins exhibit as well.

The 319-page color catalog is a welcome companion to the exhibit. Published by Skira Rizzoli, a publisher well regarded for quality art books, its few problems are also worth mentioning, including a printing error in which the text describes the colors of an object that doesn’t match the corresponding image. However, the $60 catalogue is a must-have for the library of any student, scholar, or collector of such artwork.

The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky is a once-in-a-generation landmark exhibit of Native artwork. It is currently on exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, through January 11, 2015, and will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, where it will be on display from March 3, 2015, through May 10, 2015. —Scott W. Hale

REVIEWS

Chicago

Bunky Echo-Hawk: Modern Warrior The Field Museum

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HAT WILL YOU FIND in the Field Museum’s current exhibition Bunky Echo-Hawk: Modern Warrior? You will find the past and the present. The old and the new. The historical and the contemporary. You will find continuity and change existing side by side, connecting on a multitude of levels.

Artist Bunky Echo-Hawk (Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and the Yakama Nation of Washington) has examined the Field Museum’s collection to select historic Native objects that inspire him.

He has drawn upon that inspiration to create his own personal works of art to relay a message of preserving the past and inspiring the future. The exhibition features these selected historical objects juxtaposed with the current works of Echo-Hawk, creating a bit of a push/pull motion—a pull to the past and a push to the future while stopping along the way to take a look at where we are today.

Echo-Hawk’s examination of historical objects such as buffalo horn spoons and a 19th-century Ghost Dance dress made of crow feathers and buckskin is

catapulted into vividly bold “in your face” paintings. His painting of a Pawnee woman wearing an interpretation of the Ghost Dance dress while she stands in front of a dishwasher full of dishes (including a set of buffalo horn spoons) allows his thoughtful wit and humor to shine through. She is obviously utilizing her traditions while living with the conveniences of a modern world. While there is some disagreement among scholars as to the cultural origin of the dress being Arapaho or Pawnee, EchoHawk felt a strong association with the dress and identified it as Pawnee.

The artist’s voice is reflected in his own contemporary interpretation of his cultural heritage.

While the bold graphics and humorous insights of Echo-Hawk’s art can bring a smile to the faces of his audience, closer examination reveals there is a deeper and at times darker meaning to his art. The acrylic painting WarDrobe is a call for action to stop the overwhelmingly high rate of suicide among Native youths.

Green-painted toes on female feet dangle in front of a background of neon pink, which is so typically favored by teenage girls. On the floor sits a collection of girls’ shoes—Nikes, beaded moccasins, and Mary Jane flats.

Accompanying text by Echo-Hawk reveals his thoughts regarding the painting and subject matter:

Bunky Echo-Hawk (Pawnee-Yakama), Natural Resource Management, 2006, acrylic on canvas.

I used my daughter for a model for this painting—those are her feet and her shoes. It was very emotional for me to even imagine her in this state. But more and more of our kids are committing suicide.

Our traumatic past isn’t ancient history.

It was 100 years ago and it is still affecting us. Our kids are born into generational poverty and some lose hope. We need to act.

The artwork of Echo-Hawk does not leave his audience with the feeling of despair. As the exhibition title reflects, he is a modern warrior fighting for the future of his people. The painting Triple Threat uses sports imagery to connect with Native youth. A Pawnee warrior is seen peering from behind a basketball.

He wears a brightly colored headdress, which reveals the historical past. The young warrior, while gripping the ball, is faced with choices—as basketball players must make when facing the triple threat. Native youth are not stuck. They should not lose hope. Echo-Hawk wants the youth to be positioned for a future containing choice.

A feature of the exhibition is a film about Echo-Hawk’s live audience paintings.

This interactive painting style is referred to by the artist as “honest painting.” The audience engages with the creation of the art through open dialogue about issues such as racial stereotypes, current events, and history. If you take a moment to focus on the film, you can get a real sense of Echo-Hawk’s passion for educating through his art. It shows a living artist using the creative process to propel the discussion about current issues that the Pawnee and many Native people face.

By presenting this co-curated exhibition by an anthropologist, Alaka Wali, and Pawnee activist and artist, Bunky EchoHawk, the Field Museum has posed many questions for the exhibition audience to consider. Can a contemporary art exhibition be relevant in a natural history museum? Can tradition continue to exist in the modern world? Should cultural heritage be exhibited for the public or remain exclusive? Bunky Echo-Hawk: Modern Warrior begins to answer these questions and continues the discussion for further thought.

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Durango

from past images or current icons. He has a great sense of design, whether he is doing an abstract quilt pattern or a portrait of SpongeBob wearing a headdress and a bolo tie. They are colorful, sometimes whimsical, and always captivating.

Williams calls himself a “hoarder” and collects beads and other objects that he works into future projects. Williams’ purses, pouches, mirror bags, and cradleboards are technically traditional with influences from the contemporary world.

One Bead at a Time: The Artistry of Orlando Dugi and Kenneth Williams Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

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HIS TWO-MAN SHOW is immediately alluring, from the brightly colored gowns accented with feathers and beadwork to the intricately beaded purses and clutches.

The show is back-dropped with oversized photos of the artists and examples of their work from photo shoots. The exhibit is replete with informative write-ups about the artists, their working styles and techniques, and personal statements.

Orlando Dugi and Kenneth Williams have different approaches to the way they execute and represent their art. Dugi’s elegant gowns are stunning and bold, and Williams’ elaborately beaded bags and pouches draw the viewer intimately into the imagery that is embellished with wondrous details.

A cape and pouch are both collaborative pieces by Dugi and Williams. The twotone woolen cape has beaded medallions with portraits of Native figures, as well as ermine and ribbon draping the back of the garment. The silk pouch, titled Blessed Is Life, features Williams’ representational beaded portrait of Caroline Parker (Seneca, 1824–1892) on one side and Dugi’s cardinal on a stylized tree on the other side. One can see the hand and mind of each artist at work on these two pieces.

Together Dugi and Williams create beautiful, unique pieces, bringing the strength of their distinct visions into a single work of art. Individually, their styles stand alone. Where Dugi focuses on flora, fauna, and the human physique, Williams’ subjects tend to come directly from current social avenues and the Native American cultural past. Williams likes to tell a story with beads, jewels, and found objects that he collects on his

Orlando Dugi (Navajo) and Kenneth Williams (Seneca-Northern Arapaho), detail of Blessed Is Life, 2013, collaborative beaded purse with single-bead stitching.

travels, and Dugi is fashion-forward and pushing the envelope with his highfashion couture for women.

Dugi’s stylish gowns in the Desert Heat series feature the vibrant sunset colors of the elegantly draped materials. The dresses are hand-dyed silk chiffons and charmeuse in rich desert hues, trimmed and adorned with feathers, crystal, gold, pearls, and his elaborately beaded collars and appliqués that anchor down these flowing fabrics. They are fierce, fiery, and feminine all in one, and the model looks like she could take flight in the desert night.

Dugi started his fashion career creating beaded clutches and handbags. They are generally small in size and large in impact, works of art to hold and behold.

Attention to detail and his materials, including the finest beads, crystals, and pearls, capture the essence of flowers or the features of male figures on the front of his purses. In his beadwork, Dugi honors the Navajo weaving tradition by adding a single bead that schematically in color or size does not fit, “an imperfection.” This tradition is also used in Navajo sand painting to protect the spiritual nature of the design or to show that the piece is handmade.

Williams is partial to purses and pouches as his canvas of expression, taking ideas

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Orlando Dugi honors his Navajo grandparents who taught him about the constellations. He often references stars in his work. Both Dugi and Williams are shining stars in the beadwork and art world, and Dugi is transitioning into the fashion world. They use shimmering silks, lustrous crystals and beads, and sparkling gems to create masterworks in beaded bags and elegant garments.

According to Dugi, “I am a Native American designer, but I want to be known as a designer who happens to be Native American.” The art and fashion world will be seeing more from these dynamic artists and creative men.

—Linda Perala-Hunt

Oklahoma City

Mike Larsen Exhibit C

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HICKASAW ARTIST MIKE LARSEN is the first featured artist in the recently opened Exhibit C in Bricktown, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The art gallery is a project of the Chickasaw Nation.

Larsen, with numerous honors and recognition in a 40-year career, was selected by the United States Postal Service to create the Oklahoma Centennial postage stamp for 2007.

He is known for his accuracy of detail in the regalia and dress of his subjects.

Larsen’s show at Exhibit C consists of

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six monumentally sized (48 × 30 feet to 50 × 30 feet) acrylic on canvas works.

My favorite was Beautiful Dove, a portrait of the artist’s daughter. The Chickasaw woman’s eyes and questioning look on her face immediately draw one to the work. What is she searching for?

One feels her question, yet there is an incredible serenity to the work. Peace emulates from her quiet pose, especially the way her oversized hands rest on her dress. Larsen’s Beautiful Dove has a strong narrow face, with rugged features and large nose and lips. Very little of her is soft. Yet, the integrity and pride in her face make her so beautiful.

feathered cape, worn only by the bravest of warriors, are exquisite as is his shell necklace. With a few careful shadowy brush strokes, Larsen creates the feel of the density of the cape. Larsen masterfully creates feathers with bold single strokes, especially the red ones forming the warrior’s headdress. These are red woodpecker feathers from a bird that is now extinct.

De Soto, while having his back to the Chickasaw man, looks to the right of the canvas. His Spanish conquistador dress

The work is a study in white: doeskin dress on a white canvas with the only color in the woman’s brown, ruddy face, arms, hands, and small red decorations on her dress and shoes. Subtle shading creates the texture of her long white dress. And the fringe seems to flow.

While Beautiful Dove might be serene and peaceful, 1541 is edgy, a study of contrasts. The year 1541 was when Hernando de Soto explored the Mississippi River and was probably the year Chickasaws had their first European contact. Along the river in Arkansas were hot springs and the healing waters known to the Natives as the Valley of the Vapors.1 An understanding existed among the tribes that this valley was a peaceful area, and weapons were to be put aside when visiting the healing waters.

The Chickasaw warrior in 1541 looks out of the blank, energizing, yelloworange canvas, staring at the viewer with a look of curiosity rather than hostility.

He is not facing squarely forward, but has his shoulder against de Soto. Again, Larsen depicts a strongly featured face, especially the large nose, with slight red and blue face paint.

This warrior is cautious, not submissive, as his oversized hands gently clasp a feather. The details of his white,

this work. Even the way his hair stirs in the breeze has a power to it. Using muted browns and economic brush strokes, Larsen conveys strength and courage.

Bird Woman is a study of the Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, who served as interpreter for Louis and Clark on their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase territory. She gave birth to a baby boy during the expedition.

Other works in the show include Racing the Dawn and Chickasaw Down. Chickasaw Down is a work depicting a Chickasaw man staring into the sunset while Racing the Dawn features warriors riding across the plains at dawn.

Although Larsen’s subject matter is usually historic or Native, his figures are robust and three-dimensional. The accurate details of the clothing are created with very limited brush strokes. Larsen is masterful in his use of color to create mood. The serene white in Beautiful Dove, the aggressive iron grey of de Soto in 1541, or the glorious sunrise of Racing the Dawn all evoke emotions and help tell the artist’s story.

Mike Larsen (Chickasaw),1541, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 30 in.

is in iron grey and historically accurate.

The expression on his face is grim, even though the eyes are hidden by his helmet and his mouth by his full beard. His large, rough hands strangle a spear. While the warrior is curious, de Soto is about power and aggression. Larsen, with his love of history, has captured the dichotomy of de Soto’s exploration of the Mississippi River valley with this work.

The Primitive, dressed in skins, stares at the viewer. And his penetrating eyes capture one’s interest. The man is large and powerfully built. His broad face, with its generous nose and lips, is far from pretty, and there is nothing delicate about

Larsen’s work can be seen at the Oklahoma State Capitol, at the Chickasaw Cultural Center, and in art galleries throughout the United States.

One of his best-loved projects is the interviews and portraits of 48 Chickasaw elders. These works are collected in two books, Proud to be a Chickasaw, and They Know Who They Are. Exhibit C is located at 1 East Sheridan Avenue, in Oklahoma City, and includes an art gallery, retail shop, and tourism information center. Exhibit C’s art gallery displays works of several artists from the Chickasaw and southeastern tribes as well as works from a special featured artist that will rotate every four months. The retail shop offers artisan works such as jewelry, pottery, paintings, and clothing. The next featured artist at Exhibit C is Bill Hensley. —Franci Hart

1. Jeremy Mackey, “The Whitewater Tribe,” Ouachita High Country, 21 Sept 2014, web.

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St. Paul

Julie Buffalohead: Uncommon Stories Bockley Gallery

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HE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING is central to Julie Buffalohead’s artistic practice. Her deftly woven tales provide just enough visual clues so that we, the viewers, attempt to piece together the Minnesota artist’s elusive narratives.

In her recent exhibition Uncommon Stories, Buffalohead (Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma) works thoughtfully with acrylic paint, ink, and pencil on thick sheets of Lokta paper, a tactile and often richly hued, handmade paper from Nepal. “I started using this Lokta paper because I wanted to paint on an object that had its own presence,” she says. “This paper has particular character with no two papers that are the same. To me they are art, and that’s something I can’t just replicate through painting.” Buffalohead has also dramatically increased the scale of certain works, some of which comprise nine Lokta sheets and measure 60 by 90 inches.

The result is startling but seductive.

As in her earlier work, Buffalohead deploys a cast of characters both human and animal who act out societal codes, issues, and mores that she deems relevant

to contemporary culture. Deer, coyotes, turtles, ravens, rabbits, and raccoons often masquerade as humans—and vice versa. Her thematic musings explore the complex relationships between Native American and dominant cultures, humans and animals, humans and the environment, and between men and women.

“In my recent work, I was thinking a lot about violence and images from westerns and the glamorization of violence and guns,” Buffalohead explains. “I was trying to weave a narrative around some of those images.” Nonetheless, Buffalohead’s touch is spare but loaded. Stereotypes are teased out. However, the glare of her subject matter is diffused by the stylistically naïve, illustrative execution of her protagonists and supporting cast.

In The Song of the Ravens, a large work comprising nine sheets of Lokta paper in a subtle grey-green hue, a man dressed in a white shirt and black slacks and wearing sunglasses sits on a flamingo pink sofa with a shotgun raised. A murder of ravens flies about as he points his gun in the air.

Nearby, a coyote stands on two legs, ears back, and wears a pink shirtwaist dress and heels. Her arms are open and mouth agape. At her feet lay dead a fawn and a rabbit, and ravens pecking about. The man’s actions are ambiguous. Is she, the coyote, simply outraged at the senseless death? Or does she suspect that she is next? This disturbing scenario unfolds

Julie Buffalohead (Ponca), The Song of the Ravens, 2014, acrylic, ink, and pencil on Lokta paper, 60 x 90 in. Image courtesy of Bockley Gallery.

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in an empty indeterminate space, leaving the viewer with little to factually or emotionally grasp. Buffalohead seems to give the viewer a choice: is The Song of the Ravens really about highly intelligent birds or about domestic violence in a contemporary gun-laden culture?

Less aggressive but still troubling is the large-scale Turn a Blind Eye on midnight blue Lokta. Here a cowgirl in appropriate attire raises two pistols to the sky.

Nearby are several animals all injured or dead that seem to turn away from the woman. A small bird wears a cast on its leg and a bandage on its wing. A deer is blindfolded. Buffalohead seems to suggest how society ignores violence or deals with it indirectly.

In The Merry Feast, a three-panel piece on lipstick-red Lokta, a young girl wears antlers and sits at a small table before a bowl and spoon. A raccoon stands on hind legs in the other chair, eating from a dish. Off to one side a threatening coyote, standing upright on hind legs, howls—or is it screams?—at the scenario unfolding before him. Is the coyote more upset that the girl wears antlers or that the raccoon is eating at a dinner table? A tale with multiple interpretations, The Merry Feast exemplifies Buffalohead’s keen sense of our relationship to the world around us.

Like the Brothers Grimm’s early 19thcentury folk stories, Buffalohead creates cautionary tales that elucidate serious or uncomfortable issues in a humorous, nonthreatening manner. Over the last two years, her purposely naïve style has gained a sophistication and complexity that makes her themes ever more evocative.

She has all but perfected her uncanny way of deploying a story in an empty, undefined two-dimensional space with no horizon line or background. In fact, these expanses of flat negative space now seem as essential to her narrative constructions as her figures. Like the best of literature, Buffalohead’s visual narratives need to be read more than once, and even then, explicit meaning may be elusive.

Ultimately, it is Buffalohead’s larger investigations of issues of humanity, responsibility, and awareness, more than specific meanings that critically define her practice. —Mason Riddle

REVIEWS

Tacoma

Photographic Presence and Contemporary Indians: Matika Wilbur’s Project 562 Tacoma Art Museum

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ACOMA IS A PUYALLUP WORD for Mount Rainier.

An Internet search for “Tacoma Puyallup” generates a long list of auto dealerships and hotels before any mention of the people for whom all of this was named. As a result, both of the words Tacoma and Puyallup have been stripped of their original significance and are used for the needs of modern commerce. One of the top websites for Puyallup is the Wikipedia page for Puyallup, Washington, stating that it was named after the Puyallup Tribe of Native Americans, and that Puyallup means “the generous people.” As this is the only mention of the people themselves, one is left to wonder, if one is curious enough, about the fate of those people.

The Wikipedia page for the Puyallup Tribe gives some historical background as well. Of particular significance, Puyallup people still live in the area.

Matika Wilbur is a native of the state of Washington, in both definitions of the word, born and raised there as well as of Tulalip and Swinomish heritage.

Beginning in December of 2012, Wilbur set out to record the narratives and images of individuals from all of the federally recognized Indigenous nations in what is presently called the United States of America “to build cultural bridges, abandon stereotypes, and renew and inspire our national legacy,” as her artist statement says. For this purpose, it is clearly best to go straight to the source: the people themselves, who are present to tell their own stories, framed in their own way. As evidence that Native peoples are far from vanishing, when she began the project, there were 562 recognized tribes; now there are 566.

This exhibit featured almost 50 visual and audio portraits of a wide variety of individuals representing communities

Matika Wilbur (Swinomish-Tulalip), Sky and Talon Duncan (Three Affiliated Tribes of Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and San Carlos Apache Tribe), 2014, hand-colored silver gelatin print.

around the country. Wilbur asked each subject to define her or his own identity through the choice of setting and attire.

It was made very clear that the content of the photo was entirely to the discretion of the subjects. This is a crucial element to the integrity of the project.

Upon entering the Tacoma Art Museum, I was told that a free audio element was available for the overall project, which is downloadable from the Internet free of charge. There are two ways one can enter the Project 562 gallery. The first is to hug the glass wall around to the left that looks out into an exhibit by Tacoma-bornand-raised Dale Chihuly. The second possible entrance is to walk straight past the Chihuly and into the largest room of the museum. This room houses an extensive collection of Pacific Northwest art from the time of the arrival of the first Europeans to today, from both European and Indigenous artists—abstractions and representations of people and history.

If one enters from the left, a sign asks visitors to take a selfie in front of the wall and to share it on social networks (which I did). To the left of this are the first photos. I didn’t discern the underlying logic to the order. One could start there and move to any of the six walls of elegant silver gelatin prints presenting

subjects of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from rural and urban areas.

Wilbur hand-colored the subjects in each of the photos, creating stark contrasts between the subjects and their respective environments.

One who enters into Project 562 through the large room will have a very different experience because of the context of the Northwest Coastal art. Here is housed a tremendous resource for understanding the myriad of perspectives and experiences people have had in that area.

Entering this way, one encounters the end of Project 562 with the whole exhibit revealed in front. This encourages free movement through the experience.

Overall, the narratives cover a wide scope of individual and communal identity through past and present struggles and celebrations, future goals, dreams, and needs. Project 562 is a story of many people with clear parallels of experience.

The show succeeds in creating empathy with the subjects. While this is obvious to some, the audience at large is reminded that not only were there people who lived here long before Europeans arrived but also, more importantly, that these lineages continue to the present day through many people and multitudes of expressions. —Thollem McDonas WINT ER 2 0 1 4

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Book Review

reinforces, the value of a particular Native culture and its building traditions.”

Survey

Foundational to the underlying argument of the text, sensory design allows for the direct, sensory preferences of an individual or culture in the form of their architecture. With the specific case of sensory Indigenous design, Malnar and Vodvarka introduce the concept when they compare the visual differences between circular structures and rectangular structures with a quotation by Black Elk (Oglala Lakota) on the power of the circle. The authors go on to architecturally envision the power of the circle in the shape of the tipi, and further observe other various sensory characteristics such as olfactory perception and the significance of cedar in the Xá:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Center in Mission, British Columbia.

New Architecture on Indigenous Lands Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka University of Minnesota Press, 2013

...[W]e made these little gray houses of logs that you see, and they are square. It is a bad way to live, for there can be no power in a square. ... But the Wasichus have put us in these square boxes.1

A

RCHITECT AND SCHOLAR Joy Malnar joins forces with artist and scholar Frank Vodvarka in their second collaborative publication, New Architecture on Indigenous Lands. In this pioneering text, the authors build on their methodology for understanding architecture previously developed and introduced in Sensory Design (University of Minnesota Press, 2003). Subsequently, with New Architecture on Indigenous Lands, Malnar and Vodvarka engage their approach with contemporary buildings on Native American lands of central, northwest, and southwest parts of the United States and Canada. The result is a densely worded, 226-page survey of architecture that includes 175 images highlighting the authors’ discussion of what they identify on page one as “first-class architecture that refers to, and

Malnar and Vodvarka make a strong case for sensory design by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous architects in buildings on Indigenous lands by introducing a theoretical framework grounded in literature with chapter 1, and then applying this framework in chapters 2 through 10. In addition, they realize stated intentions to pay tribute on page 5 to “the implicit design sensitivities of North America’s first occupants” with their contribution to the field by creating a record and catalog of contemporary buildings on Native American lands of central, northwest, and southwest parts of northern North America. The scope of sites selected by the authors varies, from educational institutions such as the Seabird Island Community High School in Agassiz, British Columbia, to cultural centers such as the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.2 Notably, chapter 9 addresses sustainable housing, and chapter 10 looks forward with forming Indigenous typologies.

Overall, the book is successful in that it breaks new, academic ground for Indigenous architecture within the

ongoing conversation about mainstream architecture. In addition, Malnar and Vodvarka rely on Native American studies scholarship, in many cases the work of Indigenous scholars, to support their argument. Furthermore, the breadth of buildings included in New Architecture on Indigenous Lands, combined with the abundance of fluidly integrated professional images of those buildings, clearly illustrates the authors’ claim of Indigenous buildings as “first class” architecture.

There are two main areas where the scholarship of New Architecture on Indigenous Lands could have been more successful. First, because this is an introductory book on the subject, Malnar and Vodvarka had the difficult task of choosing what architectural sites to include in their text, which left many worthy places out of the discussion.

Subsequently, significant sites such as the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma, and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are sorely absent. I do hope that as the academic field of Indigenous architecture develops, these and other noteworthy places will be included in future publications on the subject.

Secondly, the literature review in chapter 1 reaches perhaps too far in building the argument for using sensory design as a methodological approach to Indigenous architecture. For example, the range of sources in the section moves among various scholarships derived from disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, cultural neuroscience, Native American studies, and environmentbehavior studies, just to name a few. For an introductory survey to Indigenous architecture, some readers may find this extensive theory overwhelming and be tempted to put down the text.

My suggestion is to keep reading … in the following chapters you’ll discover architectural marvels that will delight your senses. —Jean Merz-Edwards

1. John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), n.p.

2. The cover art of New Architecture on Indigenous Lands features an aerial photograph of the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

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REPORTS

Show Reports Quito, Ecuador

V Indigenous Intercontinental Biennial of Art Centro Cultural Itchimbía

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N 2002, A LOOSE NETWORK of Indigenous artists and arts organizations—Native and nonNative—crystallized decades of brainstorming into an ambitious art fair, complete with educational workshops, children’s activities, music, dance, and even forums about philosophy and herbal medicine.

The Intercontinental Biennial of Indigenous Art (Biennial Intercontinental de Arte Indígena or BIAI) was born. Taking place every other year in Quito, Ecuador, the art fair primarily features Indigenous artists from the Andes and the Amazon, but has expanded to include participants as far away as Egypt, Norway, and Tibet.

Quito was the home of the Indigenismo movement of the 1920s and 1930s, where celebrated artists Oswaldo Guayasamín, Eduardo Kingman, and Camilo Egas brought Indigenous Andean issues to the world stage through their painting, sculpture, and writing.

Now the Fundación Escuela Indígena de las Artes (School of Indigenous Arts Foundation) organizes these biennial art fairs each October with a unique mission: “To strengthen and develop systems of intergenerational transmission of knowledge, preserved and guided by the cultural elements of our peoples.”

The organization’s ambitious goals are to: • Cause significant paradigm shifts.

Promote individual and collective construction of knowledge; • Come to knowledge from parameters of respect for nature and for the people

Froilán Cosme Huanca (Bolivian), The Door of the Sun, colored pencils on illustration board.

Image courtesy of Jorge Iván Cevallos, BIAI.

who populate the universe, in their own cosmovision; • Recall the different experiences, ideas and educational practices, with a perspective of dialogue and exchange; • Strengthen community and family ties.1 Award selections were based on support of millennial art, keeping “alive traditions and customs of native communities” both rural and urban, and “inspiring energy” expressed in the artwork. The top winners of the juried art competition were awarded scholarships to participate in the sixth Biennial in 2016. Artists who received awards and honorable mentions will be included in an Indigenous artist guide to be published in July 2015.

The grand prize winner earned a trophy, the Inti Ñan, or “Road of the Sun” in the Kichwa language. This handcrafted metal sculpture was created

by Santiago Espinoza.

The award-winning artwork will be part of the traveling exhibit, The Nomad Art Gallery of the Biennial, which will travel through diverse venues including the Lewis Gallery of the Portland Public Library, Maine, in July and the Gallery of the Palace of the Opera, El Cairo, Egypt, in December of 2015. —America Meredith

1. Jorge Iván Cevallos, e-mail message to Rosa Cays, October 16, 2014.

Yekaterinburg, Russia

As We See It: Photography by Contemporary Native American Artists Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts

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HE CONNECTIONS between the arts and cultures of Native America and Russia are not immediately apparent, yet subtle ties bring these distant cultures together.

For example, N. Scott Momaday, the Kiowa author and artist who won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The House Made of Dawn in 1969, traveled to Russia in 1974 and became the first professor to teach American literature at the University of Moscow. During his stay in Russia, he began to sketch and draw,1 and in 2012, 25 years later, several of his watercolor paintings were included as part of the exhibition Octopus Dreams: 200 Works on Paper by Contemporary Native American Artists at the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. Curated by the art historian Suzanne Fricke, the filmmaker Beverly Morris (Aleut), and Emeritus Professor of Printmaking Charles 1. N. Scott Momaday, Conversations with N. Scott Momaday ( Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), 80.

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Jones, Octopus Dreams traveled to six different sites across Russia, serving as the American entry to the Novosibirsk Graphic Biennale, then to 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The show was well received in Russia, even earning the 2012 Grand Prix as the best museum show in Yekaterinburg.

Following the success of Octopus Dreams, the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts requested another show featuring contemporary Native American art, inspiring As We See It: Photography by Contemporary Native American Artists.

Curated by Suzanne Fricke and India Young, the show includes ten artists: Jamison Chas Banks, Anna Hoover, Tom Jones, Larry McNeil, Shelley Niro, Wendy Red Star, Beverly Singer, Matika Wilbur, Will Wilson, and Tiffiney Yazzie.

Sponsored by the American Consulate in Yekaterinburg with help from the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, the show opened August 8, 2014.

The work in this show acknowledges and expands on the history of photography, especially as it pertains to images of Native Americans. However, it also offers a new perspective on identity, both personal and social, and on the importance of place. In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of photographers including Edward Curtis, A.C. Vroman, and William Henry Jackson took pictures of Native Americans across the United States and Canada, and, in the minds of many, these images have come to define Native life.

The artists in this show offer a Native perspective to replace the older images.

Will Wilson shoots tintype portraits from which he makes a larger digital copy. He gives the original to the sitter as an exchange to share the photographic act between the artist and the subject.

The final image highlights the variations found in the emulsion that was applied to the matrix, connecting his work to 19thcentury portraiture. Matika Wilbur uses a 4×5 film camera when taking her portraits as part of Project 562, where her goal is to take one portrait from each of the 562 federally recognized tribes.2 Her softly tonal pieces offer an intimate vision into

Poster for As We See It, 2014. Photo: Will Wilson (Navajo-Irish-Welsh).

the lives of these individuals. Despite variety in the styles and use of the media, all the works reflect the artists’ unique perspectives on photography, both its history and how it can be used to create identity.

While in Yekaterinburg, the artist Will Wilson remarked that Native American cultures from North America and the Russian city in the Urals share a certain “proto-Soviet” sensibility, a practice of using materials and technique not usually considered part of the art canon, and an appreciation for historic styles not always popular in contemporary art. One of the main pieces in the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts is the canopy created for the Russian 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Made out of cast iron, this piece is an amalgam of various styles and techniques, including Neoclassical nude figures, Celtic patterning, American West Remington-style animals, and twisted Baroque columns. It also reflects the unique history of the city as an industrial center for Russia. With a population of almost one and a half million people, Yekaterinburg is located in the Ural Mountains at the meeting of the European and Asian tectonic plates, an area rich in minerals, coal, copper, oil, and natural gas. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it became the home for a large metallurgical complex, important to both

2. As of May 2013, there are now 566 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

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the imperial and the Soviet systems.

However, the collapse of the USSR led to an economic depression compounded by contamination due to industrial runoff. In the past few decades, though, people of the area have begun to conduct more mineral exploration, leading to new industrial investment and a rise in the economy.

The rise in activities at the museum reflects the larger economic upswing in the region. Yekaterinburg artists have demonstrated a strong commitment to the city as their home. The museum’s director, Nikita Korytin, is committed to elevating the city’s cultural status. The citizens of Yekaterinburg have proven a lively audience for Native art, open to the different media and styles. Visitors to the opening of As We See It included many whom had attended Octopus Dreams and spoke about how much they enjoyed both shows. During a radio interview to promote the show, Dr. Fricke and Mr. Wilson were asked if there was a solution to the political difficulties between the United States and Russia, wondering if there might be a way to bring these two global powers into a peaceful agreement.

Shows like this may not answer all the political uncertainties but feel like a positive step by finding common ground through images.

—Suzanne Newman Fricke

IN MEMORIAM

David Lee Pecos

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November 21, 1964–September 9, 2014

RITING THIS MEMORIAL is one of the hardest things I have ever done. When it comes to fitting the immensity of a man’s life into one page, when it comes to describing the boundless light of a soul gone too soon, I find myself at a loss for words. The man I speak of, David Lee Pecos, always had the right words for anyone in need.

With that talent and his generous heart, David had the superhuman ability to lift one’s spirit, to inspire, and to love. These words are for him.

I first met David during my freshman year of college at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I remember this jolly, grey-haired student, friendly as can be, with a smile permanently fixed from ear to ear.

At first I couldn’t understand why he seemed so happy to be going back to school at that point in his life. My young self couldn’t fathom seeing someone utterly ecstatic about waking early to attend class every day.

As the next weeks turned into months, and semesters rolled into years, David never lost that enthusiasm or that whole hearted grin. One day it finally dawned on me that this was a man following a dream; this was a man pursuing his passion for art and education with every fiber of his being. Better yet, his fervor to push his own limits and improve himself was infectious.

He stirred the fire in even the most unmotivated of students, and his example encouraged us all to be better scholars and, more importantly, better human beings.

A few years ago, David dove headfirst into the world of photography. He

enrolled in an introductory class, picked up an old-school 35mm, and it was love. David and his camera became inseparable, one always following where the other explored.

Professors and peers noticed his evergrowing appetite for taking pictures and gave him a shiny new digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera.

Now armed with his 64 GB memory card, David would never need to stop shooting to change a roll of film or develop piles of negatives.

His closest friends remember him becoming emotional at the overwhelming display of support and generosity, and saying that this camera would change his life. And it did just that. His camera was his tool for helping the rest of the world see frame-by-frame the same magnificent beauty that he saw constantly.

Pictures of everything from nature and scenery to his travels and daily experiences filled his memory card, but by far he adored taking pictures of his family the most. David captured what he loved, on film and in life.

ABOVE: David Pecos. Photo: Theresa Fields (Athabascan).

BELOW: David Pecos (Cochiti-Jemez-Laguna Pueblos), Three Pueblos, mixed media painting. Photo: Steve Stephens.

If there is anything we can learn from this man it’s that we all have but one chance at this life. However long or short that life may be, our responsibility to the memory of David Pecos is to honor the path he walked by trying our best to live with the same zest and the courage that he possessed.

Life wasn’t always perfect for David, but he did his best to not get caught up in the negatives, to stop and cherish the gifts that the world gave him, and to unconditionally love himself and others.

Take a moment to acknowledge and admire the beauty in our existence,

take a moment to replenish your faith in humanity, take a moment to think and see your world like he did. And don’t forget to look up once in a while, because David has not left us—he’s just busy taking pictures from a different angle now. —Jamelyn Ebelacker WINT ER 2 0 1 4

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Photographing Your Art the Painless Way

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O EVERY NATIVE ARTIST trying to sell art online, jury into more shows, get selected for residencies and fellowships, and attract collectors, this article is for you. It is also for buyers of Native art who need excellent pictures of their collection for insurance purposes or to build a catalog of their art.

Native artwork deserves the respect that professional quality photographs generate, not to mention the benefits they bring to artists, collectors, and buyers. No matter how exquisite your art, you’re at a decided disadvantage as an artist if you only have low-quality photographs of your work.

It is not necessary to invest in expensive, high-end, professional photography equipment or services.

This article will show you how you can do it yourself with some basic equipment and a few easy techniques.

By Christopher Short

What do you need to take a good picture?

focus lets you choose where the focus should be and ensures that the artwork is properly in focus.

FIRST OF ALL, THE CAMERA.

Exposure is the duration of time that the camera shutter is open. When using automatic exposure, the camera examines the scene and sets the shutter speed accordingly. This can be a problem in high-contrast scenes. If the camera exposes on the background instead of the subject, your art may end up as a featureless blob or silhouette. Always manually set the exposure on the object you’re photographing. If you have problems with blown-out (overexposed) highlights or the artwork is too dark, change the camera exposure accordingly and, if necessary, perform final corrections in your image editing software.

High-end digital or film cameras are not necessary. However, I strongly recommend a camera that provides manual control over focus, shutter speed (exposure), and f-stop (depth of field). Cell phones and point-and-shoot cameras are great for candid shooting, but don’t have the necessary controls for satisfactory art photography.

Manual camera control is important for several reasons. Automatic focus may fail if the lighting is dim, or there is not sufficient contrast in the scene on which the camera can focus. Automatic focus takes a “best guess” approach to deciding where the focus should be, and the camera’s best guess might not be what you’re expecting.

You may end up with beautifully focused pictures of the your background but blurry pictures of your artwork. Using manual

The f-stop setting controls the size of the aperture, which restricts or allows more light into the camera. The larger the f-stop value, the smaller the aperture size and the larger the depth of field.

All photos in this article: Christopher Short (Citizen Nation Potawatomi).

Completely out of focus.

Autofocus on the wooden stand, and the jewelry is out of focus.

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Proper focus. Silver pendant by Weaver Selina (Hopi).

ADVICE

your camera. This will require some experimentation and likely multiple test shots before you find the right balance.

Many cameras have a “depth of field preview” button that will show you what parts of your scene are in focus before you take the picture.

ABOVE: Overexposed image with blown-out highlights.

BELOW: Properly exposed image. Silver pendant by Weaver Selina (Hopi).

Use the highest resolution image your camera can take and perform any necessary image resizing on the computer. It’s okay to shrink a toolarge picture, but you will lose image quality by enlarging a too-small picture.

Also, a larger-resolution image allows more options for cropping and zooming when you are editing on the computer. A tripod is absolutely necessary to eliminate camera shake and to make it easier to consistently position your camera.

ABOVE: Too low of an f-stop value results in too shallow of a depth of field.

BELOW: With the proper f-stop, the art work is in focus, but the background is blurred.

Bracelet by Eddie Begay (Navajo).

BEFORE YOU TAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS. Consider

Controlling the depth of field dictates how much of the photograph is in focus.

With too little depth of field (low f-stop value), only parts of your artwork will be in focus. Too much depth of field (high f-stop value) and it will be difficult to distinguish your artwork from the background. When the f-stop is properly set, your subject will be in sharp focus, but the background of your picture will be blurred. This brings emphasis to your artwork by separating it from the background. As you change the f-stop value, you will also need to adjust the exposure to compensate for the change in the amount of light entering

the audience for the photographs.

Are the pictures for entry into juried competition or for selling your artwork?

While staging the shot with props adds interest, it’s also important to not distract from the art. Backgrounds should be dark or neutral, and foregrounds should be uncluttered. Juried competitions and shows typically require simple photographs that contain only artwork with no additional items in the frame.

If you’re photographing your art to sell, adding props or objects to provide context and setting may result in a more pleasing picture. Be careful not to go overboard with props. Remember, props are to provide an accent, not a distraction.

THE ART THAT IS BEING PHOTOGRAPHED. Think

about the background. This may seem fundamental, but setting a piece of pottery on a cluttered table, a drum on a couch with abandoned toys, or a large art piece by the outdoor grill on the patio will not result in a satisfactory photograph. The viewer needs to be able to concentrate on the artwork, so the background needs to be completely uncluttered and the artwork should

be appropriately sized within the photograph. Putting a large piece of black foam board or card stock behind a light piece of art or a light background behind a dark piece does the trick nicely and keeps your personal life out of the picture.

WORKING WITH LIGHT. Our eyes have evolved to appreciate and respond to the colors and characteristics of sunlight. Pictures taken with natural light are the most pleasing, but working with natural light presents a host of challenges, such as harsh shadows and contrasts, weather, time of day, and even the motion of the earth. If you are WINT ER 2 0 1 4

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taking pictures outdoors on a sunny day, make sure the sun is not directly on your art and watch out for shadows and glare.

Diffused lighting will produce the best results. The optimal times for shooting outdoors are known as the “golden hours” and are roughly the first hour of light after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset.

ABOVE: Weaver Selina (Hopi), Bolo tie, sterling silver overlay, leather.

BELOW: Light box in use.

Working with artificial light is easier in many cases. Artificial light is not dependent on the time of day or weather, and the light stays consistent even if the photo shoot spans multiple days. However, shooting with artificial light can have some disadvantages, such as the need to create a pleasing environment, different color temperatures from multiple light types, space constraints, and heat from the lights.

When you are working with artificial light, all light sources must be the same type and color, and other sources of light should be turned off or blocked.

Lights that can be adjusted in angle and position will make your job easier.

Lights on tripod stands are ideal, but improvisations such as work lights clamped to the back of chairs can also be used effectively.

Bright, energy-efficient light bulbs that offer full-spectrum light are the best, but above all, remember that mixing different kinds of lights will confuse your camera and may result in an unwanted color cast. While our eyes adjust dynamically to color differences between light sources, your camera may not. Use a photographic grey card to white balance your camera before you start shooting.

A TRADITIONAL LIGHT BOX SETUP. If your art will fit, using a

light box provides many advantages.

You have full control of light intensity and placement, can minimize reflections, have a consistent setting throughout the duration of the photo shoot, and have a seamless and uncluttered background.

A light box produces soft, diffuse, and uniform light without shadows or glare. It is especially important when photographing shiny, reflective artwork, such as jewelry or glass.

Materials to build your own light box are inexpensive and easy to find, and the construction process is simple.

First, decide how big you want the box. Twenty-four-inch square sides is a reasonable size and allows you to use a folding card table for the stand. If building a cube, you will need twelve pieces of ½-inch PVC pipe all the same length for the base, top, and four legs of the light box. PVC pipe can be easily cut with a PVC pipe cutter or hacksaw.

Eight three-way PVC pipe fittings are used for the eight corners. You can use PVC glue to make your light box permanent or use friction—fit the pieces together without glue so the light box can be taken apart for storage or travel.

Using four pieces of PVC pipe and four three-way joints, make a square for the top. Do the same for the bottom. Insert the four legs into the three-way joints pointing up from the bottom frame and then place the top frame onto the top of the legs. Make a slip-on cover for the box out of a lightweight, translucent white cotton material, such as sheeting or muslin. You will need a top and four sides to slip down over the light box

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ADVICE

pine cones, stones, and other natural items. Velvet, felt, suede, or deerskin are good choices for your artwork to rest on. Place lights on each side of the light box so that the light filters through the panels. Adjust this position of the lights until the lighting is soft, and there are no excess shadows or bright spots on your art. If needed, a third light can be positioned to shine through the top of the box.

ABOVE: The photograph is part of a set that artist Eddie Begay uses for juried competitions.

BELOW: The photograph is part of a set that artist Eddie Begay uses to promote and sell his art work.

frame. Be sure to add seam or overlap allowances to the panel size before you cut them out. Sew the four side cloth panels to the top piece along the top of each side panel. Sew the two side pieces to the front panel along the vertical front edges. Sew a vertical Velcro slip to the back of each side panel where they will meet along the back legs in such a way that the panels can be closed with the Velcro. This will let you open the panels in the side to place the items you want to photograph in the light box without disturbing the camera. Cut a vertical slit part way up in the very center of the front panel for the camera. To prevent reflections of yourself or the camera, sew several horizontal Velcro strips on each side of the slit in the front panel so the panel can be closed with Velcro around the camera once it is in place.

Place a large sheet of construction paper (neutral grey works well) in the box in such a way that there is a gentle arc from the upper back to the lower front. This creates a seamless background.

Consider using “found” items around your artwork, such as weathered wood,

If you do not have a light box available to photograph your artwork, you can use a large piece of foam core or card stock as a background and another one as a base for the art. Make sure the artwork is on a flat and level surface. Use fullspectrum light bulbs in lamps or other lights, and bounce the light off a nearby wall or ceiling to avoid overexposure of the image, glare, and shadows. Indirect natural light can be used if there is a nearby window that admits light that is bright and uniform.

PHOTOGRAPHING FLAT ART. Flat art such as paintings, rugs,

quilts, and other textiles are best photographed mounted vertically on a wall. Position two lights on stands on either side of the artwork and angle them so the beams cross and each light illuminates the opposite side of the artwork. This will help reduce glare and hot spots. The lights should be away from the artwork as far as is practical, but must be positioned between the camera and the art. Position the camera perpendicularly and level to the artwork and far enough away that you have to zoom in to fill the frame. This will prevent the fish-eye distortion that is common when using wide-angle lenses.

If your camera has a digital zoom feature, make sure that it is disabled and you are only using the optical zoom. If possible, artwork should be unframed and uncovered by glass or acrylic.

Computer editing can help remedy some issues with exposure and cropping.

However, the better the original photographs are, the less time you’ll spend editing them later. The computer is only a tool. It will help, but it also adds additional time to your process, and it can’t perform miracles. Entry forms for juried shows and competitions will call for specific image resolutions and formats. Make sure to pay attention to these requirements

TAKE-AWAY MESSAGE.

Quality pictures will help you sell your art and get it into more shows and competitions. Good photography documents your work and helps you share it easily and quickly with others.

If you are a collector, you know that good photographs provide better documentation of your collection and aid you with appraisal and insurance.

There is no mystery to taking good photographs. Inexpensive and basic equipment that is easily available combined with care, practice, and ingenuity are all you need. It is more than worth the effort it takes to professionally and accurately represent your work.

ABOVE: Weaver Selina (Hopi), Cuff bracelet, sterling silver inlay. Photographed on corn from his garden.

BELOW: Eddie Begay (Navajo), Inlay bracelet sterling silver, sugilite, coral.

COMPUTER TIME. Picture

editing on the computer always takes an unexpected amount of time. Plan for your editing to take at least as long as the time you spent taking the pictures.

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ART + LITERATURE

Mojave-Pima Poet

Natalie Diaz

N

ATALIE DIAZ, an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she serves as coordinator of the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program. Her poetry has been published in several periodicals and in her first book, When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). Her numerous awards include NACF Literature Fellowship, Nimrod/ Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from Bread Loaf, the Narrative Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and most recently a United States Artists (USA) Fellowship.

When asked about your inclusion of erotic and love poems in When My Brother Was an Aztec, you answered, “I didn’t have to make any part of myself invisible in this book.”1 What is the consequence of not having to render any part of yourself invisible, for you personally, for your work as a poet and storyteller, and for your work in language? How do you create this opportunity, this way of being, in your daily life?

I don’t think there is any “consequence” of allowing myself the freedom to tell it my way—after all, my way is the only way I have. I don’t deny that hunting this type of individual “truth” can bring discomfort, shame, hurt, fear, etc. Of course it does. But these aren’t “consequences.” They are the other side of some of the good that comes from refusing to be invisible or silent—on the lucky end of discomfort, shame, hurt, and fear are good things such as dialogue, questions, hopes, wonders,

Interview by Reid Gómez desires, etc. I am lucky, I think, to know that no person and no thing is all good or all bad—the reason why a lamp is a lamp is because it is often dark, but the light of it is what makes me return to it again and again.

I used to find this same type of “freedom” or “space” on the basketball court. I soon realized that I can create that space anywhere. The page is where I find it now. The page is like my super power. I have control over it. My Elders have taught me that I am good, no matter what I do or how I mess up. They taught me my body is for being strong and present, and my mouth and tongue are for singing and speaking—these are small tasks that I feel lucky to carry.

In that same interview you describe many of our lives: “I was raised to hold many truths in my hand, all at the same time, and to never have to drop one in order to have faith in the other.” One of my favorite pieces of yours is “If What I Mean Is Hummingbird, If What I Mean Is Fall Into My Mouth.” I would like to respectfully and intimately consider the many truths of Huitzilopochtli [the Mexica god], and nyen nyen [the Mojave term for “hummingbird” and “sex”]. Your work calls attention to the legacy of colonization in our family structures and in our most intimate relationships. Can you talk about these many truths?

Maybe there are too many to talk about.

When we say truth, most of us scan our minds or the minds of those around us for one single “right thing,” and by doing that we cut ourselves off from all the possibilities that exist. There are carousels of truths spinning around in

Natalie Diaz. Photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

us, horses and horses of truth running through us all the time. For example, the truth of colonization is one I am a part of, but I cannot let that cancel out the truth of my ancestors. And I cannot let the truth of my ancestors cancel out the world that my nieces and nephews live in either, whether you call that world postcolonial or neo-savage or whatever. The truth I hunt is the truth that changes me and makes me new again and again.

Your description of writing is beautiful: “A prayer, offered up to comprehend the incomprehensible.

Writing is that way for me. I write about what I don’t understand.”2 Your words remind me of the struggle to find a language to account for our lives. I see this in your writing and the Mojave Language Project.

What words are you looking for?

How is this related to your work on

1. Andrea J. Nolan, “A Triptych of Interviews with Natalie Diaz,” Barely South Review (Norfolk, VA: Old Dominion University (2012), http://barelysouthreview. digitalodu.com/all-issues/january-2011/a-triptych-of-interviews-with-natalie-diaz.

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the Mojave language? And how do you develop habits of language use?

The only commitments I have made to language is that when I use it, I want to respect where it has come from and whom it has been passed through and to always use it in a way that means something to me. This determines which words I use and how I arrange them.

I have never pressured myself to speak differently than what that speaking means to me. This doesn’t mean I like simple language. This just means that language is too important to not feel its energy every time you put it on the page or let it loose from your mouth.

I want every word to feel as important as a word you’d whisper to your lover at 2 a.m., or shout at your brother in a moment when you both love so hard you’d give each other your fists to prove it, or the words I repeat and carry in my mouth for my Elders so they know their language is going to live and live.

One of my favorite things about my desert is to listen to the coyotes howling out on the dunes at night and in the early morning. That is the way I want to use language, in a way that fills an entire sky and still keeps moving out and out and out. The coyotes know the importance of language and sound that I hope to understand one day.

You’ve said your use of Mojave in your poetry is strategic and that you’d never want to “make Mojave speak English.” Elsewhere you talk about the need to pull new words through your heart, to account for realities we face now. These ideas call to mind additional ways of conceiving of literacy. I’m thinking of this definition: “‘[T]he ability to interpret the complex system of cultural symbol that enable community members to participate actively and appropriately in communicative events.”3

Revision is the hidden art of writing as powerfully and shatteringly beautiful as [you do]. You tell students to cut and cut and cut; to narrow things down; and to tell some aspect of the story in three sentences.

This discussion, of an exercise in plot, provides some of the best instructions for creative writing I’ve ever heard.

How has it been teaching at IAIA? What has been your most wonderful surprise? Your most profound lesson?

How has teaching, there particularly, influenced your new work?

I love teaching at IAIA. My main reason for teaching there is that I want more Native books and stories out in this world. I want to help young Native writers understand the role of hard work in the writing process, and that they are capable of this hard work. I have led a lucky life that has taught me a work ethic that has served me well in athletics, writing, and language work.

This has not been a surprise, but what has been reconfirmed in me is the power of our stories and strength of these younger generations of Native writers who have decided to hold these stories and move them into the world.

The world of Native writing is one of possibility, and I hope that something I leave my students with is that we can write anything we want to write and should write everything we need to write. The question “What does contemporary Native writing look like?” is one that should be asked again and again but never answered. There is no definition. There is only everything we have to write.

My writing has not changed as a result of teaching there, but I find myself talking to many of our young writers about their languages, including both their heritage languages and English.

What is happening at IAIA is a beautiful

thing, and one I am lucky to be a part of.

Coming full circle … in light of your story of the mother who came to you and the Elders in the Mojave Language Project, to ask how to say “I love you” to her child in Mojave, because she never heard her parents say those exact words to her.

How do the body and soul find their way to tenderness and love? What does this have to do with you and with the Mojave Language Project?

I believe one of the ways that losing our languages has hurt us most is that we lost our words for tenderness and compassion. Of course, this was an intended part of the boarding school system and myriad other programs the government put in place to manage us, cure us, save us, and assimilate us. But for me, the love poem is a form I want to continue working in because I want my Native readers to know that these words are not shameful or taboo words, they are just words we have forgotten and must remember. Our physical actions are locked in these words. The way we’ll press each others’ legs, the way we’ll open our arms to each other, they way we’ll move arrowweed smoke over each others’ bodies—all the ways we will love and care for each other through this blue world are held in those words.

Finally, “These Hands, If Not Gods” is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read. The Gods frequent your work and your world. How do you prepare the page, and your life, for their visits?

Maybe my best preparation is to realize They are always there. What is more sporadic is my ability to be open to Them. In those moments I am at my best, because I understand that I am a small thing, but in me there is something large and capable of doing great things. In those moments I realize that I am good.

2. Andrea J. Nolan, “A Triptych of Interviews with Natalie Diaz,” Barely South Review (Norfolk, VA: Old Dominion University, (2012), http://barelysouthreview. digitalodu.com/all-issues/january-2011/a-triptych-of-interviews-with-natalie-diaz.

3. Theresa L. McCarty, “Indigenous Literacies: Continuum or Divide?” in Framing Languages and Literacies: Socially Situated Views and Perspectives, ed. Margaret R. Hawkins (New York: Routledge, 2003), 170.

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These Hands, If Not Gods Haven’t they moved like rivers— like Glory, like light— over the seven days of your body?

And wasn’t that good?

Them at your hips— isn’t this what God felt when he pressed together the first Beloved: Everything.

Fever. Vapor. Atman. Pulsus. Finally, a sin worth hurting for. Finally, a sweet, a You are mine.

It is hard not to have faith in this: from the blue-brown clay of night these two potters crushed and smoothed you into being—grind, then curve—built your form up— atlas of bone, fields of muscle, one breast a fig tree, the other a nightingale, both Morning and Evening.

O, the beautiful making they do— of trigger and carve, suffering and stars— Aren’t they, too, the dark carpenters of your small church? Have they not burned on the altar of your belly, eaten the bread of your thighs, broke you to wine, to ichor, to nectareous feast?

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Haven’t they riveted your wrists, haven’t they had you at your knees?

And when these hands touched your throat, showed you how to take the apple and the rib, how to slip a thumb into your mouth and taste it all, didn’t you sing out their ninety-nine names— Zahir, Aleph, Hands-time-seven, Sphinx, Leonids, locomotura, Rubidium, August, and September— And when you cried out, O, Prometheans, didn’t they bring fire?

These hands, if not gods, then why when you have come to me, and I have returned you to that from which you came—bright mud, mineral-salt— why then do you whisper O, my Hecatonchire. My Centimani.

My hundred-handed one?

—Natalie Diaz

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: Hoka Skenandore (Oneida-OglalaLuiseño), Natural Progression Towards Internal Collapse, 2009, mixed media on canvas; Same Old Same Old, 2010, acrylic on canvas; Stop Talking and Open Wide, 2010, acrylic on canvas; Enthusiasm Trumps Common Sense (Remix), 2014, mixed media on canvas. All images courtesy of the artist.

Hoka Skenandore started his painting career as a graffiti artist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is an alumnus of the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he was a member of the Humble Collective. Upon earning his BFA degree, he taught studio arts at Sinte Gleska University in Mission, South Dakota. Skenandore has won awards at competition art events such as Red Cloud Indian Art Show and SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. He has two children, is married to fellow artist April Holder, and lives in Shawnee, Oklahoma. His art blog is online at hokaskenandorerants.blogspot.com.

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benjamin harjo jr. american indian artist

women of the night, 2014, gouache on Arches paper, 11 x 14½ inchess

www.benjaminharjojr.com

Will Wilson

Through April 19, 2015 Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian 704 Camino Lejo Santa Fe, NM 87505 www.wheelwright.org

This project is made possible in part by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodger’s Tax; New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts, and by several private donors.