First American Art Magazine No. 18, Spring 2018

ANCESTRAL, HISTORICAL & LIVING ARTS of INDIGENOUS PEOPLES of the AMERICAS

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

NO. 18, SPRING 2018

THE GAUSSOIN FAMILY NEXT WAVE OF NATIVE FASHION

RONNI-LEIGH GOEMAN

SELF-PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY

GERALD LOMAVENTEMA

LAC ST. AGNES MOUND SITE DISPLAY UNTIL MAY 15, 2018

RAVEN CHACON

CARA ROMERO

ONE OF THE NATION’S FASTEST GROWING NATIVE AMERICAN ART FESTIVALS

MAY 26, 2018 • SULPHUR, OKLAHOMA FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL (580) 272-5520 OR EMAIL ARTISTINFO@CHICKASAW.NET.

Northern Plains Indian Art Market

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Best of Show Art Preview & Reception September 28, 2018 Old CourtHouse Museum

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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) 999-6007 • CHEROKEEHERITAGE.ORG

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VISUAL VOICES CO N T E M P O R A RY C H I C K A S AW A R T

Bill Hensley, Young Chickasaw Man, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 60 in. x 48 in.

FRED J O N ES J R . M U S E U M O F A R T UN IVERSIT Y O F O K L A H O M A N O R M A N, O K June 8 - Sept. 9, 2018

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I AI A M USE UM O F CO NTEMPORA RY NATI V E AR TS SANTA FE , NM Aug. 15, 2019 - Jan. 19, 2020

C H I C K A S AWA R T I S T S . C O M Grant provided by the Chickasaw Nation

issue no. 18, spring 2018

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

The Art of the Gaussoin Family: 20 From the Classic to the Unexpected

By Staci Golar

Recent Developments

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Seven Directions

By Nadia JackinskySethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

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Agents of Beauty: The Next 28 Wave of Native Fashion Photography by Terrance Clifford (Oglala Lakota) Text by Nina Sanders (Apsáalooke) The Imagistic, Indigenized “I”: Native Self-Portraiture in Photography

By Michelle J. Lanteri

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The Lac St. Agnes Site: An Ancestral Mound Site in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana

By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Muscogee Creek)

44

52

Art + Lit 88 Michelle Sylliboy (Mi’kmaq) with Richard Sillboy (Mi’kmaq)

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD Spotlight: Powhatan’s Mantle

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

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Calendar

94

REVIEWS

ARTIST PROFILES

58

Raven Chacon: 52 Navajo Composer, Musician, and Interdisciplinary Artist

By Thollem Ronni-Leigh Goeman: 58 Onondaga Basket Maker

By Wendiyoh Estrada (Onondaga) Gerald Lomaventema: Hopi Silversmith

By RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Tewa)

64

Cara Romero: Chemehuevi Photographer Alexis Celeste Bunten, PhD (Aleut-Yup’ik)

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64

Exhibition Reviews

76

Book Reviews

82

IN MEMORIAM Tony Hunt Sr. (Kwakwaka’wakw)

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

85

Mark Tahbo (Hopi-Tewa)

By Jean Merz-Edwards

86

Paul Vigil (Tesuque)

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

87

cover C a ra Ro m e ro (C h e m e h u ev i ) , Jackrabbit & Cottontail, 2016, pigment print on fine art paper, edition of five, 36 × 48 in.

Image courtesy of the artist.

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Jackrabbit & Cottontail is a dreamscape that gathers together personal experience without time constraints, so they may all exist on the same plane. Precontact, contemporary, childhood, motherhood. I shot the photograph from the Chemehuevi Reservation shoreline of Lake Havasu. Jackrabbit and Cottontail reference mythological brothers whose heroism made earth habitable in Chemehuevi oral history. —Cara Romero

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I D Y L L W I L D

A R T S

Native American Workshops and Festival 2018

Issue No. 18, Spring 2018 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Online) Publishing Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Literary Editor: Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD (Euro-Canadian) Website Editor: Stacy Pratt, PhD (Muscogee Creek) Marketing Director: Barbara Harjo (Cherokee descent) Circulation Manager: Talullah Begaye (Choctaw-Chickasaw-Navajo) Calendar Editor: Tammi Hanawalt, PhD Copy Editor: Rosa Cays (Chicana) Proofreaders: Samonia Byford (Cherokee Nation), Staci Golar (CornishWelsh-American), Andrea L. Ferber, PhD & Jean Merz-Edwards Layout & Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Natalie Baca Design Consultant: Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa) Social Media: Staci Golar (Cornish-Welsh-American), Michelle J. Lanteri, America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) & Nina Sanders (Apsáalooke)

Regional Representatives

Great Basin: Melissa Melero-Moose (Fallon Paiute-Modoc) Great Plains: Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Northeast: Kelly Church (Odawa-Ojibwe-Potawatomi) Northwest: Marianne Nicolson, PhD (Dzawada’enuxw Kwakwaka’wakw) Southeast: Michole Eldred (Catawba-Eastern Band Cherokee) Southwest: Holly Coonsis (Zuni)

Editorial Advisory Board heather ahtone (Choctaw-Chickasaw) Jonathan Batkin James T. Bialac, JD Teri Greeves (Kiowa) Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Linda Lomahaftewa, Hon. DFA (Hopi-Choctaw) Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole) Ken Williams Jr. (Northern Arapaho-Seneca) India Rael Young, PhD

Advertising Representative Barbara Harjo (Cherokee descent), barbara@firstamericanartmagazine.com International distribution by Disticor Magazine Distribution Services.

June 18 through July 2 Scholarships for Native American adults and kids available for all workshops! summer@idyllwildarts.org IdyllwildArts.org/nativearts 951-468-7265

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.

Copyright © 2018 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. Any errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. First American Art Magazine® is registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

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Buying or Selling Indian Art? Know the Law! Under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, all American Indian and Alaska Native art and craft products must be marketed truthfully regarding the tribal enrollment and Indian heritage of the artist or craftsperson.

Take Home a Treasure from Indian Country-Buy works produced by members of federally recognized tribes.

For a free brochure on the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, including how to file a complaint, contact: U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board 1849 C Street, NW, MS 2528-MIB Washington DC 20240 Toll Free: 1-888-ART-FAKE or 1-888-2783253 Email: iacb@ios.doi.gov Web: www.doi.gov/iacb Joan Hill, Muscogee Creek Nation, Sacred Ceremony of the Temple Mound, Painting, ©1989

EDITOR’S GREETING

B

EES FAMOUSLY SEE a different color spectrum than humans.

They are capable of seeing ultraviolet, which is invisible to us. You’re likely familiar with photographs of flowers with the ultraviolet waves enhanced to reveal the lines and patterns on flower petals. These UV waves draw the bees toward the stigmas and pollen-bearing stamens. Ultraviolet has shorter wavelengths—10 to 400 nanometers—than the light spectrum visible to us. However, bees lack the ability to see red, on the other end of the spectrum with longer wavelengths at 620 to 750 nanometers.

The visible spectrum forms the rainbow—tangakwunu in Hopi, ᎤᏅᎪᎳᏛ in Cherokee, kurumi in Aymara—which are electromagnetic waves from 390 to 700 nanometers.

Ultraviolet and infrared lurk beyond the edge of that spectrum; they exist even if we cannot see them with the naked eye.

The Native art world is much like this spectrum with nebulous divisions.

Just as different cultures divide the rainbow into distinct colors, we divide our art world into different fields or wavelengths. Which is fine—we must make sense of it all; however, do we get stuck in our own wavelengths? Do we narrow the bandwidth of our perception too much and miss out on the rest?

Some people focus on the circuit of international art fairs, others focus on art museums, while others only register artists vetted by gallerists or dealers they trust. The lively Native art market scene can become its own world. Still other audiences are drawn toward the revolutionary potential of street art. Within Native communities, there are artists, particularly regalia makers, that never show in galleries or markets.

Art lovers can be drawn only to historic materials or to precontact art forms. No matter where you stand on the spectrum—the media and art venues that are your ultraviolet attraction—please consider this issue of First American Art

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left America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), ᎬᎨᏳᎯ, ᏩᏚᎵᏏ, 2008, acrylic on hardboard panel, 12 × 12 in.

Magazine as your personal invitation to skip around, to get out of your aesthetic comfort zone, and to see another aspect of art from a different wavelength within our spectrum. The Native art world is large and small and remains intimate enough that themes permeate throughout, and a vastly different approach to art can still resonate across miles or centuries.

In this issue, we begin with the Gaussoin family—Connie Tsosie, David, Wayne Nez, Lt. Col. Jerry Jr.—a PicurisNavajo family of artists based in New Mexico, who are known for their jewelry but branch out into fashion design, performance art, and museum conservation. Nina Sanders (Apsáalooke) and Terrance Clifford (Oglala Lakota) show us where Native fashion is today. For those of you who might argue that jewelry and fashion are not “Art with a capital A,” consider that our generation spends more time indoors than any other generation.

Once you leave your office or home, if you want your artwork to be seen, what is the ideal gallery? Your own body.

Indigenous photography has also experienced a recent groundswell of scholarship and exhibition. Michelle J. Lanteri explores what happens when Native photographers turn the lens on themselves in “The Imagistic, Indigenized ‘I’: Native Self-Portraiture in Photography.”

Native art can be beneath our feet or, in the case of monumental earthworks, the very soil itself. In Avoyelles Parish, mounds date from the Hopewellian Exchange (ca.

100 BCE to 400 CE) to the Plaquemine culture, which continued into the early 18th century. Stacy Pratt, PhD (Muscogee Creek), explores her mixed emotions as she navigates the complex issues of preservation and research of the earthworks and the people who built them.

The artist profiles, reviews, and departments add to the different wavelengths of Native artistic expression.

They speak to what is both visible to our eyes or known only through inference, to heighten our sense of what is possible within the spectrum of art by Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

—America Meredith

LETTERS TO FAAM BENJAMIN NICHOLAS & BELIZE’S GARIFUNA PAINTERS

I THE KESHI FOUNDATION: DREAMING BIG FOR THE ARTISTS OF ZUNI PUEBLO

T

HANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL ARTICLE about the Keshi Foundation. Staci and you did a masterful job and we have received a lot of response.

I know many Zunis saw it, as we discussed it at length at Shalako this past weekend.

As you may or may not know, we have decided not to do the Zuni Show in 2018. Its huge success created a need for increased support, and we are taking a year off to reorganize.

This will also give us an opportunity to continue our mission of creating a presence in Zuni in order to positively and economically impact the community there. Thank you for your amazing support in so many ways. We will keep you in touch with our Zuni projects.

We appreciate you and hope you will come see us when you are in Santa Fe. E’ lah’kwa, Robin Dunlap The Keshi Foundation Sorry to hear that the Zuni Show won’t take place this year, but your desire to produce the best event as opposed to the most frequent is understandable. I’ll eagerly anticipate its return in future years, and I look forward to hearing about future developments by the Keshi Foundation. I’m particularly interested in your efforts to improve internet access at Zuni. Keep up the good work!

—America Meredith

N FAAM NO. 17, WINTER 2017/18, I was delighted to find an in-depth article on Garifuna artists that explores a complex history, showcases many brilliant paintings, and makes meaningful references to artists working in diverse genres. The colorful artwork of Pen Cayetano first caught my eye and drew me to the insightful analysis. In 2010, he came, along with two other Garifuna cultural activists, Egbert Higinio and Sidney Mejia, to present to my students in a research writing course at UC Berkeley, “Beyond Shaman or Savage: Modern Native Peoples, Nations, and Cultures.” Cayetano discussed how he developed punta rock in 1979 as he sought a way to involve the youth in traditional culture.

The article too mentions Cayetano’s pioneering role in creating this hybrid genre. At the presentation for my students, Cayetano and Mejia used the talking drum and bass drum to play five of the 21 different rhythms the Garifuna customarily play: punta (courtship), hungu-hungu (spiritual), wanaragua (harvest dance/battle), paranda (rite of passage, flirt), and gunjai. Sydney Mejia explained, “These days we don’t war with guns anymore; we war with music,” and discussed how “the dancers control the musicians,” whereas the reverse is often the case in many other forms of music.

Thank you!

Michelle Baptiste El Cerrito, CA Thank you for the supportive letter and for your willingness to share my essay. As a historian, I am also intrigued by the relationships between artistic practices and activism, and hope to learn more about these connections as I continue with my research. As you note, Pen Cayetano and other Garifuna artists provide us with excellent examples of how to approach the past and its legacies in ways that “speak to the youth.”

—Peter Szok, PhD

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

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS ALEXIS BUNTEN, PhD (Aleut-Yup’ik), is an Alaska Native researcher, writer, and media maker. Bunten holds a BA in art history from Dartmouth College and a PhD in cultural anthropology from UCLA. Her first book, So, How Long Have You Been Native?: Life as an Alaska Native Tour Guide (University of Nebraska Press, 2015), won the 2016 Alaska Library Association Award. Her writing has been published in American Indian Quarterly, American Ethnologist, and the Journal of Museum Education. Her latest book, Indigenous Tourism Movements (University of Toronto Press), was just released in 2018. Alexis also coproduced and wrote the script for a documentary nominated for the Native American Film Awards.

ROSEMARY DIAZ (Santa Clara Tewa) is a freelance writer based in Santa Fe. She studied literature and its respective arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Naropa University, and University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Beadwork, Collector’s Guide, Native Peoples, and the Santa Fean, and she is featured in Indian Country Today Media Network online.

WENDIYOH ESTRADA (Onondaga) grew up on the Onondaga Nation, the central tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy in Upstate New York. She graduated with a degree in television/ radio/film from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she produced several short films and documentaries. She currently works as photographer and staff writer for Ononda’geh Ongwawenna, Onondaga Nation’s newsletter.

ANDREA L. FERBER, PhD, is an art historian and independent curator. Her current curatorial project is Palimpsests for the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She has several forthcoming publications and is a contributor to the Art Market Dictionary, a new resource from De Gruyter Publishers in Berlin.

STACI GOLAR (Cornish-Welsh-American), based in San Diego, holds a bachelor’s degree in art, with minors in sociology and anthropology from Eastern Oregon University and a master’s degree in arts administration from the University of Oregon. After completing an arts management internship at Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation, she went on to work for SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the International Folk Art Alliance. She has written for the Santa Fean, Native Peoples, Santa Fe New Mexican, Bead and Button, and other publications. A lifelong advocate of the arts and an artist herself, she believes in the transformative power of art and in those who create it.

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Illustration by A. Meredith.

NADIA JACKINSKY-SETHI, PhD (Alutiiq), is an art historian, writer, and museum consultant based in Homer, Alaska.

She works as a program officer for a grant program dedicated to supporting Alaska Native artists at The CIRI Foundation, and teaches occasional art history classes through the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Her research interests focus on Alaska Native and circumpolar arts, Indigenous cultural and artistic revival, and issues around representations of identity.

MICHELLE J. LANTERI is an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation predoctoral fellow in Native American art history at the University of Oklahoma. She presented a paper on Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star at the 2017 College Art Association (CAA) conference and curated the 2018 exhibition, Wendy Red Star: The Maniacs (We’re Not The Best, But We’re Better Than The Rest) for the University Art Gallery at New Mexico State University (NMSU). Lanteri earned an MA in art history from NMSU and has served in curatorial roles for the University Museum as well as the Greenhill Center for North Carolina Art. At the 2018 CAA conference, she is chairing the panel, “Intercontinental: Indigenous Artists of the Americas on the Contemporary Art Stage.”

DANYELLE MEANS (Oglala Lakota) is a writer, researcher, and museum consultant. Currently finishing her master’s thesis on the collection and display of contemporary Native American art in Europe, Means lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

JEAN MERZ-EDWARDS has studied art history since 2000, when she attended her first classes on the subject at Hunter College in New York. She earned her master’s degree

in art history from the University of Oklahoma and was granted a certificate in women’s and gender studies and the Alice Mary Robertson Award for her scholarship on the life and art of Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw). Merz-Edwards teaches art history at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas.

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STACY PRATT, PhD (Mvskoke), is a writer, musician, and independent scholar. She earned a master’s degree in literature from the University of Arkansas and a doctorate in creative writing (poetry) from the University of Southern Mississippi. She lives in DeRidder, Louisiana.

NINA SANDERS (Apsáalooke) is a curator, writer, artist, and museum professional. She has worked for the School for Advanced Research and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, where she curated and created finding guides for more than 250 historic Crow photographs for the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archive. Sanders curated a contemporary Native American art exhibition at the Ralph T. Coe Foundation for the Arts in Santa Fe (now the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts). She is also a beadwork artist and has written for the Smithsonian and EarthSong, the Heard Museum magazine.

MATTHEW RYAN SMITH, PhD (Euro-Canadian), is the curator of the Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant in Brantford, Ontario. Smith is also the Canadian section editor of the Art Market Dictionary and resides on the editorial board of the Yearbook of Moving Image Studies (YoMIS).

THOLLEM is a peripatetic pianist, keyboardist, vocalist, composer, improviser, collaborator, activist, teacher, and author. He has released more than 60 albums across the stylistic spectrum on 20 different vanguard labels. He performs throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with musicians, dancers, and filmmakers. Thollem has contributed articles to Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening and Full Moon Magazine.

MARINA TYQUIENGCO (Chamorro) specializes in contemporary Indigenous art as a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation will focus on Indigenous selfhood through artists’ use of their bodies from the 1990s to today in Australia, Canada, and the United States. She will serve as the next editorin-chief of Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture for a special issue on the topic of race and museums.

Calvin Hunt, (Kwakwaka’wakw), 2007

Open every First Friday of the month, 1-4 pm or give us a call to plan a visit 1590B Pacheco Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505 ralphtcoefoundation.org / (505)SPRING 983-6372 2018 | 11

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS & ART CENTERS The New York-based Ford Foundation and the Arkansas-based Walton Family Foundation have launched the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative, a $6 million project to help increase the diversity in management and curatorial staff at US art museums.

A 2015 study by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation revealed that people of color work in only 16 percent of these positions, despite being 38 percent of the American population. The Native American Fellowship Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is among the 20 projects funded by this initiative.

Minnesota, the art center is located between the Red Lake, Leech Lake, and White Earth Ojibwe Reservations.

The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs retrofitted an RV to create Wonders on Wheels (WoW), a mobile museum that brings exhibitions to schoolchildren in all of New Mexico’s 33 counties. In 2018, WoW’s exhibition is hosted by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and curated by Jessie Ryker-Crawford (White Earth Ojibwe) and Shelley Valdez (Laguna). Last year, the mobile museum visited tribal and non-tribal schools, tribal and non-tribal libraries, youth centers, and various events throughout the state.

Ontario Trillium Foundation and Bill and Rochelle Tepperman, the multidisciplinary curriculum covers First Nations, Inuit, and Métis art and draws from the 4,000 artworks in the gallery’s collection.

Jason Mancini resigned as the executive director of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, located in Mashantucket, Connecticut. The tribal museum has not yet announced its new executive director.

The Winnipeg Art Gallery hired a team of four curators, Heather Igloliorte, Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, Krista Ulujuk Zawadski, and Asinnajaq (all Inuit), to develop the inaugural exhibitions and commission new work for the planned Inuit Art Centre, which is scheduled to open in 2020. Igloliorte will lead the team, which represents all four regions of Inuit Nunangat in Canada.

ART FAIRS Isuma, an Inuit film collective, will represent Canada in its national pavilion in the 58th Venice Biennale from May to November 2019. Founded in 1998 and incorporated in 1990 as Igloolik Isuma Productions, Inc., Isuma is based in Igloolik and Montreal. Film producer Zacharias Kunuk (Inuk) manages the organization.

Kenneth Buhrmann and Hardy McNew donated their collection of two thousand Indigenous American artworks to the University Galleries at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). The university museum has received numerous art donations collectively valued at more than one million dollars in anticipation of UNR’s new University Arts Building. The building will house a new museum space and will completed by the end of 2018.

The Watermark Art Center of Bemidji, Minnesota, opened in its new location in on December 2017. The nonprofit center’s four galleries include the Miikanan Gallery, which showcases Native American art. Dedicated to promoting visual artists in Northern

Judith W. and Andrew D. Finger, of Dallas, Texas and Santa Fe donated 208 Hopi baskets to the Arizona State Museum in Tucson, Arizona. The couple had previously donated ceramics to the museum. They first began collecting Hopi baskets in Santa Fe in 1988 and wrote the catalogue for the traveling exhibition of their baskets: Circles of Life: Katsina Imagery on Hopi Wicker Basketry (Grace Hudson Museum, 2006). The museum will display selections from this new collection this spring.

The Art Gallery of Windsor in Ontario launched a curriculum about art by Aboriginal peoples of Canada for students in grades four to eight in the Windsor-Essex region. Funded by the

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The Autry Museum of the American West held its American Indian Arts Marketplace in Los Angeles in December 2017. Glenda McKay (Ingalik Athabascan) won Best of Show and the Purchase Award. Classification award winners were Kelly Church (OdawaOjibwe-Potawatomi), basketry; Dallin Maybee (Northern Arapaho-Seneca), diverse cultural art forms; Jay Jacob Livingston (Navajo-Zuni), jewelry; Beverly Bear King Moran (Standing Rock Lakota), beadwork and quillwork; Delores Juanico (Acoma), pottery; Mark Taho (Hopi-Navajo), woodcarving; Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), clothing and personal attire; Randy Kemp (Choctaw-Yuchi-Muscogee), painting and mixed media; Zoe Urness (Tlingit), photography; Hubert Candelario (San

Felipe Pueblo), sculpture; and Phil Singer (Navajo), textiles. Aiden and Andrew Chopito (both Zuni) won the Youth Recognition Award.

AWARDS & HONORS The 2018 United States Artists (USA) Fellows include Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee Nation), Sonya KelliherCombs (Iñupiaq-Athabascan), D.Y. Begay (Navajo), and Dawn Nichols Walden (Mackinac Ojibwe). The fellowship includes an unrestricted $50,000 stipend. Based in Chicago, USA is a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 to “illuminate the value of artists to American society,” as their website says.

The Toronto Film Critics Association gave Zacharias Kunuk (Inuk) their prestigious Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award. The filmmaker then gave the award’s accompanying CAD $50,000 of services to up-and-coming filmmaker Asinnajaq (Inuk). The 26-year-old Asinnajaq, born in Inukjuak and living in Montreal, graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and premiered her first film, Three Thousand, in 2016.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation, based in New York, selected James Luna (Payómkawichum-Ipi) [LuiseñoD i g u e ño ] ) as one of it s 2 0 1 8 Artists-in-Residence. Luna will be part of the spring track of residencies, which include private studio space, a stipend, and lodging in the Faubourg Tremé of New Orleans. The foundation also awarded Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq-Athabascan) and Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota) as two of its 2017 Painters & Sculptors Grants, which provides an unrestricted cash award of $25,000.

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, based in Vancouver, Washington, provides $20,000 stipends to its fellows. The 2018 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellows are Anthony Hudson (Grand Ronde), Ciara Leina`ala Lacy (Native Hawaiian), Bently Spang (Northern Cheyenne), and Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota) for artistic innovation; Heid E. Erdrich

(Turtle Mountain Chippewa), Luci Tapahonso (Navajo), Michael Wasson (Nez Perce), and Elizabeth Woody (Warm Springs-Navajo-Wasco-Yakama) for literature; Brian Adams (Iñupiaq), RYAN! Feddersen (Okanagan-Sinixt), Courtney Leonard (Shinnecock), Jim Denomie (Lac Courte Oreille Ojibwe), and Linda Infante Lyons (Alutiiq) for visual arts; Cary Morin (Assiniboine), Kalani Pe’a (Native Hawaiian), Jeff Peterson (Native Hawaiian), and Allison Akootchook Warden (Iñupiaq) for music; and Melissa Cody (Navajo), Pōhaku Kaho`ohanohano (Native Hawaiian), and Marques Hanalei Marzan (Native Hawaiian) for traditional arts.

The recipients of the 2017 Art Matters Fellowships include Ricky Tagaban (Tlingit), Guadalupe Maravilla (MayaMestiza), and The Aadizookaan, a multimedia collective from Detroit.

Twenty-two grants of $7,500 were awarded for socially-conscious and experimental artwork.

The First Peoples Fund awards its Artist in Business Leadership Fellowships to 15 artists, writers, and musicians from a pool of 75 applicants. The 2018 Artist in Business Leadership fellows are Nanibaa Beck (Navajo), Roxanne Best (Colville), Heidi Brandow (Navajo), Alexandra Buffalohead (Sisseton Dakota), Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota), Pauline Klementson (Yup’ik), Traci McClellanSorell (Cherokee Nation), Jeff Peterson (Native Hawaiian), Fox Spears (Karuk), Jack Wallace Gladstone (Blackfeet), Dana Warrington (MenomineePotawatomi), Peter Williams (Yup’ik), Rico Worl (Tlingit-Athabascan), Laura Youngbird (Grand Portage Ojibwe), and Raye Zaragoza (Akimel O’odham).

First Peoples Fund also announced its Cultural Capital Fellowships that support community-based arts projects.

The 2018 Cultural Capital Fellows are Bernice Akamine (Native Hawaiian), Cecelia Fire Thunder (Oglala Lakota), Lisa Iron Cloud (Oglala Lakota), Arlo Iron Cloud Sr. (Oglala Lakota), Wesley May (Red Lake Ojibwe), Kandi McGilton (Tsimshian), J. Waylon Miller (Northern Cheyenne), Joseph Brophy Toledo (Jemez), Micheal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota), and Matilda Wilson (Atsugewi).

above Glenda McKay (Ingalik Athabascan), Yesterday’s Warrior, 2017, braintanned moosehide and deerhide, glass seed and micro beads, walrus ivory, sea otter pelt, caribou antler, antique steel. opposite Three Hopi wicker basket plaques with katsina imagery from the Judith W. and Andrew D. Finger Collection of baskets in the collection of the Arizona State Museum, Tucson, Arizona.

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above, left Temples I and II at Tikal rise up from the triple-canopy jungle in the Petén Department of Guatemala. The Maya city of Tikal is part of a vast and previously unknown network of settlements and courseways recently mapped through LiDAR remote-sensing technology. Photo: Greg Willis (CC BY-SA 2.0). above, right Maria Samora (Taos), the 2018 Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Living Treasure. Photo: Kevin Rebholtz. Image courtesy of the Jennifer Villela, V Media.

The Evergreen State College Longhouse Education and Culture Center in Olympia, Washington, offers grants to Native artists and writers living in Oregon and Washington. They awarded their 2017 Native Creative Development Program Grants to Natalie Ball (ModocKlamath), Dan Friday (Lummi), John Goodwin (Makah), Tierra Rose McCarty (Makah), Ruby Murray (Osage), William Passmore (Colville), Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs-Wasco-Yakama), Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), Jeffrey Veregge (Port Gamble S’Klallam), Celeste Whitewolf (Umatilla), and Paul Wilson (Klamath).

The grants, ranging from $2,500 to $5,000, support individual artists’ professional development.

The UCross Foundation awarded its first Native American Visual Arts Fellowship to Sydney Pursel (Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska). The fellowship provides a $1,000 stipend and a solo exhibition in Ucross Foundation Gallery in Clearmont, Wyoming.

Margaret Roach Wheeler (Chickasaw) of Sulphur, Oklahoma, received the 2018 Oklahoma Governor’s Arts Special Recognition Award for her unparalleled contribution to the state’s arts. Wheeler

runs Mahota Studios, part of Artesian Gallery and Studios, sponsored by the Chickasaw Nation. There she mentors textile artists and markets their handwoven artworks.

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe named Maria Samora (Taos) its 2018 MIAC Living Treasure. Samora, a jeweler, will also be the featured artist at Native Treasures, an art market held over Memorial Day weekend to raise funds for the MIAC. The Living Treasure award includes an original piece of art made by the previous year’s Living Treasure—the 2017 MIAC Living Treasure artist being Jody Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo).

DESIGN The Tea Collection, a San Franciscobased children’s clothing company, launched the Native Artists x Tea Collection. The company partnered with Martha Berry (Cherokee Nation), Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee ShawneeSeminole), Gregory Lomayesva (Hopi descent), Jessica Osceola (Seminole), and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and used their artistic imagery on graphic T-shirts, dresses, shorts, onesies, hoodies, and leggings.

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The Crate & Barrel’s Land of Nod partnered with B.Yellowtail to create a collection of children’s clothing, furnishings, décor, and toys. B.Yellowtail is a Northern Plains Indigenous design collective led by Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne-Crow), based in Los Angeles. Artists who contributed designs are Wakeah Jhane (Comanche-Kiowa), Aly McKnight (Shoshone-Bannock), Elias Not Afraid (Apsáalooke), Robin Shield (Apsáalooke), Susan Stewart (Apsáalooke), and Billy Werk (A’aninin).

PRECONTACT ART Working with Pacunam, the Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya or Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage Foundation, archaeologists from Guatemala, the United States, and Europe have been able to map thousands of houses, public buildings, and defensive structures in the jungles of the Maya Biosphere Reserve of northern Petén in Guatemala. They used remote sensing technologies, including Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), that creates three-dimensional images of structures hidden by dense vegetation. The dense construction, roads, irrigation systems, and agricultural fields suggest that far

more people lived in the precontact Maya lowlands than previously believed. The researchers identified 60,000 structures dating mainly from 1000 BCE to 900 CE in a 2,100-square-kilometer area.

ANGELA BABBY GLASS MOSAICS

The Chilean Ministry of Public Works sponsored an archaeological survey in Yendegaia Bay in Tierra del Fuego. The team, led by Francisco Gallardo, a professor of anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and researcher at the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies (CIIR), discovered new rock art sites possibly dating from the 14th to 16th centuries. The symbolism Gallardo found in caves relates to local Indigenous body art documented by Martín Gusinde in the early 20th century.

REPATRIATION The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) voluntarily repatriated nine items from the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin collection to the Chugach Alaska Corporation. Chugach representatives developed a relationship with the museum after a 2015 visit to study its Chugach collection. The items being returned are grave goods that the foundation acknowledges were stolen from Sanradna on Chenega Island. They include masks, a cradle, and a wooden carving removed by Johan Adrian Jacobsen, a Norwegian ethnologist, between 1882 and 1884.

CRIME & LEGAL ISSUES On January 27, 2018, a truck driver, Jainer Jesús Flores Vigo, drove off the Pan-American Highway and left deep gouges in three of the Nazca Lines, geoglyphs that mostly date from 200 BCE to 200 CE. Flores Vigo was arrested but released on lack of evidence of intent. Investigations of Flores Vigo and his employer Transportes Pakatnamu SAC continue since he damaged three geoglyphs. Located in Peru’s Nazca Desert, the lines were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994 and off limit to pedestrians and other traffic. The geoglyphs span 450 square kilometers, and local authorities have pledged to increase surveillance in the area (some readers may remember damage caused by a Greenpeace publicity stunt in 2014). Peru’s Cultural Ministry believes the damage can be repaired.

“Love Trumps Hate,” kiln-fired vitreous enamel on glass mosaic, 24 × 20 inches, August 2016, Best of Show at Native POP: People of the Plains, 2017

IN MEMORIAM Eugene V. Thaw (1927–2018), a major art collector, art dealer, and philanthropist, died in his home in Cherry Valley, New York. He and his wife founded the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust. While the couple supported a wide range of art, they also supported Native American art. Their trust supported a seminar on micaceous pottery and an accompanying book, All That Glitters (School of Advanced Research Press, 1999), by Duane Anderson. The couple donated to the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. They also donated a collection of one thousand Native American artworks to the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

“Swept Away (Water Is Sacred, Water Is Life)” glass mosaic, 27 × 27 inches, September 2017, Best of Show at Northern Plains Indian Art Market, 2017

ANGELABABBY.COM

ababby@earthlink.net | 406-672-2949 SPRING 2018 | 15

SEVEN DIRECTIONS

NADIA JACKINSKY-SETHI, PhD

A

n Alutiiq art historian based in Homer, Alaska, Nadia focuses her work on Alaska Native arts, Indigenous aesthetics, cultural revitalization, and the representation of Indigenous identity in art.

She enjoys working with rural communities in Alaska to help develop community-based arts programs through her work at The CIRI Foundation where she oversees a grant program dedicated to supporting customary Alaska Native art practices.

In addition, Nadia is a curatorial consultant, writer, and occasional instructor of Alaska Native art history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Washington in 2012.

right Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD. Photo: Joshua Veldstra. Unless otherwise noted, all images courtesy of the author.

CENTER. “Moosehide Tanning and Sewing in the Dene Way” Workshop

above “Moosehide Tanning and Sewing in the Dene Way” workshop. left to right Joel Isaak (Dena’ina Athabascan artist), Monica Shah (Anchorage Museum chief conservator) and Helen Dick (Dena’ina Athabascan elder) working on moosehide with scrapers, Soldotna, Alaska, October 2017. Photo: Wayde Carroll. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, Anchorage.

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In the fall, families in Alaska often engage in a subsistence moose harvest. One moose can provide about five hundred pounds of meat, enough to fill a freezer and share with relatives and friends. In some families, every part of the moose is used as food or material. The sinews are made into thread, the bones carved into tools, and the bladder and heart sac made into containers. The hides are transformed into a soft, golden-colored leather with a sweet and smoky perfume that can be made into clothing, like jackets, mittens, bags, and moccasins. Since September 2017, Joel Isaak (Dena’ina Athabascan) and Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna Athabascan-Paiute) have been working alongside community Elders like Helen Dick (Dena’ina) and Jeannie Maxum (Ahtna Athabascan) to revive the practice of moosehide tanning and sewing through a program in partnership with the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage. The process is labor intensive.

It begins with fleshing the hide to remove fat, meat, and connective tissue; then the hair is removed, and the hide is scraped, stretched, and smoked. Joel and Melissa have shared their knowledge through a

NADIA JACKINSKY-SETHI

residency at the Anchorage Museum and workshops elsewhere.

At the project’s completion, recorded videos will share a stepby-step documentation of the process, interviews with project participants and Elders, and information about cultural protocol around working with moose.

WEST. Nunalleq Excavation Nearly four centuries ago, a small village on the Bering Sea coast was burned during a deadly attack. Since 2009, archaeologists have come to Quinhagak, Alaska, to excavate Nunalleq, an exceptionally well-preserved village site now eroding into the ocean because of climate change. The site has unearthed thousands of well-preserved artifacts, like wooden masks and dolls, kayak parts, tools, snow goggles, grass baskets, and ivory figurines, and is significant as one of the oldest precontact Yup’ik archaeological sites. The University of Aberdeen in Scotland has handled the cataloguing and conservation work on the collection from Nunalleq. Next year the collection will return to Quinhagak to go on display at a newly established Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center scheduled to open on May 19, 2018. Excavation work will continue during the summer of 2018, and volunteers are welcome to join the excavation. To read more and learn how to participate, see nunalleq.wordpress.com.

EAST. Sámi Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, Svein Aamold, Elin Haugdal, and Ulla Angkaer Jørgensen, ed.

(Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2017) This book is an edited volume written by Sámi scholars, artists, and art historians that examines Sámi duodji (customary arts), contemporary artistic expressions, architecture, representations of Sámi peoples, concepts of Indigenous aesthetics, and the production of Indigenous arts in a global world. This book explores Western versus Indigenous concepts of aesthetics and the use of material culture. A particularly fascinating chapter describes the power of using natural materials by Gunvor Guttorm, a professor of duodji at the Sámi University College in Norway, and examines the knowledge embedded in the process of working with culturally based materials. This is a thoughtful and beautiful book, and readers will find many parallels between Sámi and North American Indigenous arts practices.

top, left Wooden maskette excavated from Nunalleq. Photo: Sven Haakanson Jr., PhD (Sugpiaq). top, right Cover of Sámi Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Svein Aamold, Elin Haugdal, and Ulla Angkaer Jørgensen (Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2017). bottom Justin McCarthy (Yup’ik), collections outreach coordinator for the Burke Museum examining baskets with a young girl. Photo: Sarah Siestreem (Hanis Coos).

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SEVEN DIRECTIONS

BELOW. Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum

top The Last Walk film promotional image courtesy of Anna Hoover (Unangax̂). bottom Qupak design detail. Photo: Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq). opposite Jennie Wheeler and her grandson Ryker Goddard (both Tlingit). Photo: Mary Wheeler-Goddard (Tlingit).

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The Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art (BHC) is an educational center dedicated to celebrating Indigenous arts of the Northwest Coast. Housed in the Burke Museum in Seattle, the Bill Holm Center provides access to the museum’s incredible collection of Northwest Coast art and helps to create cultural connections with communities across the region through research, public programs, publications, and visiting researcher and artist grants. Recently the BHC helped facilitate a basketry and collections care workshop as part of a project developed by BHC grantee Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos).

Projects like this help to support the continuation of Northwest Coast art practices while strengthening community ties. If you are visiting Seattle, be sure to visit the Burke Museum and check in to see what activities the Bill Holm Center has underway.

Construction for a new building for the Burke Museum is in process and will open to the public in 2019.

NORTH. Qupak design Qupak designs, the artistic trim featured on atigi (parkas) and mukluks, are often made from contrasting furs to create repeating geometric patterns that sometimes illustrate abstract representations (such as ceremonial houses) and family designs that are passed on from generation to generation. A qupak design showcases a seamstress’s skill and pride in her work. The Inuit Circumpolar Council will host a workshop focused on qupak

design as part of the 13th Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly meeting that will be held in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, July 16–19, 2018. This event will be an amazing opportunity to learn about the design, history/origin, and significance of this unique art form that continues to be made by seamstresses across the Circumpolar North.

ABOVE. The Last Walk In 2016, the Arctic Film Circle, a network of nine circumpolar Indigenous filmmakers, worked on a collaborative project to develop films based on a common storyline. The Last Walk, a series of three short films directed by Mikisoq H. Lynge and Pipaluk K. Jørgensen (Greenland), Jerri Thrasher (Canada), and Anna Hoover (Alaska), is the result of this collaboration.

Weaving together Indigenous stories and experiences of living in a post-colonial world, The Last Walk is a touching series of films that poignantly captures realities of life in the North. For Alaskan film director Anna Hoover (Unangax̂), working on this project was meaningful because it was a way to examine how circumpolar Indigenous populations share common experiences and can use film to tell their stories. Look for The Last Walk at film festivals in 2018 and prepare to be drawn in by the imagery, sounds, and stories of the North.

SOUTH. Jennie Wheeler Jennie Wheeler (Tlingit) is a master weaver and skin sewer who lives in Yakutat, Alaska. Jennie learned how to sew from working alongside her mother as a child and now shares her work as an instructor. During the last year, Jennie has been teaching regalia making for youth in Southeast Alaskan communities as part of a project with the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. In 2018 Jennie will be working with community members in Cordova, Alaska, to teach spruce-root weaving and harvesting methods and to revive this community’s weaving practice. To learn more about Jennie’s work, or to order from her, visit jenniesgiftshop.com. Her handsewn, beaded, seal-skin mukluks are beautiful and will keep your toes warm when you rock your mocs.

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THE ART OF THE GAUSSOIN FAMILY From the Classic to the Unexpected A Picuris Pueblo and Navajo family forges new directions in jewelry, metal sculpture, and fashion

By Staci Golar

T

HE GAUSSOIN FAMILY is as kind as they are creative and as down to earth as they are daring. Connie Tsosie Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), mother and matriarch, has created jewelry in Santa Fe since the late 1960s. She passed on the art of metalsmithing and a passion for creative exploration to her children, Jerry Jr., David, Wayne Nez, and Tazbah.

Together they have expanded the family’s artistic legacy and made it their own, taking inspiration from the silversmiths, weavers, sculptors, painters, and potters who came before.

While many know this family of artists to be undoubtedly successful, their backstory isn’t as widely known. Their work has not always been supported, and the imagined limitations to the aesthetic of “Native art” has inserted itself more than once as a creative obstacle.

Through the years, a gentle persistence and thoughtful, quiet resistance to the naysayers have emboldened their outlook and resulted in unique artistic directions.

Connie is warm and generous with her time when we talk about how she got started in jewelry making. When she speaks, her love for creating is as evident as the love for her family. She is also

above Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), Jax Pendent, silver. All images courtesy of the artists. opposite Connie Tsosie Gaussoin (PicurisNavajo), Casino Loot Bag, 2012, sterling silver, Royston turquoise in silver bezel, Italian coral in gold bezel, tufa-cast feather design with fabricated silver sheet. Photo: Caroline Wright.

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deeply appreciative of her roots. “Every year our parents would leave us on the Navajo Reservation for the summer,” she remembers. “I used to watch my uncle do very, very old-style Navajo silversmithing. He would melt Mexican silver using bellows to keep a flame going, sitting on sheepskin. Then I’d watch my dad and listen to his stories, too. He was one of the many Pueblo and Navajo production line jewelers at Maisel’s Indian Trading Post in Albuquerque.

One day he’d be cutting silver, the next day he’d be stamping all day.”

Connie did her own work at a kitchen table before kids and a bigger house were in the picture. “My husband, Jerry, and I lived in a trailer off Cerrillos Road [in Santa Fe]. I’d work on jewelry all day long, but when I’d make lunch or dinner for Jerry, I’d move all my tools off the table, make food, and then I’d put all my tools back on the table again,” she says, chuckling.

“I had a buffer underneath the trailer, and I’d have to go out there in the winter and kneel down to use it. My hair got caught in it one time! That was a hard lesson, but a good one, so I always teach my students about the importance of safety first.”

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above Connie Tsosie Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), Corn Maiden Necklace, 2009/2015, Royston turquoise set in silver bezel, tufa-cast sterling silver. Photo: Caroline Wright. opposite Connie Tsosie Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), Graduated Lapis Necklace, lapis lazuli, coral, sterling silver. Photo: Caroline Wright.

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Connie would go on to teach at institutions such as the Poeh Cultural Center in Pojoaque, New Mexico, and many others, but her first demonstrations and workshops were a direct result of discrimination, not necessarily her reputation as a skilled artist.

“When I started, a lot of male jewelers questioned my work, so I took a class at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Skip Holbrook to prove I was making it. I was so frustrated because they thought Jerry was making the jewelry, but it was me that was making it!” she says emphatically.

“Skip recognized my talent and placed me as a lab monitor in the class, and I ended up teaching other students. Later, I’d hold demos in front of my booth at shows and I’d explain what I was doing.

A lot of the male jewelers continued to say it wasn’t the woman’s place to be making this work, and they just tried to intimidate me.” None of this dampened Connie’s spirits, however. Much to their chagrin, her work just kept winning awards.

“Jerry really encouraged me to take those classes and keep working,” Connie recalls. Jerry Gaussoin has been a force behind the scenes in the Gaussoin jewelry journey by helping to submit applications and doing much of the physical labor to set up displays at fairs until health challenges put a damper on his involvement. His namesake and the family’s firstborn, Jerry Jr., who will soon be promoted to colonel in the US Army, has also held a somewhat less visible but no less important place in this busy family of artists.

Throughout his 23 years of active duty, Jerry Jr. has also created concha belts, necklaces, bolo ties, and more when he can find the time. His work is informed by classic Navajo designs, and his customers note his expertise with stamping, forming, and other time-intensive techniques.

“I took a break from making jewelry once I became an army officer to focus on my new career,” he writes via email. “But when I returned from my first Iraq deployment, I needed a

“People didn’t like that I was using material in my work that wasn’t ‘Southwestern,’ but I remind them it is our tradition as Native people to use what is available to us at the time in our surroundings. …” way to release, and creating jewelry was the only way I knew I could do it. It is still my method of escaping from my deployments (three more times to Iraq, and one to Kosovo) and the daily grind of army life.”

Unlike his siblings, who work in their own studios or use the family shop at the Gaussoin home, Jerry Jr. is faced with the challenge of moving equipment every two to three years due to new placements by the army. He’s become an expert at finessing jewelry techniques based on how climate affects the materials and tools.

Jerry Jr.’s younger brother David pondered a career as a surgeon at one point, even though he has made art all of his life, too. Then he “hit a brick

wall” in biochemistry class. He took a break from his education and had a light-bulb moment when he realized he could pursue making jewelry for a living.

“Even though my mom had done it for years, during that break was the first time I thought about doing it professionally. I regrouped and went back to the University of New Mexico [UNM] for the Anderson BBA Program to learn about marketing, which has helped me in my career.”

David also took art classes while studying at UNM and credits instructor Constance DeJong with “pulling the 3D out of me. My work was very 2D at the time, and she pushed me to make my work more three-dimensional. I also took stone-setting classes in Santa Fe from

Bob Hazeltine, a former Gemological Institute of America instructor. Those two have been the most influential on my work, other than Mom and family.”

Like his mother, David also went on to teach at institutions such as Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico and Idyllwild Arts in California. And like his mother, he often faced pushback for his creative work.

“When I started doing my own thing, it wasn’t easy,” David says. “I began to branch out with new ideas and not copy the old designs and received a lot of criticism. There weren’t many of us experimenting with more avantgarde—or whatever people want to call it—designs. It was kind of just Dylan Poblano [from Zuni Pueblo] and I, and SPRING 2018 | 23

“I am constantly inspired by the idea of where conceptual fine art, fashion, and sculpture meet.”

above David Gaussoin (PicurisNavajo), Yucca Blossom Necklace, tufa-cast sterling silver pendant, rutilated quartz beads, mother of pearl, sterling silver. Photo: Caroline Wright. right, top David Gaussoin (PicurisNavajo), Iceberg Collar, handmade sterling silver, stainless steel, antique Japanese fishing glass, white mother-of-pearl necklace.

Photo: Caroline Wright. right, bottom David Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), Abacus Bracelet, rutilated quartz beads, tufa-cast sterling silver, edition 1/1. Photo: Caroline Wright.

people thought we were just being crazy kids. People would come to my booth at Indian Market and yell in my face about what I should be making instead,” he says with disbelief. “People didn’t like that I was using material in my work that wasn’t ‘Southwestern,’ but I remind them it is our tradition as Native people to use what is available to us at the time in our surroundings, and we live in a time where everything is available to us.”

David’s message for critics couldn’t be clearer than in his 2011 Get Back in Your Box bracelet: a dime-store plastic Indian toy in a bright green plastic box perched on a silver and turquoise cuff.

Don’t get him wrong, however. His creative exploration isn’t a dis to what

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has come before. “I have total love and appreciation for the old work. That is how I started out,” David says. “Some people have this perception that I hate the older work, but the jewelers who do that do it better than I ever could, and I respect that.”

The bigger and more abstract David and his family’s work became through the years, the more fans wanted to see it in new ways, and so David’s foray into fashion began. “We started putting our jewelry pieces on black clothes at first, and then worked with other designers like Patricia Michaels (Taos). Later we wanted to make clothes specifically to complement the jewelry and not fight with it, so I took a sewing class at the

community college (and I had dabbled with embroidery with my grandma before). My sister, Tazbah, took a patternmaking class, and we started making our own clothing.” Recently, David’s work toured with Native Fashion Now, an exhibition that originated at the Peabody Essex Museum. It was also in the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts’ Connective Tissue: New Approaches to Fiber in Contemporary Native Art. I ask David’s younger brother, Wayne Nez, about his interest in fashion and he laughs and says, “I tried my hand at fashion and just don’t have the patience. I have taken a couple classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to learn some basics, but I leave that up to David and Tazbah. I am drawn to the ‘large-scale wearable,’ like sculpture. I am constantly inspired by the idea of where conceptual fine art, fashion, and sculpture meet.” Wayne Nez is grateful for his family’s feedback, too. “I forget how fortunate I am to have my family as a soundboard, as it can be a challenge to get feedback before showing work to the public. We do try to push each other, and rarely will we collaborate because we do have such different ideas and aesthetics.”

David believes that Wayne Nez is the “true artist” in the family, in that he works freer than the rest. “I am constantly making something new,” Wayne Nez says, “I have started doing a license plate series because I love the textures, color, the relationships, and memories that people have with each state. But, each one that I make is different. I do not use a template. Sometimes, even after a show of new work, I’ll take a piece back to the studio and redo it completely. That’s just how I am.”

With a master of fine arts from the University of New Mexico and a minor in museum studies (he wonders if early memories of the Heard Museum planted this seed of interest), he says his jewelry has “evolved, becoming wearable sculpture.” Wayne Nez was also part of the Land Arts of the American West program at UNM, where he started to ask questions about people’s cultural relationship to the space they occupy.

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above Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), Tufa-Cast Bracelet, sterling silver. Photo: Caroline Wright. left Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo), 505 Series Cuffs, steel license plates backed with dyed leather.

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“They’ve spread their wings in different directions, but they are all true artists.”

As a result, he has created site-specific, temporary sculpture such as his Adobobots, installed in 2016 at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.

Hand sculpted from adobe, the figures are his contemporary adaptation of twin war gods from Navajo mythology.

The youngest of the family, Tazbah grew up weaving and making jewelry, among other creative endeavors, and is currently completing a residency at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Cultural Resources Center in Maryland.

“I work in collections, so I get to be hands-on with objects and installing exhibitions,” she shared via email.

“But, I am also working with incoming researchers and giving tours for other museum professionals, tribal leaders, elders, and members.”

Word got out about her family, and Tazbah’s residency team jumped on the opportunity to test her metalsmithing skills. “I’m getting a chance to work with their mount maker [who makes display stands for exhibitions], so my knowing basic jewelry techniques, like soldering, has really come in handy!”

Connie notes that the soldered joints on those displays need to last some 25 years, and beams knowing Tazbah has the skills to make that happen. “I’m just thankful. I didn’t mean for my kids to take jewelry on like this, but they all have. They see the importance of education. I keep stressing to them they need to keep furthering their skills, and that they’ll always have this talent. My dad used to stress one should have a trade in case anything happens, and they can fall back on this no matter what. I’m just so thankful. They’ve spread their wings in different directions, but they are all true artists.”

top Tazbah Gaussoin (PicurisNavajo) at a textile workshop.

Photo: Nora Frankel. bottom Wayne Nez Gaussoin and David Gaussoin (both Picuris-Navajo), Postmodern Boa, 2009, stainless steel, sterling silver, enamel paint, and feathers. Model: Tazbah Gaussoin (Picuris-Navajo).

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AGENTS OF BEAUTY The Next Wave of Native Fashion Photography by Terrance Clifford Text by Nina Sanders

R

ECENT YEARS have marked the meteoric rise of Native American fashion designers in the international spotlight. Patricia Michaels (Taos) became a household name after appearing on Lifetime channel’s Project Runway. Through her Beyond Buckskin blog and lookbooks and the lectures and fashion shows she organized, Jessica Metcalfe, PhD (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), brought her considerable research into Native fashion history to the public and introduced us to a new generation of designers. The Peabody Essex Museum’s Native Fashion Now exhibition and catalogue traveled from coast to coast. Fashion shows are now centerpieces of major Native art markets.

No longer a rarity in mainstream fashion, the current wave of Native designers has their work cut out for them.

Orlando Dugi, Bethany Yellowtail, Patricia Michaels, David Gaussoin, and Loren Aragon are five leading Native fashion designers making an impact far beyond their own communities. To showcase their latest designs, Santa Fe-based photographer Terrance Clifford (Oglala Lakota) and independent scholar and curator Nina Sanders (Apsáalooke) selected jewelry by Keri Ataumbi, Wayne Nez Gaussoin, and Elvira Nowlin and recruited four stunning Indigenous models, and Medina Swazo (San Ildefonso) did hair and makeup for

a photoshoot on the campus of the Allan Houser Compound. The bronzes of the groundbreaking Chiricahua Apache artist and desert landscape provided a dramatic backdrop. It was the ideal space for the photographer, designers, and models to prove they are up to the challenge of gracing the global stage.

THE DESIGNERS

above Dezbah is wearing a Patricia Michaels/PM Waterlily bustier, Early Spring, constructed with hand-dyed silk and gunmetal glass beads. She wears a Wayne Nez Gaussoin necklace and his 505 Series Cuffs. left MorningStar wears Kyoto, a David Gaussoin hand-dyed silk dress from his spring 2018 collection. All hair and makeup by Medina Swazo (San Ildefonso).

ORLANDO DUGI (Diné) is known for his sophisticated couture gowns and accessories adorned with delicate embroidery and beadwork. His designs have won awards and have been featured in several publications and exhibitions.

Orlando creates one-of-a-kind garments that express his passion for elegance, grace, and luxury. Launched in 2013, DUGI (pronounced DEW-guy), the name of his growing brand, focuses on special occasion and evening wear. His cochineal-dyed gown is one of the highlights of the Museum of International Folk Art’s traveling exhibition, The Red that Colored the World, and his artwork showed across the nation in Native Fashion Now. BETHANY YELLOWTAIL (Northern Cheyenne-Crow), who grew up on the Crow Reservation in Montana, is now based in Los Angeles. B.Yellowtail is her personal clothing line, and B.Yellowtail SPRING 2018 | 29

PATRICIA MICHAELS (Taos), whose label is PM Waterlily, was raised in Santa Fe and Taos by her artistic, extended family. Growing up, she tailored dance regalia on her grandmother’s vintage sewing machine. She studied art and design at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Chicago Art Institute and apprenticed to a tailor in Milan, Italy. For more than two decades, she has created couture clothing and presented in France, Canada, South Africa, and throughout the United States. Patricia was the first Native American designer to participate in New York Fashion Week. Best known for her Project Runway appearances, Patricia showed in Native Fashion Now and in 2014 won the highly prestigious Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s Arts and Design Award.

above, left to right Angelicia wears an Orlando Dugi/DUGI cocktail dress from the Spring/ Summer 2018 Collection.

Earrings, necklace, and ring by Keri Ataumbi/Ataumbi Metals.

Erica is also wearing an Orlando Dugi/DUGI cocktail dress from his SS18 Collection, made with silk and organza, silk flowers, handbeaded. Necklace and bracelet

by Keri Ataumbi/Ataumbi Metals.

Collective is a brand group she organized of Indigenous artists and designers. The collective recently collaborated with Crate and Barrel to design children’s clothing and furnishings for Land of Nod. Her own clothing line draws from Northern Plains aesthetics. She employs dozens of Indigenous artists now and hopes to move her production back to Montana to provide economic stimulus to her rural homelands. She participated in the Standing Rock encampment in North Dakota to protect water rights and in the Women’s March in Washington, DC, and she sees fashion design as a powerful tool in raising social awareness on Indigenous, environmental, and women’s issues.

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DAVID GAUSSOIN (Picuris-Diné) of Santa Fe, has made jewelry since childhood, thanks to guidance from his mother Connie Tsosie Gaussoin. [The family is featured on page 20. –Ed.] While he’s well versed in metalsmithing techniques such as tufa-casting, he’s experimented with techniques and materials not typically associated with jewelry. In recent years, he began to explore fashion design, not just for attire but to explore its conceptual possibilities, as he did with Postmodern Boa (2009), an ensemble he created with his brother Wayne Nez Gaussoin that showed in Native Fashion Now. David has taught jewelry making at Santa Fe Community College, Institute of American Indian Arts, Poeh Cultural Center, and Idyllwild Arts Summer Program.

LOREN ARAGON (Acoma) is a Phoenixbased designer and artist who grew up in a Keresan-speaking household at Acoma Pueblo. His grandparents encouraged him to participate in community events and ceremonies. After attaining his degree from Arizona State University in 2004, Loren worked as an engineer. He finally ventured back into visual arts in 2008 in a circuitous path that began with greeting cards and arrived at fashion design. His brand name, ACONAV, signifies the artistic collaboration between himself, Loren (Acoma) and his wife, Valentina

above, left to right Dezbah wears Patricia Michaels/PM Waterlily bustier, Early Spring, and a Wayne Nez Gaussoin necklace and 505 Series Cuffs. Angelicia is wearing a Loren Aragon/ACONAV Emergence Maxi Dress, made with silk charmeuse (crepe back silk satin) with lattice highlights and a silk chiffon shift. Bracelet by Keri Ataumbi/ Ataumbi Metals. MorningStar is wearing a Patricia Michaels/PM Waterlily skirt, Clouds & Chokecherry Branches, made with silk, wool, metal fiber and dye, hand-painted and felted. Model’s own top and Wayne Nez Gaussoin necklace. Erica is wearing an ACONAV cocktail dress, Lightning & Rain, made with lambskin leather and cotton sateen with a silk screen print and habotai silk lining.

(Diné). The brand has progressed over the last six years and encompasses Loren’s talents in illustration, sculpture, jewelry, and fashion design.

THE JEWELERS KERI ATAUMBI (Kiowa) of Ataumbi Metals makes jewelry that is wearable art, as it has a conceptual, narrative exploration at its core. Ataumbi uses imagery from Kiowa oral history in her own unique forms. She studies imagery and materials to create delicate pieces of jewelry that could stand on their own as sculptures. Keri grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming but has

maintained ties to her Kiowa Tribe in Southwestern Oklahoma throughout her life. Her Kiowa mother ran a trading post, and her Italian-American father sculpts in bronze. Keri attended the Rhode Island School of Design, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the College of Santa Fe, where she earned her BFA degree with an art history minor. She has painted and sculpted, but jewelry commands her focus.

WAYNE NEZ GAUSSOIN (PicurisDiné) works with silver, gold, and various exotic stones and shells, as well as experimental items such as license plates in the progressive course of his

design development. He learned jewelry making from his mother, Connie Tsosie Gaussoin, and older brother David.

Wayne earned his AFA from the Santa Fe Community College, his BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and his MFA from the University of New Mexico.

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture bestowed their Collectors’ Choice Award upon him in 2012, and he was a SWAIA Fellow that same year. He volunteers as the liaison for the Santa Fe Opera’s Pueblo Opera Program (POP), which serves youth from local pueblos.

ELVIRA NOWLIN (Diné) is a Phoenixbased consultant who learned jewelry SPRING 2018 | 31

above, left to right Erica is wearing a Loren Aragon/ACONAV cocktail dress, Lightning & Rain, made with silk charmeuse, silk chiffon, and silk organza.

Necklace and earrings by Keri Ataumbi/Ataumbi Metals. MorningStar is wearing a Loren Aragon/ACONAV cocktail dress, Pinch Pot, made with silk charmeuse, silk, and chiffon. Necklace and earrings by Keri Ataumbi/Ataumbi Metals. Dezbah models Patricia Michaels/PM Waterlily jersey slip dress, Moon Light Berries, made with hand-dyed silk and wool, embellished with synthetic and glass beads.

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right MorningStar models a Loren Aragon/ ACONAV gown, Cascade from the 2018 S/S Lighting Rain Collection, made with silk charmeuse, silk chiffon, and silk organza.

Necklace by Keri Ataumbi/Ataumbi Metals.

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making from her Diné grandmother. She creates jewelry with natural stones and shells affordable to those who honor and value the beauty of her people’s legacy. Her stated mission is “to make the world a happy place, one beautiful treasure at a time.” Elvira’s company, Turquoise Mafia, can be found on Instagram.

THE MODELS MORNINGSTAR ANGELINE (Diné-Blackfoot-Chicana) is a model and actress, known for her role as Nizhoni Smiles in Drunktown’s Finest (2014) for which she won a Best Supporting Actress award at the 2014 American Indian Film Festival. She also won the award for Best Acting Performance at the Institute of American Indian Arts for her role as Jade in Raven, which premiered at the 2017 imagineNative Film Festival. MorningStar was also featured in Marie Claire magazine in June 2017 and has modeled for Indigenous designers Patricia Michaels, Keri Ataumbi, Bethany Yellowtail, Justin Louis (Cree), and Loren Aragon. She splits her time between Albuquerque and Los Angeles.

DEZBAH ROSE EVANS (Yuchi-Diné-Thames Chippewa) is currently studying fashion design and digital art at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Dezbah also interns with renowned designer Patricia Michaels. She has modeled for PM Waterlily, Maya Stewart (Chickasaw-Muscogee-Choctaw), ACONAV, B.Yellowtail, and L. Thunder Voice Eagle (Diné).

ANGELICIA OCHOA-RIVERA (Yaqui), a native-born Santa Fean, is a junior at Santa Fe High School and works as a hostess at Paloma Restaurant. She studied violin at the New Mexico School for the Arts and is a member of the Santa Fe Youth Symphony. Only recently has she entered the modeling world but has already worked with Keri Ataumbi, Orlando Dugi, Loren Aragon, Bethany Yellowtail, and Patricia Michaels.

ERICA PRETTY EAGLE MOORE (Osage-Otoe-MissouriaPawnee-Sac & Fox-Potawatomi) is a life-long resident of Oklahoma. Erica is a graphic designer, digital media artist, and photographer. She earned her AAS degree in multimedia animation and design from Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa and is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree. She produced the computer animation, How Coyote and Eagle Stole the Sun and Moon, and wants to use animation to reach young audiences.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER TERRANCE CLIFFORD (Oglala Lakota), is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts. His photographs have appeared in publications across New Mexico and he has shown his work at the New Mexico Museum of Art Governor’s Gallery, Dahl Arts Center, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts. His technical expertise, keen eye for beauty, and passion for the arts has made him a rising fashion photographer in the Southwest. He hopes to continue photographing fashion content as his career progresses.

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left to right Angelicia wears a B.Yellowtail strapless maxi dress made of chiffon. Dezbah is wearing a David Gaussoin sheer organza blouse and hand-cut, tiered French silk skirt from his Lost in Paris Collection.

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THE IMAGISTIC, INDIGENIZED “I” Native Self-Portraiture in Photography What do Native artists want to convey when they point the camera at themselves? How does self-portraiture encapsulate identities comprised of much more than a single person?

By Michelle J. Lanteri

I

N MANY WAYS, contemporary Indigenous artists of the Americas use lens-based self-portraiture to record aspects of their personal histories that span generations. With the fluidity of conceptual art practice, a “studio-and-album” style of self-portraiture can be produced slowly or on the fly, in staged interior or exterior locations, with crisp or muddled visual expressions of physical and psychological moments interlaced through every aspect of an artist’s performative act of making an autobiographical image.1 The increasingly wide variety of digital and manual darkroom processes and the combination of these technologies offer artists vast possibilities to create compositions that embody overlapping memories, locations, times, dialogues, and communities.

This layered approach to photographic self-portraiture intersects with Acoma Pueblo author Simon J. Ortiz’s concepts of “being and place” as notions of self that comprise existence known through land, culture, community, and home. Ortiz writes, “Indigenous family ties, cultural customs, spiritual traditions, community gatherings … this is an Indigenous consciousness that one calls ‘home.’ ”2 The complex medium of lens-based self-portraiture as a theater of autobiographical performance forever edges toward an artist’s decision to record an amalgam of experience in a moment of place and time. A series of

opposite, fig. 1 Will Wilson (Diné), William Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation, Trans-Customary Diné Artist, Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe Indian Market, 2012, archival pigment print from scan of wet-plate collodion; dimensions vary. Image courtesy of the artist.

discussions, material inclusions, cast of characters, and selection of backdrop all lead up to a click, a press, a sovereign representation of self.3 With this, let’s turn our focus to photographic self-portraits by four Native artists whose practices exist in the intercultural spaces between self and home: Will Wilson (Diné), Sarah Sense (ChitimachaChoctaw), Larry McNeil (Tlingit-Nisga’a), and Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke [Crow]).

WILL WILSON FOR WILL WILSON, his ongoing Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX) project (2012–present) is a practice of visually inscribing contemporary identity through interactions with his sitters, who are both Indigenous and non-Indigenous and include the artist himself.

Based in Santa Fe, Wilson has strategically situated CIPX as a necessary, indigenized update to The North American Indian (1907–30), a series of 2,200 fabricated portrait photogravures by Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952) that pervasively misrepresent Native peoples to this day. In CIPX, Wilson uses a wet-plate collodion process that predates Curtis’s dry plate technology—an ironic jab at Native peoples’ time-immemorial presence, sophistication, and supreme acts of representation—to produce tintype portraits voluntarily

1. Susan Bright, Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2010), 23–24, 141, 181.

2. Simon J. Ortiz, “Indigenous Language Consciousness,” in Sovereign Bones: New Native American Writing, Volume II, ed. Eric L. Gansworth (New York: Nation Books, 2007), 139–40, 144.

3. Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, “Visual Sovereignty: A Continuous Aboriginal/Indigenous Landscape,” in Diversity and Dialogue: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, 2007, ed. James H. Nottage (Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 2007), 15–24.

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above, fig. 2 Will Wilson (Diné), How the West is One (2012/14), archival pigment print from scans of wet-plate collodion over LED backlight; dimensions vary. Image courtesy of the artist.

sought out by sitters, many of whom are Indigenous. This performance, with its temporal studio and portable darkroom, culminates with the sitters receiving the tintype plates as gifts in exchange for the artist’s permission to make prints from a high-resolution scan of their images. On CIPX, Wilson writes, “It is my hope that these Indigenous photographs generate new forms of authority and autonomy—as interventions disrupting the old paradigm of assimilation—to form the basis for a reimagined vision of who we are as Native people.”4 So, what happens when Wilson turns the CIPX process on himself?

To find out, we go to the 2012 Santa Fe Indian Market, the first iteration of CIPX. A couple months prior to market week, the organizers, the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA),

commissioned Wilson to photograph the Friendship Necklace. Daniel Sunshine Reeves (Diné), Tony Abeyta (Diné), Pat Pruitt (Laguna), Ken Romero (LagunaTaos), Arland Ben (Diné), Dawn Wallace (Unangan), Vernon Haskie (Diné), Cody Sanderson (Diné), Allen Aragon (Diné), Myron Panteah (Diné-Zuni), Kenneth Johnson (Muscogee-Seminole), Liz Wallace (Nissesan-Washoe-Navajo), and Chris Pruitt (Laguna) collaboratively made this silver necklace with handmade beads, inlaid clasp, and eleven pendants as an auction donation. Wilson’s solution to photographing the piece came in the form of self-portraiture, in a tintype made using his wet plate darkroom.

Named William Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation, Trans-Customary Diné Ar tist, Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange, New Mexico

4. Will Wilson, email message to the author, September 9, 2017.

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Museum of Art, Santa Fe Indian Market (2012) (Fig. 1), this work features the artist wearing his hair tied in a tsiiyééł (Navajo hair bun), a button-down dress shirt, a Navajo silver wrist cuff, and the Friendship Necklace. Wilson kept the color of the turquoise in the pendants in the black-and-white photograph. While the turquoise color and spider pendant are emblematic of the Diné people’s prayers for rain, Tsoodził (Mount Taylor), and weaving origins from Spider Woman, the necklace and the artist’s conflicted pose—a nod to four of the directions with his torso facing forward and his head turned to the side—reflect intersections between intercultural communities. It is these gestures in Wilson’s performance of self that also reveal something of Indian Market as a dialectical space of power relations.5

above, fig. 3 Sarah Sense (Chitimacha-Choctaw), Karl 3, 2009, woven inkjet prints, Mylar, artist tape, 48 × 96 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

This is evidenced by the origins of the photo in SWAIA’s request; the artist’s interpretation of being and place in his posture and personal style, which honor his matrilineal Diné heritage; and the 13 artists that the necklace represents. This is also the intersection where Wilson’s imagistic, indigenized “I” shows a “trans-customary” or boundless rootedness in interdependence and dispels any notion of self as free of multiple communities.6 On the note of “trans-customary” practice, it is important to consider this self-portrait’s place in the world. First, it was reproduced from a digital file as the cover of the Official Santa Fe Indian Market Magazine (2012). The artist also reproduced this image as an edition of black-and-white platinum prints, with one on view in the exhibition, Indelible: The Platinum Photographs of Larry McNeil and Will Wilson (2014–15) at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC. The work has also shown as an archival digital print (with

the turquoise color maintained) in the international traveling exhibition, As We See It: Contemporary Native American Photographers (2014–present). Lastly, Wilson has repurposed this self-portrait in How the West is One (2012/14) (Fig. 2), a conjoined diptych of self-portraits. The image on the right shows Wilson looking toward the other portrait with his body square to the camera, almost a mirror image of the Friendship Necklace photo.

He’s dressed in a vintage-style Western hat, dress shirt, vest, and gloves, with his hand placed over his heart, the center of being and place. Here, through dual performances, Wilson unites his overlapping multicultural heritage: Irish, Welsh, and Diné.

SARAH SENSE IN A RELATED THEME of familial interculturalism, Sarah Sense, based in Bristol, England, created Karl 3 (2009) (Fig. 3). This woven montage of photographic prints is from her three-part series, Karl, named after her non-Native

father, Karl Sense Jr., and German paternal grandfather, Karl Sense Sr., a scientist who had his research published with NASA.7 Part of the Smithsonian NMAI collection, the Karl series was featured in the second iteration of Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor (2010– 2011) at the Smithsonian NMAI George Gustav Heye Center in New York City and the exhibition’s catalogue.

The Karl series materialized from the artist’s investigation of her paternal German heritage and particular documents her father had saved from his father. These archived paper files included a handwritten note his father had given to him with a stack of recorded research findings. The note reads, “Karl, There are a couple of publications of mine missing. I can’t find them. Love, Dad.”8 Connecting herself to this interchange in Karl 3, Sense interweaves a photographic image of herself sitting on a horse (a self-portrait shot in Los Angeles in 2008 for her Cowgirls and Indians series) and one of her grandfather as an infant in Germany. Both the artist and

5. Will Wilson, untitled post, PoMo Navajo (blog), June 12, 2012.

6. Jessica R. Cattelino, High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008); Kate Moomaw and John Lukavic, “Preserving a ‘Trans-Customary Portal,’” VoCA Journal (June 27, 2017), web.

7. Sarah Sense, email message to the author, January 2, 2018; Sarah Sense, “Physical Locations and Equations,” Sarah Sense, web.

8. Kathleen Ash-Milby, “Hide,” in Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor, ed. Kathleen Ash-Milby (Washington and New York: National Museum of the American Indian, 2010), 38–39; Sarah Sense, email message to the author, January 2, 2018.

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her grandfather’s images are overlaid with a reproduction of his handwritten note. In this “history of self ” piece, Sense adds two more cultural layers: a head shot of film actor John Wayne and a series of Chitimacha “blackbird’s eye and rabbit’s foot” basketry patterns, of the kind usually made with rivercane, interwoven through the photos of the artist and Wayne.

Sense has been weaving photographic prints into basketry patterns for more than 13 years. She has produced at least nine series to date with this technique, which honors her matrilineal Chitimacha heritage and the legacy of their rivercane basketry. “I didn’t grow up … with the bayou and the cypress in my backyard or around the rivercane. I had different experiences … so I wanted to share these honestly,” Sense writes.

Although she grew up in California, family stories about Louisiana have been passed on to her. “I wanted to somehow combine all of these things.”9 With the use of this ancestral visual language in Karl 3, the artist brings

together cultural aspects of self through an Indigenous way of knowing—the motifs based on the ecology of Bayou Teche in Louisiana that speak to the meaning of the Chitimacha people’s name, “the people of the many waters.”10 As in much of her work, Sense strengthens her relational connection to the tribe’s centuries-old practice of weaving rivercane baskets through her visual journaling, which overlaps personal and public spaces of being and place.

Thus, in Karl 3, Sense performs her identity through autonomous acts of interlacing lens-based self-portraiture with Chitimacha basketry patterns, a familial archive, and a pop culture icon.

The opaque and woven top third of this autobiographical portrait alludes to a more solidified understanding of self through the iconography present in this space: the artist, Wayne, and her father’s name written in his father’s script. The lower two-thirds of the composition seem less defined, a semi-transparent fringe of loose, vertical paper strips. The blurred, black-and-white photo of Sense’s

grandfather takes on an ephemeral ethos in combination with the body text from his handwritten note, which is oddly right justified to the far edge of the work and gives a sense of “traveling thoughts,” a concept put forth by Diné-SeminoleMuscogee artist Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie in her theory of “visual sovereignty” in lens-based arts by Indigenous practitioners.11 In Karl 3, Sense looks back and forward simultaneously. Her inclusion of Wayne signifies him as an intergenerational, mass media interlude and an entry point of identity for many persons living in the United States.

For Karl 3, Sense confronts her familial mythology through a deep consideration of her father’s and grandfather’s lives together. Sense’s inclusion of the handwritten note connects a moment of terse communication from her grandfather to her father to a much earlier moment of her grandfather as an “innocent boy.”12 She finds a set of contours to portray herself by starting a conversation with the “home” moment of this note, multiple considerations of

9. Sarah Sense, email message to the author, October 16, 2017.

10. Native Waters: A Chitimacha Recollection, directed by Tika Laudun (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Educational Television Authority, 2011), video, 38 minutes, web.

11. Tsinhnahjinnie, “Visual Sovereignty,” 15.

12. Ash-Milby, “Hide,” 38; Sarah Sense, email message to the author, January 2, 2018.

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left, fig. 4 L a r r y M c N e i l (Tlingit-Nisga’a), Tee Harbor Jackson, 2002, digital and analog photography; d i m e n s i o n s v a r y. I m a g e courtesy of the artist. right John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930), Indian Houses, Tee Harbor, June 25, 1907, silver gelatin print, public domain.

her father and grandfather’s relationship, and the Chitimacha Indigenous culture and “American West” pop culture that inform her identity construction. For Sense, neither the studio or album is required to be physically constrained, yet they flourish psychologically between memories, like the Chitimacha basket patterning—a place-based thought process and sovereign visual language where Sense finds and represents herself as her imagistic, indigenized “I.”

LARRY McNEIL BASED IN BOISE, IDAHO, Larry Xhe Dhé Tee Harbor Jackson McNeil is of the Dakl’aweidí Kéet Gooshi Hít (Killer Whale Fin House) of the Jilkaat Kwáan (Chilkat Tribe) of Klukwan. McNeil created an intergenerational “history of self ” digital photo collage with Tee Harbor Jackson (2002) (Fig. 4), a work in his fly by night mythology series (1998–present) that tackles cultural clashes through wit. In this self-portrait, reproduced in the artist’s chapter in The Alaska Native Reader: History, Culture,

Politics (2009), McNeil bears witness to the memory of the debt owed to Tee Harbor Jackson, or Xhe Dhé, the man for whom the artist is named.13 McNeil writes that “a Tlingit Elder wanted to give her long-deceased husband’s name to her good friend, my grandmother, Mary Brown Betts’ next grandson.”14 Thus, in the style of Tlingit “ridicule,” the artist created Tee Harbor Jackson as a visual remembrance of the unfulfilled debt for land eviction owed to Xhe Dhé by a group of Anglo-Alaskan Christians who forced him out of his Juneau home because of his practice of polygamy, which resulted in his retreat to Tee Harbor.15 McNeil considers this work a landscape of people and stories, as indicated by the horizontal composition that features a photo at the top left of himself—wearing a Chilkat robe and leaning against a Chilkat-blue 1959 Cadillac that epitomizes the American Dream—and a center-positioned, blackand-white image of Xhe Dhé, shown here in the 1920s leaning against a Ford car.

The daggers at the work’s left and right

edges possess Killer Whale Fin House handles, signifying McNeil’s clan and the gift of his name. The knives also honor Xhe Dhé as a Tlingit warrior, noted in a paragraph written by McNeil that overlays the bottom portion of his namesake’s photo.16 Representing transformation in the same photo with McNeil, Raven wears her Ravenstail robe, a weaving style that predates the Tlingit’s full adoption of making Chilkat robes in the late 19th century, and walks toward the image of Xhe Dhé to indicate her looking back at the past, while the ominous Raven eyes in the sky watch over the lot where Xhe Dhé’s home once stood. At the lower right, a small line drawing of a wooden house frame hints at the familial structure of the Killer Whale Fin House, while at the left, a 1907 black-and-white image of Tlingit houses in Tee Harbor references Xhe Dhé’s exile. At the top right and bottom left, as a presentation of self, mug rings of digital coffee stains give a personal nod to McNeil, who thrives on coffee.

McNeil’s Tee Harbor Jackson is the artist’s own history of being and place,

13. Larry McNeil, “fly by night mythology: An Indigenous Guide to White Man, or How to Stay Sane When the World Makes No Sense,” in The Alaska Native Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Maria Shaa Tláa Williams (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 276, 278.

14. Ibid., 275.

15. Ibid., 275–77.

16. Ibid., 276–77; Larry McNeil, Lecture at the University of Oklahoma, September 22, 2017, and September 23, 2017.

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above, fig. 5 We n d y R e d Star (Apsáalooke [Crow]), A p s á a l o o ke Fe m i n i st # 1 , 2016, digital print on archival photo paper, 34 × 41 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

with a number of autobiographical details that express his performance of self and community. For example, the artist shows his matrilineal clan membership by wearing his Chilkat robe, showcasing the daggers with Killer Whale Fin House handles, and visually telling Xhe Dhé’s story as the proud collector of his namesake’s debt and inheritor of his life history. And through this story, as a self-portrait and landscape of social relations, McNeil’s reference to Xhe Dhé’s land dispossession alludes to a larger issue: that the Native people of Alaska were compensated for just ten percent of their land claims in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.17 McNeil’s individual and collective memories continue

to impact the present and reflect the vital interdependence between the artist’s portrayal of self—his imagistic, indigenized, “I”—and his belonging in the Dakl’aweidí Kéet Gooshi Hít clan community.

WENDY RED STAR LIKE MCNEIL, WILSON, AND SENSE, Wendy Red Star also engages in a visual dialogue between individual identity and cultural relationships. Red Star’s Apsáalooke Feminist #1 (Fig. 5) is from her Apsáalooke Feminist series (2016), four digital photographs of Red Star with her daughter that were exhibited alongside works by Will Wilson and Zig Jackson (MandanHidatsa-Arikara, b. 1969) at the Portland

17. Aldona Jonaitis, Art of the Northwest Coast (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 250–51; Rosita Worl, “Tlingit: Lingít Kusteeyí ka Aaní; Tlingit Culture and Land,” Alaska Native Collections, web.

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Art Museum in Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy (2016). Apsáalooke Feminist #1 features the artist with her then eightyear-old daughter Beatrice Red Star Fletcher, both wearing elk-tooth dresses and other regalia as embodiments of being and place in the Apsáalooke community.18 The photo represents Red Star as a teacher of Apsáalooke ways of knowing, underscored by the performed movement of the artist sitting next to her daughter, whose standing pose creates a step up in height and signals a metaphor of future legacy. This visualization of the strength of women reflects the matrilineal and matriarchal structure of the Apsáalooke people—a way of being that Red Star passes onto Beatrice and records in this familial self-portrait.

This photograph also fuses together individual and cultural homes, as it was taken in Red Star and Beatrice’s living room in Portland, Oregon, while the elk-tooth dresses and regalia speak to their ancestral home in Crow Country in south-central Montana. Thus, the elk-tooth dresses—made of wool, mostly resin-cast elk teeth, and a few elk teeth from the animal—form the bridge between Red Star’s places of home and identity, pay tribute to the matrilineal art form, and activate the artist and her daughter’s lifelong memories—integral components of Red Star’s “studio-andalbum” self-portraiture practice.

Currently worn at the Crow Fair annual powwow and important family and cultural gatherings, elk-tooth dresses honor the ancestors, represent longevity and wealth, and signify the continuum of the tribe’s people.19 Historically, rights to make these dresses were shared by knowledge-bearing women with other women, where today many people of all genders design, cut, and sew the dresses, entitled or not.20 Red Star is a

recipient of elk-tooth dressmaking privileges from her grandmother and made the dress that Beatrice is wearing in the Apsáalooke Feminist series. Considering the tribe’s alterations in the practice of this art form, the elk-tooth dress is also the social fabric of interconnectedness and ongoing change that Red Star uses to maintain a bond with the Crow Nation community through her participation and matriarchal position of leadership for her daughter.

Red Star’s dress symbolizes almost two decades of memories. The artist danced, paraded, and wore this elk-tooth dress to important tribal events for 18 years. With the help of her mother, Maureen “Molly” Malone, who purchased the materials, Lance Hogan (Apsáalooke) made Red Star’s dress in 1997 for that year’s Crow Fair where she was honored as the No Water District Princess. This gave her the opportunity to represent the people of the No Water Cultural District on the Crow Reservation, including her grandmother’s family, at intertribal powwows in other states during that year.21 In relation to these memories, Red Star writes, “This dress is magical … from the moment I put it on, I felt like royalty.

It is one of my most prized possessions, and it is important that it stays within my family.”22 In Apsáalooke Feminist #1, Red Star set the photographic stage to portray a multigenerational history of self. Beatrice’s and her direct gaze at the camera convey power and strength.

Red Star also voices a centrality of the Apsáalooke culture through the detailed textures that surround the artist and her daughter in the photograph, and the digital aesthetic of the background’s blanket patterns speak to the future of Red Star’s family and the Apsáalooke people. The blankets, combined with

Red Star’s hair adornments and nearby beaded bag featuring horse imagery, suggest the prominence of this animal in the people’s past and present lifeways, like the Crow Fair horse-and-car parades. The rose patterns in Beatrice’s hair adornments, belt, and moccasins, and in Red Star’s royal blue shawl refer to designs by the artist’s grandmother, Amy Bright Wings Red Star (Apsáalooke, 1920–2013).23 In Red Star’s imagistic, indigenized “I” self-portrait, she has created a mosaic of matrilineal legacy that visualizes the future awaiting her daughter, Beatrice.

CONCLUSION PHOTOGRAPHIC self-portraiture offers many opportunities to Native artists to record their visions of self and home through specific events, archival research, clan naming legacies, and matrilineal pathways of knowledge and being. Through autobiographical, studioand-album, and performative modes of self-portraiture, Will Wilson, Sarah Sense, Larry McNeil, and Wendy Red Star continue to envision their conceptions of the imagistic, indigenized “I.” These lens-based practitioners have materialized sovereign spaces that overlap memories, places, times, dialogues, and communities. They are simultaneously directors and subjects of their interdisciplinary art practices as they situate their intensely layered photographic self-portraits in dialogue with the global contemporary art world.

As practitioners of the art of visualizing their self-histories, they contribute to the international discussion of multicultural and multinational identities that is continually redefined by the elusive contours of their ongoing experiences of being and place.

18. For more on this topic, see: Michelle J. Lanteri, “Wendy Red Star’s Four Seasons Series: An Interdisciplinary Approach” (master’s thesis, New Mexico State University, 2016).

19. Timothy Bernardis, email message to the author, June 17, 2016; Emil Her Many Horses, ed., Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses (New York: Harper Collins and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, 2007), 37, 126.

20. Timothy Bernardis, email message to the author, June 17, 2016; Wendy Red Star, email message to the author, June 16, 2016.

21. “Amy Red Star,” Billings Gazette (January 20, 2013), web; Wendy Red Star, in discussion with the author, November 4, 2016; Danielle Schlunegger-Warner, “Tokens, Gold, and Glory: Q&A with Wendy Red Star,” Venison (July 27, 2016), web.

22. Lauren M. Willis, email message to the author, July 7, 2016. This text came from an extended label written by Wendy Red Star.

23. Wendy Red Star, in discussion with the author, November 4, 2016.

SPRING 2018 | 43

THE LAC ST. AGNES SITE An Ancestral Mound Site in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana Preservation of precontact sites depends upon tenuous relationships between landowners, tribes, and archaeologists. Can these different groups, often with conflicting priorities, honor and advocate for ancient cultures?

By Stacy Pratt, PhD

O

N HALLOWEEN 2017, I stood over a screen suspended between three p o l e s , w at c h i n g a s a Louisiana Archaeological Society (LAS) volunteer sifted dirt to reveal small pottery sherds that had not been seen in thousands of years. We were at the Lac St. Agnes site in Broulliette, Louisiana.

It was a weird place for me to be.

Weeks before, I had made my first visit to our ancestral mounds in Georgia and Alabama. There, I found myself increasingly resentful of the fact that non-Mvskoke people had been and still were responsible for protecting the mounds. When docents asked if we were on vacation, unexpected rage seethed through me, even though every person I met was respectful when they found out we were Mvskoke people visiting our homelands.

You should be visiting us, I thought.

We should be telling you—or deciding not to tell you—about these mounds.

Maybe all of us from tribes in permanent exile have these feelings periodically, but mine had been brought to the surface and were still boiling when I got to the Lac St. Agnes site, where I was observing excavation of an area just west

of a small mound on private land way out in a field accessible only to people with good tires on their vehicles.

The Lac St. Agnes site, located just outside the town of Marksville, is owned by the Dupuy Land Company. While I was at the site, members of the family arrived, including several great-grandchildren of the family’s patriarch, Marc Dupuy. Having grown up on the land, they ran back and forth into the adjacent woods when they were not assisting the archaeologists, who patiently showed them how to use their tools and work the screens.

I happened to be standing over one of the shallow, square pits when one of the boys uncovered the largest piece of

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pottery found that day—followed shortly by a second piece that fitted onto it.

“I’m going to show Papi,” the boy exclaimed. He clearly considered it a great honor.

When a truck pulled up to the site, all the children leapt up as cheers of “Papi’s here!” spread from one group to the other.

The patriarch, who is now in his 90s, is a tall man with white hair and an imposing figure, even though he uses a walker now. His family owned the nearby Phillip Nick Farm site when he was a child, and he remembers picking up arrowheads there. He also remembers the work of archaeologist Robert “Stu” Neitzel who worked on the nearby Marksville site and was the first curator of its museum.

Dupuy earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1952, followed by a juris doctor in 1954. Early in his career, he worked in tidelands and mineral cases and then in private practice for over 50 years. Throughout his career, he used his status as a landowner and expertise as a lawyer to protect and preserve over 40 archaeological sites in Louisiana, including part of the Marksville site. In

above Mound at the Lac St. Agnes site. Photo: Stacy Pratt, PhD (Muscogee Creek). opposite Map of Louisiana with Avoyelles Parish in burgundy. Illustration by David Benbennick (CC0).

1972, soon after he bought the Lac St. Agnes property, Dupuy sponsored the site’s first major excavation by Edwin Alan Toth of LSU.1 Dupuy is a lifetime member of the LAS, which began in 1974, and in 1987 he became a founding member of the Louisiana Archaeological Conservancy (LAC), which establishes long-range legal protection for sites in the state.2 It’s rare to find an interview with Dupuy, though he has been honored many times for his work. We spoke casually about his history with the land and why, in an era when so many Louisiana mounds were not respected, he chose to protect not just the ones on his land but as many as possible in the region. His explanation boiled down to this: protecting the mounds was the right thing to do, and he had the power and knowledge to do it, so he did, through

archaeology. He made it sound so simple, but reviewing the history of mounds in Louisiana reveals that protection and preservation have been and still are complicated.

WHO BUILT THE MOUND AT LAC ST. AGNES? IDEALLY, MOUNDS are cared for by the descendants of their builders, but history has made that complicated in some cases. Even today, determining the descendants of Louisiana mound builders can be a complex task. Lac St. Agnes is a case in point.

Avoyelles Parish, where the Lac St. Agnes site is located, is named for the Avoyel people. That name was given to

them by French explorers who arrived in the late 17th century. The site is just outside the town of Marksville, where the well-known Marksville State Historic Site is located. The Marksville site includes six mounds inside an earthen enclosure that at one time was up to seven feet tall with three openings. Marksville is the type site—the site that exemplifies standard characteristics—for the regional manifestation of the sophisticated Hopewell tradition, a ceremonial and social network centered in southeastern Ohio from approximately 200 BCE to 400 CE. The Marksville era occurred from approximately 100 BCE to 400 CE and is known for its pottery, which influenced later Southeastern ceramics.

Marksville pottery is similar in design to Hopewell pottery of Ohio and Illinois.

Pottery for ceremonial use includes

1. Philip G. “Duke” Rivet, “Marc Dupuy, Jr. and his Contributions to Louisiana Archaeology,” in Louisiana Archaeology No. 29 (2002): 5.

2. Ibid., 6.

SPRING 2018 | 45

stamped and incised geometric designs as well as bird figures, while ceramics for everyday use are of plainer decoration.

In 1926, archaeologist Gerard Fowke (aka Charles Mitchell Smith) excavated six mounds in and near the current Marksville State Historic Site.

His description was the first published

state-recognized tribe has been officially linked to the Marksville site, though the Caddo have an historical relationship with the moundbuilders in the region based on an origin story passed down via oral history.

“The Caddo interest in Marksville was their origin story that brought them

“The Tunica-Biloxi repatriated the artifacts and remains dug from one of their cemeteries by a treasure hunter in the 1970s. … That case paved the way for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).” map of the mounds and earthworks.

He also unearthed 17 human burials from Mound 4.3 In 1930, Smithsonian anthropologist John R. Swanton visited the Marksville site while studying the Indigenous languages of Louisiana. He found two decorated vessels and several potsherds in Fowke’s open trenches at Mound 4.4 Partly because of the site’s relationship with the Hopewell tradition, the Marksville city council acquired it in June 1933 for development as a park.

Frank Setzler of the Smithsonian supervised the WPA’s first large archaeological excavation in 1933.5 The Marksville State Historic Site, which encompasses the enclosure and mounds within it, as well as a small museum built in the 1950s, closed to the public in 2015 when the city could no longer fund its operation. Since then, the Avogel Tribe, an organization that is not recognized by the federal or state government, has asked to take over the site. They claim to be the descendants of the Avoyel Tribe, but so do the Avoyel-Taensa Tribe, Avogel Nation, and Avoyel-Kaskaskia Tribe, none of which have federal or state recognition.6 As is the case with several mound sites in Louisiana, no federal- or

from the mouth of the Red River,” wrote Hiram F. “Pete” Gregory, professor of anthropology at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and curator of the Williamson Museum, which is a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) repository for the Caddo and Tunica-Biloxi tribes). “They clearly lived on that river from northwest Louisiana, east Texas, southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas from AD 900 until the removal in the 1835 to the 1840s.”7 The Louisiana Caddo were forcibly removed to Texas in the 1830s, and removed again to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) when the Texas Revolution began.

In 2004, Dayna Bowker Lee, thenstate folklorist, brought a group of Caddo from Oklahoma to visit their mound sites in Arkansas, and Gregory orchestrated their visit to Louisiana.

“We ... toured the mound sites here in Louisiana, as well as the documented historic Natchitoches village sites here, the Adaes mission at Robeline, and took a side trip to the Natchez country to the east,” wrote Gregory. “The Caddo who went ranged in age from 18 to two elders in their 80s. The tribal preservation

officers went with us. We spent about four days visiting the sites. The Caddo elders had prepared packets of food to leave for the dead and, as is their tradition when they come down here, prayed for those left behind. ... It was a trip for the Caddo, so we asked where they wanted to go and went from there. They went to the grave here of Dr. John Sibley, the first American Indian agent west of the Mississippi River, so they might pray for him. He had treated them well.

The Caddo Nation of Oklahoma has a keepsake cemetery here at the US Fish Hatchery where they have reinterred the remains of Natchitoches people unearthed during the 1935 construction of the hatchery. There is another cemetery at Lock and Dam 5 on the Red River where they have another cemetery for burials salvaged during the construction of the Red River Waterway. Periodically they return to pay their respects at those places, too.”

The federally recognized TunicaBiloxi Indian Tribe, whose reservation is in the town of Marksville, did not migrate to that part of the state until the 18th century. However, the Tunica eventually absorbed several “remnant” tribes, including the Avoyels. Gregory said that the Tunica-Biloxi also have an interest in the mounds due to more recent history.

In the 1930s, they briefly shut down the WPA work.

“The Tunica-Biloxi have a strong interest in the park mounds,” he said.

“There is a cemetery of theirs on the east side of it, inside the park they say, and there were burials with Natchez pottery, likely Avoyels people, at the southern edge of the park. They stopped the archaeologists there in the 1930s—one of the earliest confrontations of a tribe with archaeological research.”

And that was not the end of Tunica-Biloxi activism for the rights of Indigenous people.

“The Tunica-Biloxi repatriated the artifacts and remains dug from one of

3. Robert W. Neuman, An Introduction to Louisiana Archaeology (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 41, 139.

4. Ibid., 140.

5. Ibid., 143, 144.

6. Raymond L. Daye, “Marksville City Officials Call for Action to Save Indian Park,” Avoyelles Today (January 18, 2017), web.

7. Hiram “Pete” Gregory, email message to author, December 2017.

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above Artist’s conception of earthworks at Marksville site and Greenhouse site along the Old River, Avoyelles County, Louisiana. Illustration by Herb Roe. Used with permission.

their cemeteries by a treasure hunter in the 1970s,” said Gregory. “That case paved the way for the NAGPRA, which was to follow.”

The case he refers to resulted in the repatriation of human remains as well as recovery of an extensive collection of 16th-century ceramics, today referred to as the “Tunica Treasure.” Not only did the case lead to NAGPRA, but it was instrumental in helping the TunicaBiloxi gain the federal recognition they had been trying to attain since the 1920s.

Though the Lac St. Agnes site has been dated to the late Marksville/ Troyville-Coles Creek cultural era, the human remains buried in the mound have not been officially connected to the people of the historic Caddo Nation or the Tunica-Biloxi. Like remains found in several Louisiana mounds, they may belong to people whose descendants did not survive into the modern era or who

joined other tribes so long ago that the relationship is no longer known.

Raymond Berthelot, Louisiana Office of State Parks program manager, wrote in an email, “Currently, the artifacts and holdings of the museum are in storage at the Louisiana Division of Archaeology Curation Facility. We are actively pursuing partnerships with interested parties, such as the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, the Ancient Mounds Heritage Area and Trails Advisory Commission, and the Louisiana Archaeology Society, in order to continue the interpretation, conservation, and maintenance of the cultural resources found at Marksville State Historic Site.”

The park service does minimal maintenance on the site and opens the gate on Fridays. Groups can arrange tours by appointment. When I called about visiting, I was told to just climb over the low gate, which I did.

“Sr. 2016” was spray-painted in white across the historic marker at the entrance to the park, and I found it ironic that someone chose that place to possibly commemorate their graduation from a formal United States education.

The LAS had recently sponsored a clean-up day, so the site looked more orderly than usual, but I had been warned by several people to be careful since an area behind the mounds had become a hangout for people engaged in illegal activities. I was sorry to see the site closed, but I also remembered what it felt like to see workers on my own ancestral mounds and thought maybe it was better that Marksville had a rest from visitors.

Yet I was a visitor, and I wanted to learn more. This is also the tension under which the best archaeologists work: they want to investigate respectfully, realizing that “respectfully” is defined many different ways by the people and cultures involved.

SPRING 2018 | 47

PRIVATE LANDOWNERS & THE MOUNDS OF NORTHERN LOUISIANA IN 1997, the Ancient Mounds Heritage Area and Trails Advisory Commission was established, led by the Louisiana Division of Archaeology. Their decades of work resulted in, among other things, the Ancient Mounds Driving Trail, whose creation was led by then-regional archaeologist Joe Saunders.

Today, the driving trail features three public sites: Poverty Point, Marksville, and Marsden, along with 36 mounds located on private property.

Louisiana State archaeologist Charles R. “Chip” McGimsey, who worked at the Marksville site for many years as regional archaeologist, said the mounds are a special consideration for the agency.

“The division of archaeology was formed in the early 1970s, and so from the state agency perspective, it has always been one of our mandates to protect and preserve all sites—but we certainly recognize the particular significance both from an archaeological standpoint but also from a Native American standpoint that mounds have,” he said.

Unlike the Dupuys, generations of landowners across the state destroyed mounds on their property over the years, through farming and industrial activities or even purposefully because they believed the state would take the land.

But McGimsey said that has changed.

“My experience over the 20 years I’ve been here is that most landowners who have mounds recognize that they are important places, and they don’t want to disturb them,” he said. “[The Dupuys]

set aside the Lac St. Agnes site initially back in the ’70s privately, citing that they weren’t going to cultivate it anymore, and I don’t know if back in the ’70s that you would have found [many] landowners who were willing to do that, but these days in general there is a heightened awareness of the importance of mounds in particular. These days when I run into someone who has a mound on their property, they just tell me flat out, ‘We’re not touching it.’ They may plow up all the way to the base of it and affect the village site that’s around it, but people generally don’t want to touch mounds. … Many [landowners] would like archaeologists

to come out and do work because they would like to know [more about the mounds], but there simply aren’t enough archaeologists down here to take on all of that work.”

In 2011, Louisiana photographer Jenny Ellerbe began a project to photograph all of the mounds on the driving trail. It resulted in a 2014 exhibition that placed photographs of the mounds in chronological order as well as the publication of Poverty Point: Revealing the Forgotten City (LSU Press, 2015), co-written with archaeologist Diana Greenlee. Ellerbe said that most, but not all, landowners were respectful of the mounds on their property.

“Most were very proud of the

8. Jenny Ellerbe, email message to author, December 2017.

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mounds, protective of them,” she wrote.

“One of the landowners said that when Joe [Saunders] first approached them about being included in the driving tour brochure, they asked what they could do to help protect their mounds.

He told them to put up a fence to keep their livestock off the mounds and they immediately did that. A contrast to that story is one with another landowner who I met on my own. He told me that his land used to include many more mounds but he had plowed them under. He stated that he didn’t care much for history and needed every acre he could get to plant his crops. I understand his need to make a living as a farmer, but his sacrifice grieves me, and I wonder if there couldn’t have been a better way. I also had one landowner contact me about a mound that I did not know about. He had heard about my project and wanted his mound included. … For some sites, where I could not contact the landowner for whatever reason or didn’t have Joe with me, I remained on the road while photographing. … I feel that is important. In order to keep the sites available for all to see, we must respect the privacy of their owners.”8

FINDINGS AT LAC ST. AGNES AT PRESS TIME, the artifacts found at Lac St. Agnes await testing at LSU. Results are expected sometime in 2018.

While major ceremonial and burial sites like Marksville are obviously important, McGimsey said investigating smaller sites like Lac St. Agnes complete the larger story of Louisiana’s early history. “[In Louisiana], you have all these divergent communities, each with their own contribution to the larger whole, and so from an archaeological

standpoint, yes, it’s fascinating to go quite a few [artifacts], and this very dark country. I was most likely holding a study a big site like Marksville, but that’s soil with white specks in it, which are piece of pottery that was discarded by a special place,” McGimsey said. “That probably bone” from animals most likely someone thousands of years ago. Of was not where people lived day in and eaten by the people who lived at the site, course, I wondered what the potter day out.” “though some of it could be shell, burnt. would think if she knew the circuitous He pointed out that archaeological So that’s where we are right now.” route this Mvskoke woman had taken evidence suggests far more people lived As we walked around the site, she to end up with her work in her hand. in Crooks Site, just 20 miles away, than explained the complex mathematics There is no way they could have at Marksville. involved in creating an excavation grid imagined the tragedies and survivals “Even in the same period, when a without the technology that a larger, that would lead to the current popucommunity, say at Lac St. Agnes, built better-funded group might have. We lation of the land where they lived. a mound … they didn’t do it for quite stopped to check out potsherds that were When time or deliberate eradication has the same reason as the people at Crooks being shaken out of the dirt in the screens. caused the loss of people who carried did,” explained McGimsey. “So, you don’t I asked if I could touch one, and the knowledge of these cultures, archaewant to lose that variability. You don’t Johnny Guy, president of the West ology, at its best, attempts to reconstruct want to take a whole culture that knowledge. Yet archaeand reduce it to one site and ology, inevitably, changes say, ‘This is what they were.’ the very history it wants to Because that’s not who they learn about and protect. That are. That’s simply one small is one reason Lac St. Agnes expression of what everything is special. was.”

“I would say that Lac McGimsey’s 2003 core St. Agnes is particularly sample of the mound at Lac interesting for a couple of St. Agnes indicated it was reasons,” said McGimsey. built in one stage (as opposed “We do know something to several, as suggested by about how the mound is Toth in the 1970s) sometime constructed because of between 700 and 900 CE.9 In earlier work, but there are 2009, Christopher Rodning above Potsherds from the Lac St. Agnes site, likely from Coles Creek some unique things there. of Tulane University worked culture, ca. 400–1000 CE. Both photos: Stacy Pratt, PhD (Muscogee Creek).

“Why you have the with graduate students to opposite Incised potsherds from the Lac St. Agnes site. ditch around the mound, survey the site around the which I don’t know of any mound. Their results identiother site in Louisiana that has that, fied “anomalies” west of the mound. Julie Louisiana Archaeology Club, assured is one of those things that says, ‘This Doucet, primary investigator at the 2017 me that I could.

The piece I picked out of the dirt place meant something different to this excavation, explained that the LAS goal was to “ground truth” the areas of interest was around an inch in diameter, roughly community, because they did it different triangular, with intersecting lines that I than anybody else.’ But particularly the identified by the Tulane group.

“We feel like the first day ... we hit was told were most likely stamped into fact that the site had minimal disturbance one of those first anomalies, and so after the pot. The archaeologists did not want [makes it special]. It is extremely difficult probing the area and doing other shovel to speculate on the age of the sherds to find a site like that in Louisiana these tests, we chose that first area to open they found, but Paul French, archaeol- days, so the information potential that’s up two one-by-one[-meter] excavation ogist with the US Forest Service, said there, in some respects, is much greater units, and that’s what we’re doing here most of what they were finding close to than at other sites.

“From an archaeological standthis week,” Doucet said on the day I the surface was consistent with Coles point, we are extremely grateful to visited. “We excavate in these ten-cen- Creek, the Late Woodland culture that Marc Dupuy and his family for setting timeter levels ... and bag up everything followed Troyville in the region.

The section we were working in the site aside and preserving it, because that we find so we have a way to relate it all together when we get to the end. was most likely a midden, the equiva- it will always be there for archaeoloSo, we’re on the second level now. … The lent of the place where you dump food gists or some other community to look 10- to 20-centimeter [level] is yielding scraps over the fence if you live in the at and respect.”

9 Chip McGimsey, “Dating the Lac St. Agnes Mound (16AV26)” in Louisiana Archaeology No. 29 (2002): 65.

SPRING 2018 | 49

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PROFILE

NAVAJO COMPOSER, MUSICIAN, AND INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST

RAVEN CHACON

By Thollem

B

ORN IN FORT DEFIANCE on the Navajo Nation, Raven Chacon explores the boundaries of the worlds of visual art and sound.

He performs as an individual musician and as a member of Postcommodity, the Indigenous art collective that also includes Kade L. Twist (Cherokee Nation) and Cristóbal Martínez (Chicano). Chacon and I met up at the opening reception for Contact: Local to Global at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Postcommodity had an installation, Pollination, in the exhibition.

It’s a mock peep show with a depiction of nature replete with butterflies instead of exotic dancers.

T: Let’s start with the present and the future, then work our way back a bit.

I just experienced Postcommodity’s Pollination. Congratulations on this.

RC: Thanks. A big percentage of my time these days is working with Postcommodity on new projects. We’ve had a very productive last couple of years, and we’re continuing that with new pieces coming up. Some of them involve performance, sculpture, and other large-scale works, something that we have always had an interest in. A lot of the works we’ve done in the past have been collaborations with communities and musicians.

We have a piece we’re excited to be working on for next year. I can’t get into too much because it hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s an ongoing work.

Overall, [we are] developing new pieces and conceptualizing new responses to the world, especially since things have escalated this past year with this administration. Not that it all came suddenly.

This stuff has been building up. I feel people are interested to know what artists are saying right now. A couple of years ago it might have been acceptable for an artist to make work that wasn’t necessarily about anything—that was an escape from reality. People are conscious now and curious to know how artists are responding.

Pollination is beautiful and a deep social commentary, which I feel I could accurately say about most of Postcommodity’s work.

As a collective of three, we want to appeal to a broad audience. I often say it’s not

52 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

for everybody, but it is for anybody. The handles are there for the general public to engage with these works. Otherwise, you lose touch with your own community and where you come from. We wonder, for instance, what would happen if Pollination was put up on a rez or a small town? How would the public see these works? Hopefully there’s enough of a handle designed inside of the work to engage those beyond the insular art world. Otherwise you’re just making work for people who live in big cities.

And people who go to museums.

Right.

RAVEN CHACON

above Report (screenshot), 2001/2015, score/music composition: 2001, video and performance: Raven Chacon (Navajo), Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), D.E. Hyde (Navajo-Brazilian-American): 2015. opposite Raven Chacon performing live. Photo: Jamie Drummond. All images courtesy of the artist.

Pollination is also a unique perspective on beauty, forcing us to consider it in another way; as if it’s prohibited or as if our relationship to it is controlled by some unforeseen entity.

It’s providing this frame of whatever perception of nature is behind it. Having the Plexiglas creates the distance from nature. There’s also another frame there, which is a duration of two minutes. [A frame within a frame; the scene behind Plexiglas is only visible for this amount of time.]

You’re on a forced, limited amount of time.

You’re also in this awkward situation where you’ve paid for your time. It’s your vice where you have to encounter nature in this way.

Something that you have to hide from others.

A solitary experience that you have already chosen for yourself.

Postcommodity’s work has an inherent quality of playfulness. It feels natural in the sense that it’s not just a matter of being in touch with the audience but inherent in the way you guys see the world.

We see a lot of humor and irony happening in the world. Some of it’s dark, and it comes through in these works. I hope there’s humor in all the pieces, even the kind of oddity that makes you chuckle about everyday life. Also, in a lot of my solo works and compositions, they may be designed to implicate performers or audiences in some sort of large game or system that you have to work your way through, whether it’s a maze or kind of telephone game. It’s my way of engaging musicians and non-musicians into a shared experience.

What do you have coming up musically?

I’m writing a large work for an amazing duo based in the Bay Area called The Living Earth Show [Andy Meyerson, percussionist, and Travis Andrews,

guitarist]. These guys can play anything you give them. They’ve played works by New Complexity composers like Brian Ferneyhough. Amazing players, collaborators, and interpreters. A week before they asked me to write a piece for them, I had this dream that I was in a building that was flooded with water. There was a cello floating in the water and a woman slapping the water like a percussion instrument. So, I was thinking I wanted to make a piece that used water in a percussive way with the audience in the same water with the performers. We are still unsure where we can pull off this hour-long piece for electric guitar, percussion, and water.

Often your work confronts the standard notion of performer/audience and how we perceive space by creating sonic experiences in otherwise normal, everyday, public places. In this case, you create a completely different and perhaps uncomfortable performance situation.

Postcommodity and I have talked about artworks that open up portals that allow SPRING 2018 | 53

PROFILE

Thanks. This idea actually started with a piece I wrote in 2000, which was made up entirely of rests called “Duet.” The obvious inspiration was John Cage and his famous piece “4'33".” When I first heard of that piece, I imagined a score of all rests. I wanted to write a piece that incorporated silence or to activate silence. It wasn’t about listening but a shared experience between two people, working the way through the score, keeping a tempo between you and your partner and amplifying silence, different intensities of silence. You might think of when you’re sitting with somebody and have nothing to say, it can be very intensely awkward, or calming, or it can crescendo in uncomfortableness—or there could be a pacing to that, doing nothing.

above & opposite Still Life no. 3 installation view, 2015, sound installation, speakers, text, timed lights.

This work retells the Diné Bahane’, the Navajo story of creation and emergence into the current world. Using timed audio and delay systems, the speech of a woman telling the story in Navajo language is transferred through a series of connected speakers—activating future and past parts of the same story and revealing instances when long history repeats itself. As words emanate from the speakers, voices overlap, blurring the linearity of the story.

Photo by National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian. Installed at the Transformer exhibition, NMAI George Gustav Heye Center, New York, 2017.

the viewers or listeners to experience the world for a determined duration and then to allow the portal to close back up.

When I look back on my work over the last decade, I realize that I’d been writing primarily for shared experiences, whether that means what might be traditionally a link between the ensemble and the audience, as well as with composed actions where the members of the audience are the performers.

When you provide someone with a new experience in a place they are otherwise familiar with, their relationship with that place is forever transformed. This can have a lingering, transcendent effect.

A lot of Postcommodity’s work does this, like Repellent Fence, for instance, or our most recent piece we did at documenta 14, The Ears Between Worlds Are Always Speaking, and then some of our other durational pieces, one called Radiophonic Territory, which lasted 24 hours. A gathering, a shared experience, and a group remembering.

Congratulations on your commission by the Kronos Quartet! They were a huge influence on me growing up.

Please talk a bit about this piece and particularly the accented rests that the piece begins with.

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For the Kronos piece, I decided I wanted to use accented quarter notes more often, perhaps as a way of initiating their shared experience. Everyone coming to a common ground of looking at each other before playing or nodding their head, but acknowledging time together without actually playing a note. Some of my early works were a fascination with amplifying very quiet sounds. I have a work that is a series of field recordings of very quiet places amplified to “11,” to use Spinal Tap terminology. This has long been an interest of mine. The accents are the pulse of the world.

The video the Kronos Quarter posted discussing this is interesting as well.

Are you working on other chamber pieces presently?

I am always working on a chamber music piece of some kind. These days it’s more long form, long duration pieces like the piece I’m writing for The Living Earth Show, though I did write a small solo composition for cellist Rhonda Rider called “Invisible Arc.” I’m usually jotting down ideas or getting inspired by a particular instrument. I make notes to myself, and when the opportunity comes up to create a piece for someone, I go through all my notes. Often ideas will transfer from one instrument to another. I wrote some ideas for clarinet, but it made more sense to transfer them to cello.

RAVEN CHACON

You and John Dieterich [New Mexico musician, engineer, and guitarist for Deerhoof] collaborated recently on an album.

The project is called Endlings. Since John moved to Albuquerque in 2009, we’ve been getting together to record and perform. Endlings are the last of the animals before going extinct. This music that we’re making is perhaps a culmination of things that may not have a way to evolve further. The music comes out of a lot of experimentation: playing instruments that we aren’t by any means proficient at playing. Neither of us plays drums, but there’s a lot of drumming on the album. I’m playing saxophone, which I’ve been trying to learn for 30 years. Of course, he’s a really amazing guitarist and guitar is my instrument as well, so there’s very little guitar. You hear us playing violins, as if they were guitars or dulcimers or pump organs. We were playing these instruments in very crude ways sometimes. We both feel like this is music that’s completely different than what either of us have done. It doesn’t sound like music we would make.

What kind of criteria did you use to decide what you would include on the album?

We brought together our mutual collections of instruments, recorded hours of material, and then edited segments that we really loved, overdubbing and processing of different kinds, looping, etc. But yeah, this is the first time I made music where I don’t think it sounds like something I would’ve made. Usually you bring your skill and experience to a situation. With this, we could find nothing in our previous projects that would hint toward making music like the way this turned out.

So, it was process oriented. You must not have had any idea of what the eventual result would sound like.

Completely none. And each song sounds completely different from the next, almost as if they were a whole world unto themselves; where you could create another album that would represent each

song. Now we know what the process was to create each of these songs. Each instrumentation and process could be an entirely new band.

Like reverse engineering a band that would’ve composed this music?

Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.

What is happening with Mesa Ritual with William Fowler Collins?

We haven’t played in a while, but that’s heavy noise and drone electronics. Really

super loud. It’s an amazing experience performing live because of the range of frequencies we produce. William plays guitar, as do I, but regarding our electronic and electric rigs, he is more digital and I’m more analog. Bringing those together, it’s a heavy, dense, fleeting noise, with glacial drifts of sound, fading in and out of itself. It’s very much a live project, but we also have an album and an EP. For the next one I’m going to play bass, which was one of my first instruments. It’s going back to those initial SPRING 2018 | 55

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above Singing Toward The Wind Now/Singing Toward The Sun Now, 2010, installation view at Canyon De Chelly, National Monument, sound installation with four stainless steel sculptures, speakers, piano wire, solar panels, oscillators, amplifiers. Installed at Canyon de Chelly National Monument Visitors Center, Chinle, Arizona, in 2012. Photo: Demian DinéYazhi’ (Zuni-Navajo).

Singing Toward The Wind Now/Singing Toward The Sun Now is an arrangement of four metal sculptures, which function as musical instruments played by the natural elements.

Each sculpture is made to appear as an electrical utility tower with Navajo geometries (that commonly appear in Navajo weaving and paintings) incorporated into the design. Two of the towers function as harps; their strings are activated by the blowing wind and sand to produce a quiet, singing drone. The other two are solar-powered oscillators, producing a faint and subtle electronic beating sound.

Representing the Talking Gods, this council of Holy People speaks to visitors of the canyon.

instincts of what guitar and bass can be, especially since we both come from being completely obsessed with heavy metal.

That was our entry into noise; that kind of tonality and timbre of guitars tunneled through distortion.

That makes for a nice segue to Tenderizor, with Mike and Pat Day? We’ve been playing since I was about 19 years old. We met in Manny Rettinger’s recording class at the University of New Mexico. We had this noise surf rock band called Los Subliminados.

We were hanging out about ten years ago and talking about playing again.

Thinking about all these riffs we used to play when we were teenagers that never went anywhere, we put them all together

and made some songs. Then we added Steve Hammond, singer and guitarist from Leeches of Lore, an amazing musician himself; and Kris Kerby, in my opinion one of the best drummers in Albuquerque. We have enough for another album and a half that I’m hoping we can record soon.

How about KILT? KILT is the longest collaboration I’ve been involved in. It’s with Bob Bellerue, musician and sound artist now based in New York, and Sandor Finta, musician and composer in L.A. KILT came together in L.A. at Bob’s Il Corral space that existed around 2004 to 2006. It’s just completely free improvisation—no discussion ahead of time, and somehow we find out collectively how it ends. Not until we see what the other has brought to the table, literally, are we able to have an idea of what the others will do. All my other projects have structure, but KILT is just free. The three of us were involved in the L.A. noise scene that was centered around Bob’s venue. Although it’s in the genre of what people call noise, it’s not a wall of harsh noise you might expect.

Then there’s Death Convention Singers.

The last performance I saw was at IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.

You were dressed as a bush and took us on a procession around the Santa Fe Plaza.

I started Death Convention Singers in 2004 when I moved back to New Mexico

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because I just wanted to see more experimental music happening in Albuquerque.

There were a few people making sounds.

The Outpost Performance Space was more jazz focused; and you have the academic music community that doesn’t do anything outside of the campus; then bands that called themselves “experimental rock”—but none of that was necessarily what I was seeking. Initially I brought together about a dozen musicians to play John Zorn’s “Cobra,” and after several performances of this work, I recognized who might be serious. That’s how Death Convention Singers came about.

I started organizing situations for people to make music. One of these was Brujas, which were these completely anonymous recordings where I would send an email to five members and ask them to pass it on. The email basically said meet at this abandoned building at midnight on this date. Don’t say a word. Bring a flashlight but don’t aim it at anybody. Bring an acoustic instrument. I’d get there ahead of time, set up recording equipment and sit there in the dark waiting for people to come. We made an album out of it. It was a rotating collective to have the freedom to compose for each other and to find out who had this DIY spirit, to create our own scene of people doing things.

That led us to making art installations like at MoCNA a few years ago. We did one recently in Flagstaff at the Coconino Center for the Arts. It was a

RAVEN CHACON

group of Navajo and non-Navajo artists responding to the uranium mining on the reservation. So it has extended beyond music making and live performances into visual art.

The Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project is an inspiring program. You’ve been the composer in residence there for a while now. How did this get started and develop?

The Grand Canyon Music Festival started that in 2001 to offer educational outreach to the Navajo and Hopi reservations. The festival has been having concerts there since 1982. The director, Claire Hoffman, thankfully had recognized they were on Indigenous land in the Grand Canyon. So, she had the idea of bringing composers to work with students in the high schools, and then bring a professional quartet to play their pieces at one of the festival’s concerts. I came on as a composer in 2004. Since 2006, I’ve been the sole composer-in-residence, teaching about 30 students a year.

I’ve brought in an assistant who was a student in the early part of the program.

I’ve taught probably 160 students to write string quartets that have culminated in approximately 350 compositions so far.

You have been collaborating with the violinist Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) for many years now.

I’ve been collaborating mostly live with Laura for ten years now. We feel like we can almost telegraph each other’s moves.

Like all successful improvisations, if you find someone you can connect with like that, the music takes you places. It’s like time stands still, and you can see where the music goes next, yet it still contains surprises. She and I have tons of recordings that no one’s heard. Some of it seems very appropriate for moving images.

Maybe there’s a collaboration there with a filmmaker.

Any other works that I may not be aware of? That haven’t been performed?

I have one with fire that hasn’t been performed and others that have been realized without my presence or documentation. I wrote a piece for a family to scream out a window together. I know this has been performed by folks, but I haven’t experienced it. I have a lot of pieces that haven’t been realized yet.

That’s what happens when you are so prolific. Thank you for the interview, Raven. All the best on your upcoming and future endeavors!

SPIDERWEBSINTHESKY.COM POSTCOMMODITY.COM

above While Contemplating Their Fate In The Stars, The Twins Surround The Enemy, 2003, installation: finches, cage, pitch theremin, wire, speakers.

A pair of zebra finches interacts with a pitch theremin instrument while situated in a cage.

The instrument, being the center of the birds’ home, becomes an encroaching presence that the birds realize can be manipulated over time.

Over the course of the exhibition, the birds change the pitch with the placement of their bodies, while harmonizing with the instrument by matching their chirps with its pitch.

In the days after 9/11, I was thinking often of how one (or a group of people) forces oneself to harmonize with an encroaching presence while in the position of defense. When backed into a corner, what choreography of response is unconscious reaction, and what is selfdetermined? What can one do so that their defense is not perceived as aggression?

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ONONDAGA BASKET MAKER

RONNI-LEIGH GOEMAN

By Wendiyoh Estrada

I

SIT WITH MY MOTHER in her dining room as she works on her baskets, something I’ve done dozens of times before. Although she converted one of the bedrooms into an art studio, she still works at her old dining table because of the fantastic, natural light from the large bay window. I watch as she absently sips coffee from a ridiculously undersized mug, then lightly drags a long wooden ribbon of ash splint through a bowl of water. In front of her, the start of a basket lid is splayed on the table, like a sun. Today she’s fairly relaxed in her work, pleasant but not typical.

I’ve come to talk to her about her journey as an artist—her life, her work, her stories—which is both strange and fitting since I’ve lived through most of it. These memories of her life are like a patchwork of signature moments, some important to her, others to me.

Her story starts here at Onondaga Nation, at my great-grandmother’s trading post where she first fell in love with baskets. As a young girl, she would go to the shop just to smell the baskets, delighting in the earthy fragrance of dried wood and sweetgrass. The trading post was like a magic shop, full of treasures and mystery. It was dark, with taxidermy animals in every corner, and shelves and glass cases displaying knick-knacks, art, and collectibles. I always imagine my mom sneaking in there and getting in as many sights and smells as she could before getting chased out. Although my great-grandma was a fascinating woman, she was not a patient one.

The next part of my mother’s narrative is set in her early twenties, when she first learned to make a basket. Mary Kawennatakie Adams (1917–1999), a well-known Mohawk basket maker from Akwesasne, was her first teacher. I was very young back then, so other than a particularly vivid memory of my mother cutting open her thumb while making

splint, I don’t have much recollection of her making baskets during this time.

Now as she works, I begin to take photos and study some of the finished pieces she keeps in her china cabinet.

Lately, she’s been doing a lot of water themes, particularly with the descent of Sky Woman, the Iroquois creation story. It’s a story she revisits often in her work but each time in a unique way, incorporating different colors, shapes, and motifs. I love the color palate she’s currently using: an incredible cerulean blue with indigo and lavender accents. I also notice a piece she had been working on a few days earlier is no longer there.

It was a vibrant blue acorn basket with floral moosehair tufting on the lid. Her husband, Stonehorse, had taken it to a potential client.

Ronni-Leigh finds inspiration for her baskets from many different avenues: the rainbow of red kernels on a cob of flint corn; the floral motifs on an Iroquois silverwork; a uniquely shaped lamp at a discount store; an old story an elder told her at the diner. I’ve seen the moments she gets an idea. She’ll turn to me with a little

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sparkle in her eye, and say, “Wouldn’t that make an interesting basket?”

Most times I can see her vision, other times not. Years ago, when we lived apart, she asked me to send her a picture of a beaded bag she had given me. She had suddenly thought of it and wanted to use the color combination in a basket. The bag was rich red, with navy blue and deep yellow beads. Although the colors were beautiful on beadwork, to me it seemed like they would look muddled on a basket.

I was wrong. The color combination, along with brass beads accents, was used in some of her most unique and memorable baskets.

“Of course, we have to talk about Mae,” says my mother, as she securely slides a line of weaving down with her index nail.

The late, great Mae Bigtree from Akwesasne is who my mother credits for truly making her a basket maker.

Like many of our ways, basketry is typically learned from one’s mother or grandmother. Mae never had children of her own. Instead she passed down her teachings to friends and relatives lucky enough to be taught. My mother was one of those few. Every weekend for two years, my mother would drive from Onondaga Nation in Central New York to Akwesasne, up near the Canadian border, and spend that time with Mae. My mother doesn’t like to drive, especially in the winter or in the dark. For her to stressfully maneuver the frozen, northbound highway for six hours every weekend meant a lot.

She, along with a few other basket makers, would spend all night at Mae’s house, telling stories and laughing.

Always laughing.

Mae passed away several years ago.

Whenever my mom gets together with Mohawk basket makers, they always bring up the funny things Mae would say to them and smile to themselves as they work.

RONNI-LEIGH GOEMAN

above Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Descent of Sky Woman, 2017, black ash splints, sweetgrass, dye, moose antler, moosehair. Photo: Kitty Leaken, www.kittyleaken.com. opposite Ronni-Leigh Goeman. Image courtesy of the artist.

“Fancy baskets,” as nonutilitarian, black ash baskets are called, had once been a way for Haudenosaunee women, especially Mohawk women, to feed their families by selling them cheaply to tourists. In later years, the number of basket makers decreased drastically, particularly in territories outside Akwesasne. “With all the work that went into making a basket, they could make more money working at McDonald’s,” says my mother.

By the time my mother was interested in learning, there were no more master basket makers left at Onondaga to teach her, which is why her relationship with Mae was so precious. In Mae she found a friend and a mentor but also that maternal figure who reconnected to a frayed lineage.

“Tell me something that Mae taught you,” I ask her. “Something that has always stuck with you.” With barely a pause, she says, “She told me to never give up on a basket. If something’s not right, take it apart and start it again.”

I think on the innumerable times I’ve watched my mother work—lips pursed in focus, little hands stained with dye, meticulously weaving and tightening the splint. Then she’ll pause, lift the basket, and gently examine all sides under the light.

This is a moment of truth. I can tell the outcome of the basket from her expression. If there’s not a look of pure satisfaction—if there’s any doubt about its perfection—then that version of the basket will not last. Sometimes she’ll go

as far as complete it, let it linger for a few days, show a couple of friends who will most definitely gush over it. They won’t see that a line of weave is too thin or the accent color isn’t the ideal purple, but she will. And I know that if I visit her the next night, even if it’s right before a show, the basket she had spent days on will be completely undone, and she will be quietly reworking it. “I had to fix it,” she’ll say glumly.

Then there are other days where she’ll lift that basket and a smile will tease the corners of her mouth. She’ll tilt her head to the side, as if she’s looking at something for the first time, and say, “Isn’t this a pretty basket?”

And of course, it will be a beautiful basket.

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above Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Green Basket, black ash, sweetgrass, dye, moosehair. Photo: Kitty Leaken. opposite, left Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Ronni-Leigh’s husband and collaborator. opposite, right Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Creation Story, 2017, black ash, sweetgrass, dye, moosehair. Photo: Kitty Leaken.

I’m sure there was a learning curve, a period of loose and lop-sided baskets that eventually evolved into the lovely creations I see today, but I wasn’t around or aware enough to see it. In her earlier years as a basket maker, I was busy navigating through the seemingly huge trials of my youth. I knew my mother had been making baskets, but I was distracted or (sadly) dismissive and didn’t see her develop as an artist.

Schemitzun Powwow 2001 [the Mashantucket Pequot powwow in Connecticut] was when I truly “saw” her work for the first time. I drove out

there to visit and sat with her at the artist booth as she displayed her work. It was like running into somebody’s child who had suddenly grown up while you were away. Not only had her work developed but so had her presence as an artist, her self-assuredness, and her ability to talk about the meaning of her work.

I saw that she was telling our stories, stories that we all grew up hearing as kids, through her baskets. She had drawn into the well of our oral history and had woven their tales into a vast array of shapes, patterns, and textures. The baskets were crowned with richly colored sprays of

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dyed moose hair, and within those bright, wispy nests were exquisitely detailed antler sculptures of animals, birds, plants, and people—symbolic motifs of each story— carved by Stonehorse. The completed artworks were stunning and alluring and unlike any baskets I had ever seen.

If my mother credits Mae for making her a basket maker, then she credits her husband for making her an artist. My mom married Stonehorse in 1995. He is a Seneca sculptor who works primarily with antler. They often traveled to different powwows to showcase his work. Seeing the joy he got from interacting with these people at these events

RONNI-LEIGH GOEMAN

made her think of her baskets. She decided she would put some of her work out just to see how it would be received. At first, she displayed only a few simple pieces, but as the interest in her work grew, so did her creativity. She began experimenting with colors and molds and innovative designs with her established techniques.

During one of these powwows, my mother placed a basket among Stonehorse’s antler carvings, allowing them to cradle it like a base. The reaction was immediate, with many people stopping to inquire about the display. This happy accident became the premise for the collaborative basket sculptures she went on to develop with Stonehorse, and these remain her most recognized works.

When the year 2000 rolled around, both my mother and Stonehorse decided they were to make some major life changes for the new millennium. My mother, who had been employed full time as a social worker, decided that in order to truly grow as an artist she needed to put all her energy into her work. Although it was a tough decision, she put her social work career on hold to focus on developing her art. The two also decided that if they wanted their art to be taken seriously, they needed to participate at some of the more esteemed Native art shows. In 2001, they applied to and were accepted into the Santa Fe Indian Market for the first time.

MY MOTHER PAUSES from weaving the rim and goes into her studio. I follow

her to take more photos while she grabs a couple of tidy bundles of ganowa, a thin, pale splint of black ash that she prepared ahead of time. She looks back at me and my camera. “You probably shouldn’t take pictures of this. People will assume you can just buy it like this,” she says, her voice edging toward salty.

A major frustration for my mother, and for most black ash basket makers, is how unaware most people are of the work that goes into making a basket. Once, she allowed a potential client to keep some baskets over the weekend, and when she returned to pick them up, they had been stuffed in a cardboard box marked wicker baskets.

“Wicker baskets?” she said, fuming when she got home, “Does she think we can just grab what we need from the craft store?”

Weaving is only one part of black ash basketry—it’s the fun part, the part that most people equate directly with the basket-making process. They don’t know about the struggle of finding and felling the good ash trees, of finding tree pounders who can pound the splints apart, or the tedious hours spent soaking and

cleaning the annual growth rings. Most people have no clue about the patience needed to repeatedly split the wood into thin and even ribbons, or weekends spent picking enough sweetgrass to braid into long, endless ropes. Black ash basket makers put in weeks, even months of work before a single basket is even started.

When she first began attending Native art markets, my mother noticed that baskets didn’t have either the presence or prestige of other forms of art. To her, it seemed that baskets, in general, had been relegated to being an Indigenous craft rather than art, with quality being defined by the creator’s technical skills instead of their aesthetic or conceptual vision. Yet by continuously being completely original and innovative in her work, my mother pushed beyond convention and earned her due respect as an artist. Over the years, Stonehorse’s and her artworks have earned many awards at juried art markets, including Best of Show at the Eiteljorg Indian Market.

Over the last decade, my mother has seen attitudes regarding baskets evolve, with black ash basketry finding a definite and respected position in SPRING 2018 | 61

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above Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Ensga-nye’: Women’s Shuffle Dance, 2017, black ash, sweetgrass, dye, moosehair, ceramics, acrylic paint. Photo: Kitty Leaken. opposite Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Seneca), Hadiwenno’ Doñndeyes Thunder Beings, 2017, black ash, sweetgrass, dye, moosehair, moose antler. Photo: Kitty Leaken.

the Native art arena. This, along with a recent push to revive ancestral teachings, has attracted many young artists to basketry. The influx of energy has proven beneficial for the art form, as many new basket makers are bringing ingenuity and distinction to the work.

Although my mother is grateful that more young people are becoming interested in baskets, another dark storm looms on the horizon, getting bigger and closer with every year. The emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle, has killed 25 million ash trees in the United States.

Brought over on wooden shipping crates, the insect was first found in Michigan in 2002 and has since spread to 31 states, decimating entire forests of ash trees in only a few years. To date, no remedy has

been found, and the only way to preserve the species is to save the seeds and reforest after the beetles—and the existing ash trees—have all died off.

Until that day comes, my mother says she will continue to make baskets every day. She has also vowed that she will pass down her teachings to the children.

“Years from now, when the black ash trees return, those kids will be the elders who bring back our baskets,” she tells me.

About 20 years ago, when my mother first started seriously making baskets, she said she had a dream that an elder came to her speaking in Onondaga.

She told my mother that a tree is a living thing, and that if she was going to take its life, she needed to make sure she created the most beautiful basket she could make.

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I know that dream has stuck with her, and she thinks of it often.

I walk through my mother’s house, gathering my things to leave. I walk past a pot of blue dye steadily boiling on the stove and set my mug next to the kitchen sink where, as usual, coils of braided sweetgrass soak like little green snakes. As I head for the door, stepping over stray ribbons and curls of splint, she calls out to me.

“Wait, what do you think of this one so far?” She picks up the lid she just completed and lightly places it on top of a small, elegant, white basket. “Isn’t it a pretty basket?”

Ronni-Leigh Goeman will be at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, Phoenix on March 3 & 4, 2018.

RONNI-LEIGH GOEMAN

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HOPI SILVERSMITH

GERALD LOMAVENTEMA

By RoseMary Diaz

G

ERALD LOMAVENTEMA was born on Second Mesa, a 5,700-foot-high plateau measuring just over 40 square miles in the desert of northwest Arizona. Second Mesa is home to the villages of Shungopavi, Sipaulovi, and Mishongnovi, where three-quarters of the people speak Hopi. There, late summer rainstorms bring thunder, corn, and lightning, and inspire names for young men. Little did Lomaventema realize as a young boy that one day he would become a virtuoso jeweler.

Before finding his calling as an artist, Lomaventema studied construction for a time. When the financial strain of full-time scholarship didn’t quite balance out with those of raising a family, he returned home in 1989 to learn how to make jewelry. Lomaventema began his apprenticeships in silversmithing at the Hopi Arts and Crafts Silvercraft Cooperative Guild. After learning the techniques of overlay and tufa casting under the guidance of the guild’s master silversmiths, Lomaventema refined his skills with some of the art form’s most notable talents, including Duane Maktima, Roy Talahaftewa, Phil Navasya, and Steve LaRance—all Hopi—and quickly developed his own unique and highly recognizable style.

With each painstaking forging of a coin ingot,1 every careful pour of molten silver into its ashen mold, and steady-handed setting of cut stone into a perfectly channeled band or smoothedged bezel, Lomaventema’s work continues to cement his legacy as an

experimental trailblazer and a master of customary techniques. Unique pieces venture far beyond mere accessory in both structure and story and often carry the narrative of the Hopi culture through symbolic and spiritually significant motifs: gentle, rolling waves of life-giving water; the flute-playing, pollen-bearing

Kokopelli; and the iconic Hopi sun face. He sculpts materials such as coral, ironwood, 14-karat gold, turquoise, and other precious and semiprecious stones into bracelets, belts, bolo ties, earrings, pendants, and pins. These common and uncommon elements become exalted to extraordinary works of wearable art in

1. Coins provided the first source of silver for the Hopis. The coins were melted down and cast into ingots, then worked with tools resembling those used in blacksmithing and beaten into shapes or sheets from which jewelry could be cast or cut. Most of the earliest pieces were made with one piece of silver embellished with handcrafted, decorative stamps and polished by hand. For a time in the late 19th century, the federal government stopped Hopi artists from using US currency for making jewelry. Eventually, the practice continued and regained popularity. Today, though fewer jewelers cast their own ingots, it ranks among the most respected of all the old techniques developed by the Hopi, keepers of the desert, so long ago.

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GERALD LOMAVENTEMA

above Gerald Lomaventema, his wife, two daughters, and his student jewelers at the Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. opposite Gerald Lomaventema speaking at the Museum of Northern Arizona during their Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture. All images courtesy of the artist.

Lomaventema’s creative world. Through some seemingly alchemical process, the artist’s vision is transformed into something tangible—a possessable dream of sorts.

Lomaventema’s work has garnered much attention in important Native art circles over the years. Collectors admire in equal parts his technical precision, innovative artistry, and uncompromising commitment to using only the best materials. The artist says, “It has to be gem-quality turquoise, and the stones have to come with a certificate of authenticity. [My] sources want them to be re-homed to a nice environment where they’ll be properly cared for.”

The recipe has certainly cooked up well for Lomaventema. His many accolades include a 2013 first place in jewelry from the Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market and Festival in Indianapolis; a 2014 best of division award for jewelry

from the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market (his entry was an intricately detailed, sterling silver concha belt), and he was awarded one of SWAIA’s much coveted artist fellowships. His silver jewelry has been widely collected throughout the United States and Japan. Major venues for Lomaventema’s work include the Autry Museum of the American West, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Heard Museum. He is represented by Southwest Traditions in Estes Park, Colorado.

Between his many travel and teaching commitments, as far away as Osaka, Japan, and some sideline cheering for the Hopi High School varsity basketball team—go Bruins!—Lomaventema graciously agreed to an interview by telephone. From his home on Second Mesa, we connected via the invisible, sky-woven web of Hopi Telecommunications in Kykotsmovi Village along the most

northwestern edge of the reservation.

Traversing the endless miles of sage-covered hills and deep, winding canyons of the Hopi Reservation to represent the artist, Lomaventema’s voice shared his venture into metalsmithing, set the record straight on museum artifacts, and expounded on the reasons for keeping Native cultures alive. Here’s how some of the conversation went.

RMD: Tell me a little about yourself, if you would.

GL: I was born in the village of Shungopavi on Second Mesa in Northern Arizona and attended the Keams Canyon Boarding School. My mom passed away when I was very young, so my grandparents were the only parents I knew growing up. We lost my grandmother last year. My grandfather is 92. They were very religious people. They taught me Hopi, which is my first language.

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I belong to the Bear Clan. We can trace our existence back to the year 700. In 2005, when I was initiated into the Hopi men’s clan, my last name was changed [from Honwytewa], and I was given my adult name, Lomaventema, by my godfather. It comes from the Corn/Water clan of Shungopavi and refers to the lightning that flashes across the sky during the monsoon thunderstorms. I still live on Second Mesa.

Where do you work? Is there a particular place you find most conducive to work?

I enjoy creating in my studio, which I built in 2000. I’ve been collecting tools and machinery for my production throughout the years. I need to add to the 20-by-30-foot building. In the summer months, I try to rise early to work in the cornfield, so by around ten, when

it’s warming up, I return to the studio until it starts cooling off again, around four in the afternoon. In the winter, after harvest time, I have more time, but then the ceremonies, particularly the men’s ceremonies, are observed.

How did you get into silversmithing?

For me, silversmithing wasn’t a God-given gift. I learned to make jewelry out of necessity. I was pursuing education in Phoenix and learning building trades. But after almost two years, I just couldn’t do it. I had a family and it became [difficult] just to provide.

I could not survive in the city, so I came back to Hopi just in time for silversmithing classes. That was in 1989. They were offering a class in Hopi overlay at the co-op on Second Mesa.

The guild was founded in 1948 and ’49 by elders of Shungopavi: Fred Kabotie and

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Paul Saufkie, both World War II veterans, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. It closed down about 15 years ago, in 2001.

I worked there until it closed.

I learned from fellow Hopi artists how to cast in tufa, volcanic ash found right here on the Hopi Reservation. I took classes in hollow form, lapidary, and wax casting.

I didn’t think of myself as an artist when I first started making jewelry. I couldn’t even draw! I’d be sitting there and all these artistic Hopis would be sitting all around me, and I didn’t know what to do.

I am not a natural at art. Took me a while to complete my first projects in copper.

That same year, [art appraiser] Joan Caballero encouraged me to apply to [SWAIA Santa Fe] Indian Market. I was sitting outside the Hopi Cultural Center, where I used to set up to sell my artwork.

GERALD LOMAVENTEMA

above Two faces of the Dawa/Broad-Faced Katsina Swivel Pendant, sterling silver, turquoise, coral, jet, spondylus, and wood. Chain: hand-made silver beads. opposite Too Koyemsi Pendant, tufa-cast silver, turquoise, coral, white shell, jet.

She came by my table and asked me if I showed at Indian Market. I told her I’d heard about other jewelers doing well, but had never applied. I followed her advice and applied the next year. I was accepted into market and have been attending ever since. I was accepted last year, but I forgot to pay my booth fee in time!

Maktima, I felt motivated by the way he spoke about jewelry making and respecting the natural materials we use through prayer. There are many things that motivate me, such as my [children].

But Hopi culture, where most of the designs are borrowed from, is where the inspiration comes from. I repay that by participating in Hopi ritual.

the overlay technique. I don’t like to say “teach” because these kids are artistic and all I have to do is show them how to use the tools. In 2014, I started acquiring grants.… Collaborative efforts with the Museum of Northern Arizona enabled me to show and teach. I started mentoring, working with four to five [students] at a time.

Who or what have been your creative influences?

You’ve been mentoring Hopi youth for the past three years, teaching customary methods including overlay.

How did you become involved in mentoring and what is your approach to teaching young artists the old silversmithing techniques?

When we were apprentices at the co-op, the elders explained that there had to be a story or a meaning behind our designs.

That is the approach I take in working with these young artists. And it’s not just about making jewelry. Jewelry making is new to us. It’s about what’s expected of us as Hopi. It’s not just a word, not just a name. There’s a responsibility behind it. We can’t call ourselves Hopi if we neglect our spiritual and cultural beliefs. Although we’re in the desert, we

My inspiration in the beginning came from many of the older Hopi silversmiths who worked at the co-op, although many of them did not share. Sidney Sekakuku [1950–2013] was one of the veteran smiths who went into detail about the overlay techniques. His designs were awesome. Later, when I sat in a class on hollow form being taught by Duane

After the co-op closed, nobody was showing the old techniques. About 15 years had lapsed since then, so I decided to carry on the elders’ idea of showing

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above Four views of Silver Overlay Cuff, sterling silver.

Although we’re in the desert, we can see the beauty here, in nature, in the wildlife, and if you can understand what the culture is saying to you and how to survive here, you can survive anywhere. can see the beauty here, in nature, in the wildlife, and if you can understand what the culture is saying to you and how to survive here, you can survive anywhere.

If it weren’t for the elders, we would have lost all this a long time ago. They were the true Indigenous ones. They had a show of force with the US Army to defend the Hopi way of life. Some Hopis didn’t want to learn to speak English or learn European ways. There was a separation between the traditionalists and the progressives. One [young man] who resisted was arrested and sent to Carlisle Indian School. Some parents were sent to Alcatraz.2 That was a rough time. But our culture is still active. When I’m showing the techniques, I talk about these facts.

Are there designs that belong only to particular families or clans, or designs that cannot be used at all?

There are some designs that cannot be used. Some are symbolic of when the people were concluding their migrations;

others are for certain religious positions.

As we are growing up, we are taught what not to talk about, what is not proper to say, and what is not proper to make.

We have those lines drawn already, and everybody knows where those lines are.

We may all do Kokopelli, but we all have our own unique style, our own way of doing it. Nobody can really say “That’s mine.” We can’t own it.

You’ve been doing museum collection reviews in Japan and now here in the United States for a few years. Can you explain how you got involved in that and what exactly it entails?

In 2007, my friend Atsunori Ito [an associate professor at the Center for Cultural Resource Studies at the National Museum of Ethnology] and I started the Hopi and Zuni Artists Show in Osaka, Japan. The main objective was to educate the Japanese public about the issue of fake and imitation Native American arts and crafts in the global market.

In 2014, I began reviewing the collections of Hopi artifacts at the National Museum of Ethnology (known in Japan as Minpaku), in Osaka. After that, museums that held Hopi artifacts in other parts of Japan and here in the United States became interested, and we started doing reviews at their museums.

Some of the objects aren’t signed or are misidentified, and there are some things—katsinas and other ceremonial objects—that shouldn’t be viewed.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. We went through some [of their collection of] early Hopi jewelry, and, from the hallmarks on some of the objects, we were able to add the identification of the maker and determine which village they were from.3 I’m part of an ongoing project with the New Mexico State University, the Museum of Northern Arizona, and Minpaku, reviewing Mimbres pottery

2. Wendy Holliday, “Alcatraz Island: Hopi Prisoners on the Rock,” National Park Service, February 27, 2015, web. In 1894, US troops arrested 19 Hopi leaders who resisted the federal government’s theft of Hopi land and forced assimilation of Hopi children through schools. These Hopis were sent to Fort Defiance and ultimately, on January 3, 1895, to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in the San Francisco Bay, where they remained through August 7, 1895.

3. Early Hopi jewelry was rarely signed but was instead stamped with the maker’s mark to reveal the village or clan of the artist.

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GERALD LOMAVENTEMA

designs and using them on silver. Going through those [collections], I could feel the energy coming from the pots. I was afraid to handle any of the pots with kill holes or any of the other funerary objects.

That’s certainly understandable. All of those pieces are part of such an ancient creative legacy. Do you have any thoughts on your own creative legacy?

We have to carry on the knowledge. Pass it on to the younger generation. I like Hopi elder Victor Coochwytewa’s quote: “The corn is my work, jewelry making is my hobby.”

That’s a great quote. It really puts things into perspective.

If we don’t retain those qualities and if we don’t teach the youth to respect the culture, money is going to become their culture.

A frightening world to brace for indeed.

On that final and thought-provoking note, I thank you for your time and insightful words. We appreciate it. See you at the Heard!

Kwak’kwai.

top, left Stamped cuff, coin silver, Black Web No. 8 turquoise. top, right Silver overlay cuff, 2017, sterling silver, turquoise. bottom Bolo Tie, tufa-cast sterling silver, turquoise, coral.

Lomaventema is represented by several art dealers. He will be at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, Phoenix on March 3 & 4, 2018.

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CHEMEHUEVI PHOTOGRAPHER

CARA ROMERO

By Alexis Celeste Bunten, PhD

C

ARA ROMERO was one of the breakout stars of the 2017 Santa Fe Indian Market. Her photograph, Ty, won the Best of Classification in Class III: Painting, Drawing, Graphics & Photography, while her digital photograph, Kaa, won First Place in Division F (Computer Graphics) as well as the IAIA Distinguished Alumni Award.

Both images, Ty and Kaa, bear the “Cara Romero stamp”: a combination of powerful female imagery and narrative co-construction between the photographer and her models (who often include friends and family) executed with flawless technique in monolithic, print form.

Cara does not widely advertise her artistic achievements and professional accolades, which include numerous first place photography awards and Best of Class at the Santa Fe Indian Market between 2002 and 2017. However, it is only in recent years that she has really emerged as one of the most powerful female voices in Native art today.

Ranging from Indianized pop culture satire to otherworldly Pueblo figures, Cara’s work has seasoned over the past five years as her imagery continues to push the boundaries of “Native American photography” to convey the complex and sometimes messy, lived realities of contemporary Native women. Like some of her contemporaries, Meryl McMaster (Plains Cree-Siksika), Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena), and Erica Lord (Athabascan-Iñupiaq), Cara’s work subverts the iconic, orientalizing “Edward Curtis style” that has dominated Indian portraiture for nearly a century.

I recently had a series of conversations with Cara about her art. I know her story: that she was conceived on the Chemehuevi Reservation but born in L.A. only to return and grow up on the reservation. There she was free to roam the deserts and play for endless hours in the waters of Lake Havasu under her grandmother’s constant care. Her parents’ eventual split forced Cara to move to Houston as an adolescent.

Never feeling like she fit in, Cara moved to Santa Fe in 1998 to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts. Cara moved to Oklahoma with her first husband for more schooling but eventually found her way back to the womb of the Chemehuevi Reservation. As a young mother, Cara worked for her tribe as a member of the tribal council and served as director of the Chemehuevi Cultural Center. But Cara’s need to make art forced her to face her own demons, and she returned to Santa Fe to begin a new chapter. There she came to know sobriety after a two-decade plunge. She fell madly in love with an old 70 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

acquaintance, Diego Romero, a celebrated Cochiti potter.

Cara and Diego brought their families together, married, and conceived a child.

Though her recent recognition in the art world might make Cara seem like an overnight success, the road to becoming one of the preeminent female Native artists today has been long. Cara started in photography nearly 20 years ago, and it has been 15 years since she sold her very first piece at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Only in recent years has her work been shown in a handful of prominent galleries. Now it is collected by nearly a dozen museums around the world.

At the beginning of Cara’s art career, many others in her position would have quit, given the challenges she faced.

I wanted to know what made her keep pushing forward for two decades. I thought about young Native artists struggling with how to balance protocols and bringing to light the issues pushed under the rug in Indian Country. What would they want to know?

ACB: How did you get your start in photography?

CR: I took my first black-and-white film class at the University of Houston. Most of the other students had already learned how to develop prints in their high school photography classes. Even

CARA ROMERO

above Coyote Tales No. 1, 2018, limited edition, archival pigment print on fine art paper. opposite Self-Portrait, 2018, archival pigment print on fine art paper. All images courtesy of the artist.

with what my images lacked technically, I had something to say, and I loved that photography could convey my ideas in a way that other mediums could not. I felt full artistic freedom making photographs and experienced a deep need to constantly try to improve and perfect. It was like a healthy compulsion for me early on.

In that class I fell in love with the darkroom and the mad science of it all—watching the image slowly blacken in the developer made my heart palpitate. Things are different now that we’re in a digital darkroom. Now my favorite moments happen in the studio or on set when I can see what’s happened right there on the computer screen and I squeal, “Come look what we did! Come look what we did!”

From those first classes, how did you get started as an artist?

Sometimes I have no idea how I could be so lucky to have realized so many dreams. My story of photography started with that instant love in the darkroom, and I changed my whole life in 1998 and ran off to IAIA in Santa Fe to become a photographer.

My beginnings were modest and I made some crappy art.

Starting out, you have this image in your head that you want to convey, but you don’t come out of the gates with the ability to execute. You have to put in thousands of hours to hone your craft and find your inner voice. I submitted my first piece to the Santa Fe Indian Art Market in 2002. I stuck with it when I fell on my face at shows a couple of times and tried not to take myself too seriously after huge failures. I remembered what my elders back home would say about dancing: “When you dance, it is between you and Creator. No one else matters.” It means, when you’re learning to dance, it’s okay to make mistakes, even when people are watching and maybe giggling or even hating.

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I love that quote by Andy Warhol [paraphrasing]: Make art. Make lots of art and while they’re deciding if it’s good or bad, make more art.

surrealness. Howard Schatz’s lighting and commercial work.

I stuck with it when everything was changing over to digital, and I found myself having to start all over, but I did.

And now I’m so glad to have had the film experience before going digital. I think it highly formalized my approach, and my main takeaway from film was that you must do everything in camera.

Perfect lighting. Perfect composition.

No Photoshop. I carry those methodologies with me into the digital studio and while I do use Photoshop now, the reality people see is just that: it’s real. No amount of Photoshop can outperform reality in art.

The [female] Creator and I are just sort of having this conversation. That’s part of it, but I really make art for my Native community. I focus on giving back to my community through the content. And, making imagery that’s relevant to our beauty, our struggles, our fantasies, and our worldviews.

What artists inspired you when you were first honing your craft and who inspires you today?

Laura Gilpin. I wanted to be a Native woman desert landscape photographer and documentarian, and live in a tent for a year photographing the great, wild Mojave [Cara’s ancestral homeland]. I still may do that when the kids are grown.

Eve LaFountain is ahead of her time in Indian Country, and she inspires me with her eye and never-before-seen contemporary content in Indian Country.

I’m also inspired by Annie Leibovitz. I love her lighting and color and editorial content. I just love everything she does.

Everything.

Robin MacMillan’s subject matter is riveting. Gregory Crewdson’s staging and

For whom do you make art?

How did you find your voice as a female Native artist?

I didn’t have my own voice in my early years. I was just emulating what I saw in the Native American art world. In retrospect, I felt like a failure at the time. I couldn’t find the content because I was going for a style that was disingenuous to my Native identity. I thought I didn’t have good ideas, and that the concepts I came up with were boring. I had to reexamine my life, and gain sobriety to find my real identity as a Native woman, and as an artist.

A big part of my story is that I am a recovered alcoholic. I want people to know that about me, because I want those still suffering to know there’s hope. I carried pain and engaged in self-destructive behavior that blocked me from myself for two decades. Through recovery, I went back to the beginning in some ways with my art, but the growth after that was exponential. So, when I sobered up, I replaced drinking with art.

I promised myself to never forsake my

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art again, that when I deny myself art, it is a form of emotional suicide. I also promised to always do [Santa Fe] Indian Market and the Heard [Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market]. They “force” me to create at a regular pace throughout the year. That means that in any given year, I need to make two new pieces for each show, which adds up to four to five new monumental pieces a year.

Through recovery, I was able to become true to my own identity, to abandon what I thought people wanted Native art to be, and to find my own voice. I give so much credit to Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), my dear friend and genius artist. Marcus helped me learn how to live again as a sober artist. We were hanging out in sobriety together about six or seven years ago, and he had all these ideas for photography, and we would playfully create together. One of our productions was to see what would happen if Buffalo Man [Amerman’s alter ego] appeared in iconic moments in Western art.

One of the best images we made together was The Last Indian Market. It was very humorous, light-hearted, contemporary, cross-cultural, pop art. That’s where I found my voice as a mixed-race, Native American artist. I believe it worked because it embodied what Native people want to see in contemporary art. It was my “aha” moment where I became liberated from all the preconceived notions of what Native photography is supposed to look like. I never have to think about my style anymore; all I have to do is be myself.

CARA ROMERO

From there, my photography became very personal. My art got bigger. I married Diego Romero. [Cara and I laugh.] Diego says, “Don’t give me any credit.” But we talk about art together. He gives me a lot of advice, and I listen to it.

About five years ago, Diego and I went to a photography show and we were looking at these massive photos. Their monumental size made them just as interesting as the content. I knew I wanted to go in that direction, and Diego agreed, but I said, “I can’t do this. My camera isn’t big enough. It isn’t sophisticated enough.”

Diego bought me a $5,000 camera as a wedding present. He believes in art in a way that I had never encountered in my lifetime. He bets it all.

I was too damaged from poverty to believe it was okay to invest too much in my photography. Diego and I were watching a documentary of Gregory Crewdson, and Diego was like, “You need to do that!” and I spit back, “I could never do that!” Diego wanted to know why and I told him, “Because, he just spent a hundred thousand dollars shutting down the town and hiring a crew and renting film industry lights, etcetera.” He said very plainly, “Cara, you have to invest in yourself!” So I did, even though I was scared. That was where Water Memory came from, and it launched my career and brought outcomes I never imagined possible, like the Smithsonian collecting my work.

After that, my art became an examination of things that were important to me—things that also scared me but that I knew to be true, so I started working with female figures. I wanted to break through the exploitative, white male lens that had dominated Native American photography for over a hundred years.

Before I began photographing female nudes, I seriously questioned myself, asking, “Why can’t I do it? Make it better, when the way other people do it makes me feel like sh—? How can I make photographs that convey the power of Native women like never before?”

You have become known for your female figures. Can you share the process behind making Kaa?

I wanted to photograph a working, female, clay artist, and I reached out to my friend Kaa Folwell, the granddaughter of a dynasty of potters from Santa Clara. She was excited, and I will always remember very fondly when I brought her to the studio to talk about concept and she told me, “I would pose in a paper bag for you, Cara.” [Laughs.]

But for me, it was in that moment that I realized young Native women trusted

above Sheridan (Reclining Chemehuevi Woman in White Clay), 2017, archival pigment print, 663/4 × 44 in. opposite The Last Indian Market, 2015, archival pigment print, 21 × 72 in.

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pose that is so feminine and how we hold ourselves naturally. I don’t think a man could ever get that. It’s so subtle but so powerful. This is what it is to have a woman behind the camera. Kaa trusts me and I am protecting her in her vulnerability.

How did you deal with the people who said, “You can’t do that?”

When I started depicting the female Native nude, I would have conversations around the house, and the boys [Diego and Santiago Romero] would say, “You can’t do that.” My response was, “How can I do this and do it well? How can I take [the female Native nude] back?”

So I began working with Native women to transform the exploitative, white male gaze that has defined the canon.

me and maybe understood what I was doing. Ultimately, I wanted to show how the spirit of Clay Lady has been passed down through thousands of years to this young woman.

Kaa is from Santa Clara and I am from Chemehuevi. When I photograph another tribe, I have to bring my ancestral connection to the piece, because it brings me to the work as opposed to voyeurism of another tribe. We painted her in clay from a sacred place in Chemehuevi where there is a vein of pure white clay. It was also important not to use Santa Claran vernacular as the design on her nude body. That could be wrong or offensive to a living artist and that’s never my intention. So, we went back to our common connection of [ancestral Pueblo] design—where our ancestries both come from. The design placed on her is from a Mesa Verde vessel. We tried

a couple of designs, but it was no contest when we worked with this geometric lightning design. I think that’s interesting because Kaa uses a similar motif in her contemporary work. Sometimes I think the art begins to make itself, and we are just holding sacred space. These types of synchronistic things happen all the time during the process.

During the shoot, I wanted to capture motion using the most sophisticated techniques. I had tried and failed to capture motion before, so I researched and practiced until I figured out how to do it. This one is shot at 1/8000th of a second. It created that feeling of excitement, but it also visualizes Clay Lady’s temperamental nature and unpredictability.

Finally, I love the way Kaa is holding herself. There is something about that

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This is not to say that I didn’t have serious considerations about what my art was going to spark in viewers.

When you make female, figurative art in Indian Country, you feel like you are going to add to the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women. If you don’t take the time to really look at my pieces, that might be your first takeaway. But it’s meant to do the opposite.

It’s a subtle shift to put a Native woman behind the camera—to tell my story.

My female pieces have been true to my identity, to my lived experience. I am a strong Native woman. I love to show the emotion of these women through photography in the way that they really feel about themselves. It’s become the majority of my work.

I found the response in Indian Country, and particularly among women, has been overwhelmingly loving. Women have told me, “This is how I feel about my body, too.” I will continue [to produce female portraits] because there’s a truth that has to be told. We need to find a way to push the envelope and to reclaim our portraiture and our figurative art in the Native art world, because we have been abused, and we have been put in a box.

I don’t believe in staying silent on that

CARA ROMERO

above TV Indians, 2017, archival pigment print, edition 1/7, 2017, 42 × 61 in. opposite Kaa (Clay Lady with Mesa Verde Design), 2017, archival pigment print, 501/2 × 44 in

matter, but I am conscious of mistakes and hurting people.

What advice would you give to a young artist struggling with backlash?

As an artist, you must be able to endure critique. One time an elder whispered to me, “Let them make fun of you. The spirits will take care of them.” [Laughs.]

You can’t waste your time worrying too much about what other people think, but, as Native people, we are held to strict standards. I have pushed the envelope but very thoughtfully. It’s a tightrope walk at times, and while I’ve broken a taboo or two, I thought it was important to do so because I was telling a story that was a part of me and others I know. So, sometimes if we’re skirting the truth, I find a way to put it out there so maybe people won’t feel so alone like me.

What do you have to say about the label “Native American artist”?

I have this secret belief that all Natives are artists, that it comes with the DNA or the blood memory or something—to make everything beautiful. Or, to purpose art in a fundamentally economic way. I mean, I bet our whole cultures were far more centered around the value of each other’s arts … and trading for the most beautiful corn and pottery and turquoise and mocs.

For me, I am consciously trying to stay within the realms of being a Native American artist. I once had an existential crisis about this. It’s not to say I can’t make other types of art, but the art that I’m making today is about giving back to my community and relating to the outside world— the lived identity of a Chemehuevi girl.

I’ve had a lot of incredible support along this journey. It’s all a dream come true.

Not just for me, but for my community back at Chemehuevi. I hope more than anything I make them proud. Towük huivaniyüs. They know what that means.

What can we expect next from you?

I’m working on multiple series of female portraits with a Native female apprentice as I prepare for the next year. For the first time, I will directly address the missing and murdered Indigenous women epidemic through a series called Bring Her Home. I’ll work toward the Heard show and then the Santa Fe this summer.

I recently got the confirmation that I’ll show at Peters Projects in the summer of 2018 and, for me, that’s a dream come true. I also want to explore some other fun mythology stuff, and work on my new series, Coyote Tales.

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Alaska Native Customary Art Show Dena’ina Center

C

OLETTE BRANTINGHAM (Yup’ik) grew up in the remote community of Hooper Bay, Alaska, in the Yukon– Kuskokwim Delta. Every fall, she would help her mother harvest beach grass (beach wild rye) from the local sand dunes. Her mother wove grass into coiled baskets, and Collette and her sister often helped her make the basket starts.

Although Colette lives in Seward now, a community a few hundred miles southeast of her hometown, she continues to weave baskets made from Hooper Bay grass. Her relatives harvest it and send it to her in the mail. Colette says she has tried using grass grown in other parts of Alaska, but the Hooper Bay grass is the best grass there is—strong, a beautiful creamy color, and it reminds her of home. She weaves intricate, coiled baskets just like the ones her mother made years ago, and she also creates tiny grass basket earrings.

Colette was one of more than 170 artists who registered to sell artwork at the 2017 Alaska Native Customary Art Show held as part of the annual Alaska Federation of Natives Convention (AFN). Each year AFN brings together thousands of people from around Alaska, including members from 151 federally recognized tribes, 150 village corporations, 12 Alaska Native regional corporations, and 12 regional nonprofit and tribal consortia. Sometimes referred to locally as “Native New Year,” AFN provides an opportunity to visit with friends and family from around the state to discuss topics that are pressing for Alaska Native communities and to celebrate Alaska Native culture through art, culture, and dance.

The Alaska Native Customary Art Show is a highlight of every AFN convention. It is a chance to see what innovative art forms are being made around the state and to find treasures to take home or save for gifts.

The craft fair officially opens at 8:00 am, but by 9:00 am, some booths have already started to sell out, especially those selling kuspuks (also known as qaspeqs or atikłuks). The kuspuk is an iconic Alaska Native garment and typically sewn as a slip-on cloth shirt with a front pouch, a hood, and decorative trim.

In recent years, some of the most popular kuspuks have been fancy versions with sparkly chiffon and lace materials. More

relaxed versions are made with stretchy t-shirt material. Kuspuks have come to represent pride in Alaska Native culture, and they can be worn as an everyday garment or dressed up for work or special occasions. In the Alaska State legislature, many state lawmakers choose to wear kuspuks for “Kuspuk Friday” as a sign of respect for Alaska Native cultures.

Artists from the Bering Sea island community of Shishmaref often share a table where they sell exquisite ivory earrings and bracelets, whalebone carvings, bone dolls, and sealskin mukluks (slippers). Primarily a subsistence-based community, Shishmaref offers few fulltime jobs. For supplementary income, nearly every family participates in some form of art making using the byproducts of subsistence as materials. Ringed seal meat is consumed, and the fur is used to make hand-stitched mukluks. In the spring, hunters haul walrus from the ocean, the meat destined for freezers and the tusks and teeth saved to make into carved jewelry and sculptures.

A few artists sell raw materials like silver-colored seal pelts, luxuriant sea otter furs, smoked moose hides, rolls of walrus gut, sinew bundles, and dried grass. These raw materials tend to sell out fast. Jeremiah James (Tlingit) of Yakutat attends AFN to sell his sea otter and seal pelts. He shares the meat with his community, and the sales of his furs support his family and his business. In

above Walrus ivory bracelets, many featuring scrimshaw, at the Alaska Native Customary Art Show. Photo: Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq).

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addition to hunting, Jeremiah teaches skin sewing in Southeast Alaskan communities. Emily Johnson (Cup’ik) often sells grass that she collects from the remote community of Platinum alongside her baskets and dance fans.

Weavers treasure the distinct, natural, light-purple hue of Platinum grass.

Weavers who are not able to make the long trek to Platinum are grateful to be able to purchase grass that has been well cared for.

Smoked moosehide hair barrettes, vests, moccasins, and baby belts from a few booths fill the air with a delicious scent. Although most vendors purchase tanned moosehides from Canada to use for their craft, there is a growing interest in learning the process of tanning local hides. One vendor explained that to really understand the art form, we need to understand the whole context around making, including how the materials are processed. This year, Chickaloon Village and the Kenaitze Indian Tribe held a series of workshops focused on Indigenous moosehide tanning and sewing. Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna Athabascan-Paiute) and Jeannie Maxim (Ahtna) taught a moosehide-tanning workshop as part of the 2017 Elders and Youth Conference, an event that takes place during the three days prior to AFN. It will be interesting to see if next year’s art market will include more locally tanned moosehide for sale.

In addition to customary arts, the AFN market always has a few vendors who are taking Alaska Native arts in new directions. Earl Atchak (Cup’ik) of Chevak was selling a carved doll of Alyssa London (Tlingit), this year’s Miss Alaska USA, and another doll representing Alaska public radio personality Steve Heimel. Crystal Worl (Tlingit-Athabascan) of Juneau sold yoga pants, crop tops, and body dresses with formline designs through her business, Trickster Company.

Every year I leave AFN with my heart full and my bag packed with gifts for my family. The 2018 AFN convention is scheduled to take place October 18–20, 2018, in Anchorage.

—Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD

NEW YORK

Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center

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HE PRINTS and drawings of three generations of women from one family speak to the simultaneously universal and deeply personal experience of womanhood in the exhibition, Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait. Kinngait is the Inuktitut name for Cape Dorset in Nunavut, and the Inuktitut term, Akunnittinni, translates loosely to “between us”—fitting for the show’s images of Inuk domestic life and the lessons shared by and among women. The exhibition was on view in the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York June 10, 2017, through January 8, 2018, and will be traveling to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, where it will exhibit February 3 to May 27, 2018.

It was first shown in 2016 at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA).

Andrea Hanley (Navajo), MoCNA’s membership and programs manager, curated this exhibition with works from Edward J. Guarino’s collection.

The three Inuit artists, Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook, and Annie Pootoogook, are grandmother, mother, and daughter. While they are connected by artistic practice, especially printing, each has her own distinct subject matter and style. Their community is in far northern Canada, Baffin Island in Nunavut. Distanced from much of Canada and the larger art world, the artists of this region are typically selftaught and often classified as “outsider” artists. However, the artwork in this exhibition displays skill and vision fitting to its major museum venues.

The contemporary gallery space at the Gustav Heye Center is a long hallway,

and the exhibition is perfectly paced to move the viewer across the three generations to appreciate their individual aesthetics. Each artist is represented by six works, many delivering a pronounced sense of Native feminism.

The art of Pitseolak Ashoona (1904–1983), founding member of the Cape Dorset Fine Arts group, respected elder, and family matriarch, takes up half the gallery space. On display are some of her later works from the 1960s to early 1980s, created toward the end of her long and prolific life. Her works on paper depict Inuit life and spiritual beliefs. Despite the flatness of her lines, her expressive use of color lends an atmospheric quality to the work.

Energy and simplicity emerge from her innate understanding of form. In her stone-cut print Migration towards Our Summer Camp (1983), warm bits of yellow and red peek out from the black lines, providing surprising depth. In a particularly compelling print, Dreams of Motherhood (1969), a diminutive woman with a baby on her back sits atop a larger woman who looks up, distraught. As a mother and a grandmother by 1969, motherhood was the artist’s reality— not a dream—at the time of this work’s creation. The literal reading of the work as “motherhood on the mind” suggests a preoccupation with domesticity. The smaller, elevated figure holds an ulu, an Inuit tool for cutting and chopping food. The labor of motherhood is thus alluded to through Ashoona’s labor of art, of which both forms were taken up by her daughter, Napachie Pootoogook (1938–2002).

Napachie Pootoogook’s six prints date from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Her artistic style is more three-dimensional than her mother’s. She renders figures with a sense of mass, almost to the point of bulkiness. In contrast to Ashoona’s idyllic scenes, Pootoogook’s works are dark and deeply feminist in subject matter. She is an unapologetic social commentator concerned with male mistreatment of Inuit women.

Pootoogook uses passages of Inuktitut text, translated in the exhibition labels, and illustrated backgrounds to

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The act of cannibalization, taboo in Inuit culture except in cases of extreme starvation, serves as a metaphor for men taking all that women can give. …

above Annie Pootoogook (Inuk, 1969–2016), A Portrait of Pitseolak, 2003–04, graphite, ink, crayon on paper, Edward J. Guarino Collection. opposite Jon Corbett (Métis), Four Generations video still, 2015, singlechannel video (1:30 min.), collection of the artist.

communicate cautionary tales. The use of her own languages and careful depiction of individuals suggest that her primary audience is her own community. In her works on paper, women are traded as property, and alcoholism runs rampant. In Eating his Mother’s Remains (1999–2000), an ink-on-paper piece, a son happily cannibalizes his mother.

The act of cannibalization, taboo in Inuit culture except in cases of extreme starvation, serves as a metaphor for men taking all that women can give, to the detriment of the women. Such drawings

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are part fantasy and part grim reality, as more than a thousand Indigenous Canadian women are missing or have been murdered since 1980. The lack of value placed on Native women’s lives, even by men of their own community, is troubling and deeply resonant when expressed so plainly by an Inuk woman.

The drawings of Annie Pootoogook (1969–2016) provide a perfect conclusion to the exhibition. Her color choices and depictions of contemporary life evoke her grandmother’s work. In the interior spaces she portrays, an Inuit family watches television, embraces one another, and sleeps. In contrast with the stark reality of her mother’s art, her works in this exhibition seem filled with bright, cartoon-like happiness. The repetition of domestic objects throughout her work speaks to the banality and beauty of the everyday. A white mug with green leaves appears in several drawings, suggesting a developed studio practice at her home. A positive image of domesticity is communicated through a small family, a happy couple sometimes with a child. The interior of the dwelling has a rough floor but contains many modern conveniences. The single room for the whole family to sleep in suggests the harsh outside climate.

Annie Pootoogook references her artistic roots particularly in two works hung together on one wall. Her drawing, A Portrait of Pitseolak (2003–04), demonstrates her grandmother’s connection to modern culture. Ashoona wears blackframe glasses and clashing, patterned clothing, which demonstrate her flair while her quiet strength shines through.

Pootoogook’s smaller print, Pitseolak’s Glasses (2006), hangs above this piece, acting as a synecdoche to her grandmother’s presence. These works situate Annie Pootoogook as the latest generation of a respected female artistic dynasty.

The focused curation of this exhibition communicates the strength of these women living amidst the precariousness of a harsh environment. Between them—and us—exists a world of shared experiences of fear, comfort, and love, and the manual and emotional labor of womanhood.

—Marina Tyquiengco

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NEW YORK

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center

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OR THE TEN ARTISTS featured in the exhibition of new media at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, their work is the continuation, evolution, and transformation of cultural practices.

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, the first exhibition comprised solely of technology-based, experiential art at the museum, demonstrates the resiliency of Indigenous creativity in the digital age. Each of the works chosen by co-curators Kathleen Ash-Milby (Diné), associate curator at NMAI George Gustav Heye Center, and David Garneau (Métis), associate professor of visual arts at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, suggest a cultural transition: a movement forward toward innovation and technological experimentation while referencing their respective community’s ancient worldviews.

Being “plugged in” figuratively to community and literally to electricity, all the works draw upon customary Indigenous knowledge as well as numerous new technologies. Jon Corbett (Métis), a skilled computer programmer and artist, pulls his inspiration from beadwork (a technical innovation itself) to fashion family portraits that are composed of digital beads. His video, Four Generations (2015), challenges linear Western logic by reshaping computer screen pixels into bead-like spheres. “Sewn” onto the digital fabric of the video wall, they take the shape of a spiral and compose the portraits one bead at a time, slowly revealing the faces of his relatives.

In Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan 1 and 2 (We will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care, 2006), by Tlingit-Unangan artist Nicholas Galanin, a single dancer, Dan

Littlefield (Tlingit), crouches low in front of a large carved panel. He wears a wooden mask and is cloaked in a blanket with a formline crest. As he begins his rhythmic movements, the music he dances to is made up of electronic beats and synthesized sounds. The incongruous yet mesmerizing short film is succeeded by another, featuring a young man, David “Elsewhere” Burnal, who begins a modern, loose-limbed, freestyle dance to the drumbeats of Tlingit song in an empty loft space. Galanin’s novel use of video, movement, and song transcends and transmits culture across racial/ethnic barriers, creating an opportunity for sharing rather than appropriating.

Without reading the curator’s essay from the booklet that accompanies

the exhibition, one might miss the subtle warning Marianne Nicolson, PhD (Kwakwaka’wakw), gives in The Harbinger of Catastrophe (2017). Shaped to resemble a Northwest Coast bentwood box, the cool, greenish light emanating from within the carved glass casts shadows on the gallery walls, flooding then receding from the walls like tidal waters. Made specifically for the exhibition, Nicolson incorporates designs from different Native peoples and even references the purchase of Manhattan by the Dutch as a nod to NMAI’s location in what was once Lenape trade areas. With the box placed in the center of the room, Nicolson ingeniously uses the visitor’s own shadow to highlight their complicity in global climate issues.

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At the opposite end of the gallery, Raven Chacon’s installation, Still Life #3 (2015), ironically, vibrates with the soothing repetition of a woman’s voice emanating from speakers suspended in an arc along the center of the gallery.

Chacon (Diné) [profiled on page 52] mimics the passage of the creation story from generation to generation by repeating the Diné phrases in succession along the line of speakers. Text of this creation story, alternating between English and Diné, is printed on Plexiglas panels and mounted to cast shadows on the walls, animating them. All of this is bathed in the glow of a light that is timed to slowly change throughout the day—dawn (white), midday (blue), dusk (yellow), and night (red/black), echoing the journey through the four worlds of the Diné creation.

The five speakers in Aosamia’jij— Too Much Too Little (2017), by Jordan Bennett (Mi’kmaq), are arranged in a semicircle and look like a simple audio installation. Closer inspection reveals the cabinets with black-ash basketry grills, gracefully outlined in sweetgrass, were handcrafted by the artist and tied with delicate white ribbon. For Bennett, details matter. When preparing for this exhibition, he searched the keyword Mi’kmaq in the NMAI collection’s database. A series of photographs emerged documenting Joe “Amite” Jeddore, the great-great-uncle of a close friend, preparing for a hunt in the early 1930s.

Building on these connections and using handcrafted recording equipment, Bennett set out to capture sounds from the various locations in the photographs.

Each speaker represents a different site on the Samiajij Miawpukek Reserve on Conne River in Newfoundland and plays ambient sounds as well as dialogue by the family’s descendants.

Smashing preconceived notions of what Native art should be, the exhibition challenges audiences to experience Indigenous expressions in a new and electrified way. Only on view from November 10, 2017, to January 6, 2018, at the museum’s location at 1 Bowling Green in Manhattan, its short run diminishes the importance of new media and technology in contemporary Native arts.

—Danyelle Means

OMAHA

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Imagine there’s no countries / it isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for. …

—John Lennon and Yoko Ono

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N 2016, THE FIGHT for water rights at Standing Rock gained international attention; at the same time, a certain candidate advocated building a wall along the US–Mexico border. Curatorin-residence Risa Puleo considered how these two contentious issues are viewed as the continuation of colonial force and treaty violation, and how many animals—specifically the monarch butterfly—have never been constrained by artificial borders. Puleo conceptualized an exhibition around this butterfly’s migratory path.

This dovetailed with Gina Adams’s series, Its Honor Is Hereby Pledged (2014–present), in which Adams (Ojibwe-Lakota descent) commemorates each broken treaty on a vintage quilt. Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly features six of these amended quilts, which highlight select phrases from these shockingly vague documents. As symbols of colonialism and unfulfilled government contracts, they provide the conceptual foundation for the rest of the exhibition.

Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk), represented by Waterfall (1992), presided as a respected elder among the group of 38 artists. Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star’s photo series My Home Is Where My Tipi Sits (2011–17) is a witty response to Bernd and Hilla Becher’s and Ed Ruscha’s conceptual photo work from the 1960s. Venezuelan

artist Francisco Souto explained he created his small, fine pencil drawings of apparently banal Midwestern highway scenes after seeing the beauty of the rolling plains, so different from his mountainous homeland. The first work from Ecuadorian-American artist Ronny Quevedo’s series, The History of Rules and Measures (2013), an abstract collage dominated by shimmering gold leaf, suggests disparate associations: Roman Catholic icons, Inca textiles, even computer boards or undeciphered codes.

Cornucopia, a wall-sized collage

by Nanc y Friedemann-Sánchez (Colombian-American), appears to depict a large floral arrangement against a black background with mopa-mopa, an Indigenous, pre-Columbian lacquer technique. Two side panels, Landscape and Landfill, make the work a triptych.

Camouflaged within and alongside the beautiful bouquet, one may be surprised to discover men with rifles, jaguars, snakes, coffee beans masquerading as insects, and piles of tires. In her aesthetic and iconographic choices, the artist freely references the complex web of cultures that have crossed and combined throughout history.

Syncretism appears deceptively ordered in Friedemann-Sánchez’s controlled palettes. Her work is based on research into the attempted suppression (and recuperation) of Indigenous iconography by Spanish colonists in Colombia. Imported goods from Asia were greatly valued, and colonists began demanding Chinese-style lacquered boxes from Native artists. Of course, Indigenous iconography remained.

Friedemann-Sánchez takes her own approach by working on the scale of Abstract Expressionists and Color Field painters. She asserts, “American identity is not pure; we are all hybrid. We are all one America.”1 Omaha native Sarah Rowe (Ponca-Lakota) contributed a powerful community action/installation titled Soil (2017). The artist-healer hung ten prayer ties against a wall alternated with strands of handkerchiefs. Prayer ties typically have tiny bundles of tobacco,

1. Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez in discussion with the author, December 15, 2017.

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above Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan-Arikara-Hidatsa-Lakota) and Marty Two Bulls Jr. (Oglala Lakota), Wasted, 2017, glazed, painted, and collaged ceramics, 180 × 15 × 20 in. Photo: Andrea Ferber, PhD.

but some of these were filled with medicinal teas or other herbs. Each antique handkerchief had a circular black stain made from a mixture of essential oil and pigment. Spaces on the wall were left open for the four directions, and attendees at the opening were invited to fill the gaps. A glass jug filled with crude oil sat on the floor. Burning cedar and sage filled the galleries with a cleansing fragrance. Rowe sent the smoke upward with a hawk wing she uses in all her smudging ceremonies.2 Other works also evoke the sacred.

Michoacánx (2017) is an exquisite installation by Rodolfo Marron III (Chicanx).3 On a turquoise wall the artist hung a small altar bordered with pink flowers and skirted in white satin. Pinned neatly on either side are numerous small, intimate objects, both collected and purchased: old family photographs, lace, rosaries, cacti, statues of the Virgin, flowers, cicadas, candles. This intensely personal work shares a private engagement and nostalgia for Mexican/Chicanx culture that is not as prominent in the

Midwest, where Marron grew up, as it is in the Southwest, notably Los Angeles, where he was born. Many can relate to a cross-cultural experience, or that of negotiating multiple cultural identities.

Cannupa Hanska Luger (MandanArikara-Hidatsa-Lakota) and Marty Two Bulls Jr. (Oglala Lakota) collaborated to create Wasted (2017), a collection of more than one hundred ceramic pieces shaped into longneck bottles, milk jugs, soda cans, cigarette butts, and bullets.

Targets are painted on many, and several are branded with stereotypical labels (“Redman,” “Braves”). Some appear to have been shot, but instead of shattering like glass would, the side is blown open like a gaping wound. Each artist cast pieces in their own studio. Though eight hundred miles apart (Luger is in Santa Fe, Two Bulls is in Rapid City), they regularly exchange photos to maintain a common aesthetic.4 Like their work in other media (and individually), Wasted confronts the impact of colonial and commercial forces on Indigenous cultures.

All the works in Monarchs are conceptually complex with multiple levels of meaning. Chicanx artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores’s Nopales hibridos: An Imaginary World of a Rascuache-Futurism (2017) is ripe for semiotic interpretation. This ceramic installation features an eight-foot cactus on a golden disc-shaped platform.

Self-portraits emerge from some buds.

A speech bubble emerging from one reads, “Our existence is resistance,” a reference to both the hardy succulents and all peoples surviving colonialism.

Six ceramic eagles, three white and three brown, hang on the walls. Another sits atop the cactus, in reference to the Nahua myth of the founding of Tenochtitlan.5 Monarchs presents a diverse range of works within themes of inherited knowledge and migration. Viewers will question (in)visibility and better understand the artifice of borders.

A catalogue is forthcoming.

Monarchs is on display through February 24, 2018.

—Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

2. Sarah Rowe in discussion with the author, December 18, 2017. The artist would like to thank her assistants Kim Darling and Nicholas Wasserberger.

3. The title refers to the western state in Mexico from which his family originated; specifically, his mother and eldest brother.

4. Marty Two Bulls Jr. in discussion with the author, December 18, 2017.

5. Salvador Jiménez-Flores in discussion with the author, December 26, 2017.

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BOOK REVIEWS A Bag Worth a Pony: The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag Marcia G. Anderson Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2017

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N 1981, MARCIA G. ANDERSON began her lifelong inquiry into understanding the gashkibidaagan (bandolier bag) when, as the newly hired collections curator at the Minnesota Historical Society, she first encountered a storage box full of gashkibidaaganag (bandolier bags). “They spoke to me,” Anderson writes. “I am by training a material culture specialist drawn to fabric, crafts, and women’s work, and these objects appealed to all my interests, and more. The mass, visual beauty and composition of the bags, as well as their desperate need for improved preservation seduced me.”

Since their first meeting, Anderson has passionately pursued as much knowledge as possible about bandolier bags; that is, men’s beaded pouches worn across the chest. Her endeavors

range from extensive time spent with Ojibwe bead artists and tribal government representatives to resourceful, in-depth studies in museum collections and archives. This culmination of findings materializes in the recent publication, A Bag Worth a Pony: The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag. Before delving into a deeper discussion about A Bag Worth a Pony, though, understanding the origin of its title helps place Anderson’s research within Native American studies and art history and their intersections with disciplines such as history and economics. Anderson includes an 1879 quote from Episcopalian missionary Joseph A. Gilfillan about “the beadwork pouches” being worth a pony in trade. Later, she shares more broadly from her research: “Perhaps their most significant original role was one recorded in many of the earliest chronicles as well as in more recent accounts.

This use defines the gashkibidaagan as a means of barter or exchange: a bag was worth a pony in trade with the Dakota and Lakota (usually called Sioux in historical accounts) and other western tribes.” Hence, the book’s title is an invitation for scholars from a multitude of disciplines to engage its material.

Anderson makes her purpose clear from the outset. She wants to share her love of these objects. Anderson writes, “I felt compelled to find a way to share the story of gashkibidaaganag with individuals descended from the bags’ makers, with scholars of ethnographic material culture, and with those who simply take pleasure in the beauty of extraordinary objects.” While it probably does interest ethnographers, A Bag Worth a Pony also appeals to a much wider audience.

Organized into two main parts, “A Bag Worth a Pony” and “Reservation Stories,” and three appendices,

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“Bandolier Bags at the Minnesota Historical Society,” “Bandolier Bag Care, Handling, Storage, and Cleaning,” and “Bags in Other Collections,” the book materializes in beguilingly complex layers of imagery and information working on numerous levels.

Community members will be especially interested in the first-account narratives about gashkibidaagan, while art lovers surely will appreciate the abundance of beautiful imagery. Scholars from a broad range of disciplines will find original, multifarious research unavailable in any other publication.

Anderson’s methodolog y in acquiring knowledge about bandolier bags—particularly ones created

by Ojibwe artists—contributes to the overall success of A Bag Worth a Pony.

When she first laid eyes on the box of gashkibidaaganag in 1981, a reliable and comprehensive record about these objects was not available. Obstacles addressed in the book, like a historical lack of proactive interest by institutions because they did not belong to a “specific category of focus, such as women’s bead artistry,” contributed to the lack of available scholarship.

Anderson employed available resources to understand all she could about bandolier bags. She examined those in public or private collections, interviewed people who make them, read about them in out-of-print periodicals, and studied them in the written records of deceased ethnographers and collectors.

Anderson supports her findings through an abundance of stunning images. These range from detailed, color photographs of gashkibidaaganag to black-and-white archival photographs and postcards of people wearing them, as well as detailed illustrations demonstrating types of stitching and weaving techniques. This strong pictorial

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presence in A Bag Worth a Pony contributes greatly to its appeal.

My favorite illustration is of otter’s tracks in the snow on page 59 to show the design influence for the otter-track motif combined with the sampler of historical line stitches created by Nawajibigokwe (Central Rock Woman, or Mrs. Wawweyaycumig) of the White Earth Reservation. Sadly, only limited information regarding the sampler exists: Anderson states that Nawajibigokwe made it for ethnographer and ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore who lived from 1867 to 1957.

While tremendously successful, A Bag Worth a Pony presents readers with a couple of minor challenges. The first challenge is slogging through the plenitude of beguiling information.

Introducing copious new theories and information within layers of comprehensive knowledge might leave readers feeling overwhelmed at times.

In addition, Anderson implements a text citation method inconsistent with the “big three” established styles of writing. Superscript endnote numbers are found only at the end of paragraphs, which can be confusing.

Consequently, readers may not know if a note corresponds with the whole paragraph or just a sentence in the paragraph.

That said, Anderson’s accomplishments far outweigh any of its minor setbacks. A Bag Worth a Pony effectively curates a comprehensive body of information about Ojibwe bandolier bags and manages to appeal to a diverse readership who will also fall in love with the gashkibidaagan through the eyes of Anderson. Now it is up to the next generation of artists, community members, and scholars to further the conversation and preservation of gashkibidaagan through contributions about this seductive artwork.

—Jean Merz-Edwards

Of God and Mortal Men: T.C. Cannon Ann E. Marshall and Diana F. Pardue, eds.

Museum of New Mexico Press, 2017

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N HER 1995 BOOK, T.C. Cannon: He Stood in the Sun, Joan Frederick wrote, “T.C. Cannon was to the world of contemporary Native American art what James Dean was to American movie culture.” Cool, visionary, and prolific, Cannon died young like the movie star, but his impact on the art world is proving to exceed Dean’s influence on cinema.

Frederick’s book was the last extensive work on this Kiowa-Caddo artist’s work and life until this year’s Of God and Mortal Men: T.C. Cannon, edited by Ann E. Marshall and Diana F. Pardue. Published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in association with the Heard Museum, the book accompanies the Heard’s exhibition Of God and Mortal Men: Masterworks by T.C. Cannon from the Nancy and Richard Bloch Collection. Heard Museum Director and CEO David M. Roche writes in the introduction, “A primary goal of this exhibition and book is to encourage a more inclusive approach to interpreting the work of T.C. Cannon.”

To accomplish that goal, the book presents seven essays (not including Roche’s introduction) by Pulitzer Prize-winning Kiowa author N. Scott

Momaday; curators John P. Lukavic (Denver Art Museum), Gilbert Vicario (Phoenix Art Museum) and David Rettig (Allan Houser, Inc.); and the book’s editors, Marshall and Pardue, the Heard’s director of curation and research and curator of collections, respectively.

It includes over 50 full-page, full-color photographs of the artist and his paintings, sketches, and poetry, along with work by his contemporaries and artistic descendants. The exhibition and book feature nine major Cannon paintings from the Bloch collection, many of which had not been shown publicly before.

The book and exhibition title are inspired by a sentence in Cannon’s statement for the 1974 Heard Museum’s Native American Fine Art Invitational (an annual exhibition that ran from 1983 through 1997). In it, Cannon writes, “I must dwell in places where I am always in awe of God and mortal men.” The spiritual and philosophical energy that permeate Cannon’s artwork and poetry is part of what cemented his legacy after his untimely death. That energy helped build what has become near-legendary cultural status in the world of Indian art.

The essays in this book acknowledge it all—the energy, the artistic legacy, and the emerging iconic status—while keeping a firm grasp on the artist as an actual person who honed his craft through mentorship, research, and plain, old, paint-spattered work.

The essays are bound by their concern with the place Cannon occupies in time: his literal, historic mortality, his artistic immortality, and his consciousness of both. They move from the personal/spiritual to the historical to the critical, beginning with Marshall’s “A Big Sister Remembers Tee: Tommy Wayne, Tommy, Tee Cee, T.C.,” for which she interviewed Cannon’s sister Joyce Cannon Yi (Kiowa-Caddo). The short piece recounts memories from the artist’s childhood and his time at the San Francisco Art Institute, an era about which “little has been written,” according to Lukavic’s essay later in the book. Lukavic covers Cannon’s formative years at the Institute of American Indian SPRING 2018 | 83

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above T.C. Cannon (Kiowa-Caddo, 1946–1978), Turn of the Century Dandy, 1975, oil, acrylic on canvas, from the Nancy and Richard Bloch Collection. Reproduced by permission of the Estate of T.C. Cannon. © 2017 Estate of T.C. Cannon.

Arts. He writes, “Cannon’s paintings have stories to tell—some rooted in the past, some in the present, but all with a message for the future. While storytelling is something found in all cultures, it is integral even to the language of Cannon’s Kiowa people.” Momaday’s lyrical essay attests to that assertion, placing Cannon within their shared Kiowa heritage as a poet, artist, and visionary.

Rettig’s humble, straightforward contribution is a bridge between the personal/spiritual essays and the historical/critical ones. Rettig met Cannon in 1975, when Cannon served as artist in residence at Dartmouth College, where Rettig was a work-study assistant. Their

friendship and professional relationship continued until Cannon’s death in 1978.

Rettig describes what he experienced of the artist’s process, influences, and personality in the years just prior to his death.

M a r s h a l l ’s s e c o n d e s s a y, “Inviting Change: The Heard Museum Invitationals’ Context for Cannon,” begins the historical/critical section of the book. It outlines the history of the Invitational and Cannon’s place, and also lack thereof, in it. Though Cannon’s work has since been extensively supported by the Heard, it appeared in the Invitational only twice: in a painting exhibition in 1974 and a drawing exhibition in 1977.

Marshall’s essay describes how Cannon’s work in the Invitationals “epitomizes the era” of the 1970s, when the museum underwent an important change in focus.

Pardue and Vicario’s critical essays finish the book, seeking to situate

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Cannon among his contemporaries and descendants (Pardue) and within the greater world of American art history (Vicario). Pardue’s essay explores Cannon’s artistic relationship to his contemporary, sculptor Bob Haozous (Chiricahua Apache), and a series of later artists upon whose work Cannon’s influence is notable. Pardue relates these artists, David Bradley (White Earth Ojibwe), Judith Lowry (MaiduHammawi-Washoe), Kent Monkman (Cree), America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), and Marla Allison (Laguna), to Cannon by their “ability to tell a story, one that speaks to history and reveals that history is rooted not only in the story that is told but in the perspective of the one who tells the story.” Vicario writes that his “interest in Cannon’s work is driven by a need to position his practice against a wide range of artistic influences” that includes many of the major art movements of the artist’s time, with consideration of “social, political, and cultural” influences. He places Cannon alongside sculptor Luis Jimenez and “other artistic practitioners who were similarly working in the margins of the American mainstream…”

Lukavic, echoing Frederick, writes that Cannon “was James Dean and Bob Dylan rolled into one,” and each essay in this collection delicately navigates his legacy without unduly adding to the myth-making that could turn him into a romantic icon rather than the witty, working, very much living artist that he was. Momaday writes, “He had thoughts of dying young. Mortality and immortality were like angels on his shoulders.

He was a mortal man with immortal obligations.”

Cannon was a poet, a singer, a visionary, and a storyteller in paint.

The essays placed between his paintings, sketches, and poems respectfully encompass the many spaces Cannon occupied and still occupies. The book is a fitting accompaniment to an important exhibition and a valuable addition to the ever-growing body of Cannon scholarship.

—Stacy Pratt, PhD

— MEMORIAL —

TONY HUNT SR. August 24, 1942–December 15, 2017

M

Y GRANDFATHER, Chief Mungo Martin, decided from the day I was born I would be an artist. Not only did I learn to carve, I learned about our dancing, our culture,” Tony Hunt told a Canadian Press reporter in 1975.1 The hereditary chief from the Kwagu’ł branch of the Kwakwaka’wakw people, Anthony “Tony” Hunt Sr. was a grandson, son, brother, cousin, father, and grandfather of accomplished woodcarvers. He was born in Alert Bay, British Columbia, as the eldest of six sons to Helen and Henry Hunt. When he was ten years old, he and his family moved to Victoria.

Chief Hunt’s great-grandfather was George Hunt, a Kwakwaka’wakw ethnographer who collected works for an exhibition of Northwest Coast art at the Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Hunt’s step-grandfather was Mungo Martin, who began teaching both Hunt and his father Henry how to carve when Hunt was ten. Ultimately, Hunt inherited Martin’s carving tools. In 1958, Martin, his son, and grandson carved a hundred-foot pole to honor Canadian’s Aboriginal World War II veterans that was presented to Queen Elizabeth and erected in Windsor Great Park in England. In 1960, Hunt assisted Martin with one of the last poles he would carve—a pole donated by the Nation of Canada to Mexico to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its independence.

From 1962 to 1972, Hunt assisted his father carving totem poles at Thunderbird Park for the British Columbia Provincial Museum in Victoria. The father-son team gained national recognition when they carved a 65-foot-tall totem pole for the Indians of Canada pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.

In 1970, Hunt opened Arts of the Raven Gallery in Victoria, which featured

above Tony Hunt Sr. (Kwakwaka’wakw, 1942–2017), Bonn Totem Pole, 1979, red cedar, Freizeitpark Rheinaue, Bonn, Germany. Photo: Hans Weingartz (CC BY-SA 2.0 DE).

a woodcarving studio with numerous apprentices. His gallery showcases some of the finest Northwest Coast art of the times, as opposed to “drugstore art,” a term he used to describe cheap knockoffs. Besides carving totem poles, model poles, masks, drums, rattles, and spoons, Hunt also created formline gold and silver jewelry, serigraph prints, and acrylic paintings during this time.

The same year he opened his gallery, Hunt and his father carved a pole to honor the memory of Mungo Martin for the Alert Bay Cemetery, the first erected there in 40 years. Hunt carved several of the Route of the Totem Poles including one at the Sidney side of the Sidney–Washington State Ferries Terminal on Vancouver Island and one in West Vancouver– Centennial Park in Horseshoe Bay. Eventually Chief Hunt’s recognition as a carver grew across national

boundaries. He carved poles for places as diverse as Morioka, Japan; Bonn, Germany; and Suzhou, China. One of his most publicized artworks was the 40-foot pole he carved for Kraft, Inc. The founder of Kraft purchased a pole in 1929 but weather and time had damaged it, so the company returned the pole to British Columbia where Hunt faithfully rendered a new one in its likeness. Kraft erected this pole in Lincoln Park, Chicago, in 1985.

By 1986, Hunt had carved more than 50 full-sized poles, for events and places such as for the Field Museum’s American Indian festival in Chicago (1968), Park and Tilford Gardens in North Vancouver (1972), the Heard Museum in Phoenix (1973), and the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles (1973).

The artist not only carved wood, he also carved stone. His masculine, fourand-a-half-ton stone sculpture, Raven Transforming into Man (1982), is in the permanent collection of the Canadian Museum of History.

In addition to his numerous duties to his tribe and family, Hunt gave innumerable demonstrations and public talks and served as a board member of the Society for the Furtherance of British Columbia Indian Arts and Crafts and of the Canadian Craft Council. In recognition of his extraordinary life’s work, he was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010.

Tony Hunt Sr. followed his son, Tony Hunt Jr., to the next world, after his son succumbed to an illness on October 12, 2017.

Forty-five years ago, reflecting upon the influence of his grandfather and mentor Mungo Martin, Tony said, “He left me with such a responsibility—teaching people how to dance, how to design, how to carve. I went out to prove to him I could justify his teaching and certainly I’m satisfied now that I’ve done all the things he wanted me to do.”2 ­ —America Meredith

1. “Indian art display captures cultural vitality,” The Brandon Sun (November 8, 1975): 17.

2. “Kwakiutl chief in popular demand,” Nanaimo Daily News (December 8, 1983): 7.

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— MEMORIAL —

MARK TAHBO April 13, 1958–December 23, 2017

A

top Mark Tahbo with one of his pots. bottom Mark Tahbo (Hopi-Tewa, 1958–2017), Jar with Moths, handprocessed and pit-fired clay, clay slip. Both images courtesy of King Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona.

MASTER CERAMIC ARTIST known for his innovative interpretations of ancient Hopi designs, Mark Tahbo (Hopi-Tewa) died of natural causes at his home in Polacca, Arizona, this past December.

He was one of the few male Hopi-Tewa potters.

Mark came from a family of esteemed ceramic artists.

His late parents, Mary and Ramon Tahbo, and both his sisters, Pamela Tahbo Namingha and the late Dianne Tahbo Howato, are known as successful ceramic artists. Mark’s pottery continued in the legacy of his great-grandmother, Grace Chapella, and grandmother, Alma Tahbo. Chapella, who learned to make pottery from her neighbor Nampeyo, helped revive pottery designs from Sikyátki, made pots beyond her one hundredth birthday, and was the first person from the Hopi Reservation to fly in a plane in 1927.

His relatives taught Mark all the processes of potterymaking from harvesting and processing his own clay to firing the finished pots outside. He chose a clay that fired to a golden honey color characteristic of historic Hopi and Hopi-Tewa pottery.

Known for his charm and his laugh, Mark touched the lives of many people through his teaching and his pottery.

Since 1991, Mark taught classes in making Hopi-Tewa-style pottery at Idyllwild Arts in California where he impacted the lives of students, faculty, and colleagues each summer.

With his pottery, Mark leaves behind a distinctive and accomplished body of work that can be found worldwide in private collections, galleries, and museums. “My pots today have a lot more ‘being’ than just a pot,” Mark once told the late ceramic artist and conservator Rick Dillingham. “To me they have life and sensitivity, just like a human being. When I create a pot, I breathe life into it and hope it lives.”1 Charles S. King, owner of King Galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona, reminisces, “Mark Tahbo spent a career defying limitations. He was one of the first male potters at Hopi to use traditional designs. He encouraged the use of outdoor firings and techniques and loved dynamic blushes on his pottery. He taught and educated numerous other potters.” King continues, “He willingly shared his knowledge, culture, and friendship with collectors around the world. He was not afraid to try something new and different in his pottery shapes or designs but still honored his ancestry. I think his impact will be felt for years and his passing creates the loss of a great artist and friend.”

Idyllwild Arts will host a celebration of Mark Tahbo’s life this coming summer.

—Jean Merz-Edwards 1. Rick Dillingham, Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 8.

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— MEMORIAL —

PAUL VIGIL June 21, 1932–January 17, 2018

P

AUL JOSE VIGIL OF TESUQUE PUEBLO was a meticulous watercolorist best known for his portrayals of Tewa dancers. His mother was Pablita Suazo Vigil and his father was Tomás Vigil (1889–1960), whose Tewa name Pan Yo Pin translates to “Summer Mountain.”1 The elder Vigil was a self-taught artist. In the 1910s and 1920s, the San Ildefonso School painters were active nearby in their pueblo to the north, but Tomás was one of the few and first easel painters active during this time in Tesuque Pueblo.

The Flatstyle genre that Tomás and Paul Vigil’s works fall into is commonly described as the Studio Style and associated with the Studio at Santa Fe Indian School established by Dorothy Dunn and where Gerónima Cruz Montoya (Ohkay Owingeh, 1915–2015) taught art from 1937 to 1962. However, the style preceded the school and continued long after its close.

Tomás and Paul Vigil present a branch of the genre operating independently from the Studio.

“I learned by watching my father,” Paul told Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Gussie Fauntleroy in 1992. “I was very small but it came naturally. I fooled around with painting and drawing and got very interested in it.”2 As a second-generation Flatstyle easel artist, Paul Vigil carried this genre into the 21st century during his 50-year painting career.

While his painting garnered awards even in high school, Paul was encouraged to seek a practical trade by his older brother. He studied woodworking at Saint Catherine’s Industrial Indian School in Santa Fe, and after serving in the US Army for two years Paul worked as a carpenter in the Navajo Nation. He kept painting occasionally and sold a piece that was published in a magazine in 1967.

In 1980, he decided to move his family back to Tesuque to reconnect with his people and culture. By then he had married his wife, Alice, and the couple ultimately had nine children.

There he served on tribal council on several occasions.

Paul resumed painting and in 1981 began selling his work to Stephen Fox of New Millennium Fine Art Gallery in Santa Fe. During the 1990s, he seriously devoted himself to his painting. He won a first place award at Santa Fe Indian Market in 1991, and the Poeh Center at Pojoaque Pueblo featured him a solo exhibition in 1992 that included twelve watercolor works on paper.

Former Pojoaque Pueblo Governor George Rivera (Pojoaque), who served as executive director of the Poeh Center in the early 1990s, first encountered Paul’s painting in a relative’s house during a feast day at Tesuque. Rivera said, “What impressed me immediately was the detail and vitality

above Paul Vigil (Tesuque, 1932–2018), Skunk Unknowingly Sharing Bear’s Watermelon, 1962, watercolor on paper, 8 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. Image courtesy of Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.

of the dancers he depicts. His paintings are very true to the actual Pueblo dances.”3 Paul Vigil’s brushwork and penmanship were impeccable.

Most of his paintings feature detailed Tewa dancers in motion with stylized Pueblo motifs and abstract depictions of plants to hint at scenery on otherwise untouched backgrounds. He also painted a series of animals that revealed his more whimsical side.

The artist demonstrated at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in the 1990s and exhibited at Warrior Maiden Art in the 2000s. A mural he painted of buffalo dancers remains on display at Camel Rock Casino, owned by Tesuque Pueblo.

A series of strokes in recent years ended Paul’s painting practice, but he continued to draw. His legacy will live on with his children, grandchildren, and other relatives whom he taught to draw and paint. ­—America Meredith

1. Jeanne O. Snodgrass, American Indian Painters: A Biographical Directory (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1968), 205–206.

2. Gussie Fauntleroy, “Poeh Center opens with work of Paul Vigil,” The Santa Fe New Mexican (May 22, 1992): 170.

3. Ibid.

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ART+LITERATURE

ART + LITERATURE: MI’KMAQ POET, ARTIST, AND EDUCATOR

MICHELLE SYLLIBOY

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

B

ORN IN BOSTON, Massachusetts, Michelle Sylliboy was raised in We’koqmaq First Nation on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, on Mi’kmaq territory. Sylliboy moved to the West Coast of Canada, the hereditary territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

There she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and a master’s degree in education at Simon Fraser University. Currently, Sylliboy is a doctoral candidate student in the philosophy of education (curriculum theory and implementation) program at Simon Fraser University. She is also a founding member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective–West Coast, which promotes Indigenous writing initiatives and publications in Western Canada.

From 2001 to the present, Sylliboy has worked as an Aboriginal education enhancement worker at the Vancouver School Board, which bridges different communities and facilitates student-centered success using Indigenous worldviews and ways of knowing. For over 20 years, Sylliboy has also worked as a curator and artist for Poetic Public Spaces, a nomadic art gallery and project space based in Vancouver dedicated to showcasing interdisciplinary Indigenous artwork and performances. In June 2016, she curated a poetic evening, “The Art of Reconciliation,” where she asked artists to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. As an activist, Sylliboy has organized international gatherings of two-spirit Indigenous people through various events and fundraisers, most notably the Five Elements fundraiser in Vancouver.

I spoke with Michelle Sylliboy by phone in early December 2017.

MRS: Beginning with your early life, how did you come to writing?

MS: Hmm, let me see, I’ve been writing poetry for as long as I can remember.

I started writing in 1988, but I didn’t quite take it seriously. It wasn’t until after completing the TYP [Transitional Year Programme] at U of T [University of Toronto] and moving to Vancouver that I started to take it seriously. Vancouver opened up opportunities to meet other writers, and as the years went by, I just kept reading and meeting incredible Indigenous writers. I was very lucky. It was the place to be in the early ’90s. One of my friends, before she became my professor later in life, did her master’s degree at Harvard University. She was instrumental in putting together these poetry groups and eventually published a chapbook of everyone’s poetry. It was the first time my poem was ever published, albeit in a small publication, because I think only a handful of people saw it [laughs].

It’s still a publication!

I was quite young, and I was really blessed by my friend for giving me this opportunity to harness my writing skills at such a young age. I was in my early 20s and, without realizing, I slowly worked my skills from there.

How do you use poetry and writing in your educational work?

Right now, I’m doing my fieldwork for my PhD in philosophy of education, and one of the projects I will be facilitating is a Mi’kmaq hieroglyphics poetry book.

I will be inviting people from my nation

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to create Mi’kmaq komqwejwi’kasikl (hieroglyphic) poetry, the first of its kind.

The goal is to reclaim and repatriate our komqwejwi’kasikl as they were originally used, as an everyday language. It was originally published to convert Mi’kmaq people into the Catholic system in the early 1670s. The story that is being told in the history books is interesting. After various unsuccessful attempts, a priest found himself unable to convert the Mi’kmaq people to Catholicism. It wasn’t until one day the priest noticed children writing on birch bark after every catechism lesson. The nefarious priest saw an opportunity and he began to gather and collect the birchbark and successfully transcribe the Catholic prayers using our komqwejwi’kasikl symbols. The history of course is one-sided, but it is still my goal to use my educational pursuits by repatriating the komqwejwi’kasikl language as an everyday language. As a poet, my natural instinct is to create Mi’kmaq komqwejwi’kasikl poetry, and that is an exciting prospect.

Let’s talk writing. What is your writing philosophy and could you describe it?

I’m an artist, so being miserable helps!

[Laughs]. Creative angst, the sensitive soul, all the usual suspects! I think what moves me sometimes is how the heart beats at the moment. It also depends on what’s happening in my life. Stillness has to be a contributor to my writing. I have to be quiet in that space, and then I start writing. If it’s too chaotic, nothing comes.

Your first manuscript of poetry is slated to be published. What is this book about and how did it come into being?

I wouldn’t call it my manuscript yet. I’m changing what’s happening to the work because of the hieroglyphic project for my PhD. I would like my first book of poetry to be in the Mi’kmaq komqwejwi’kasikl language. I’ve been trying to figure out

ART+LITERATURE

the technical aspects of this publishing business [but] maybe I should leave it up to the editors [laughs].

I’ve read your work in various publications; there was one poem in Ricepaper Magazine.

Oh really! Read that to me …

Ya? It’s called “Twists and mighty turns.”

Going back through blood sweat and mid career mood swings was a huge decision the way characters resemble an old black and white movie on a bad day triggers played host to the best sellers list of past and present you can hardly move back without baggage teeter totter metaphor’s standing by while white picket doors built sideways play mind games from another world.

It’s easy to drive, drive, drive without ever looking back in someone else’s window someone else’s beetle juice of sorrows for some reason temporarily make you feel better do we purposely tempt old souls to wander around knocking on doors for a cup of prayers making peace with their own past through memories through dreams which connect to our very own spiritual growth and healing peace is a mediating transforming collective process transform the collective transform the world as we connect to those who listen

above Michelle Sylliboy (Mi’kmaq), komqwejwi’kasikl, 2017, digital photograph. opposite Michelle Syllboy (Mi’kmaq), Self-Portrait, digital photograph.

Both images courtesy of the artist.

by recognizing within yourself the power we all have

over the past two decades. Do you see a shift in your subject matter or approach?

by creating a world that makes sense.1

I think so. As an artist, especially as a poet, your job is to write about the truth. We are the truth-tellers of the world. At the same time—making sure your reality, your perspective, your voice is being heard.

Creating and acknowledging how you see the world by not quieting the voice.

Oh wow, I wrote that when I first moved back to Nova Scotia in 2010. I was inspired about my move home after being away for many years. I had already made several attempts to move home, but it was that particular move. I kept getting these flashbacks of when I was homeless.

It was difficult, and I had a lot of angst about moving home, so a lot of triggers resurrected triggers that I hadn’t dealt with. That’s when that particular poem surfaced.

Your poems speak to many themes— memory, peace, reconciliation, power, and so forth. You’re translating the stuff of life into words. That’s not an easy process.

No, it’s not easy. Thankfully, I enjoyed writing that poem. It still resonates, but in a different way. I haven’t heard or seen that poem in a while. It’s actually good [laughs].

I hope I did it justice! I’m curious to know how your work has transformed

Who is your audience and for whom do you write?

You write for yourself first. At the same time, you write for the audience that is willing and ready to listen. I think as First Nations people, we are constantly fighting to be heard. Whether people realize it or not, we are capable of telling our own stories. I don’t want other people to tell my stories. Perhaps it’s my age, but it’s important to tell these stories from a place of wellness and of peace. [But] you should also write when you’re angry and when you feel angst—not to walk away from it.

I’m not afraid to write what I feel.

What do you struggle with when writing and how do you overcome it?

That depends on the situation, but before I can answer that question … I have to

1. Michelle Sylliboy, “Twists and Mighty Turns,” Ricepaper Magazine (2012), web.

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ART+LITERATURE

I personally love editors. When I started my PhD, I was told that I need editors. I don’t shy away from asking for help, so, not to be afraid of your editor [laughs]. I don’t know if I’ve ever been given advice or I choose to remember what I want to remember as advice [laughs]. I often write from the heart. I don’t deny that energy.

Who are you reading right now? Who is your most crucial writing influence?

My biggest influence, believe it or not, was Maya Angelou. I really adore the way she wrote. She wrote for an inclusive audience of all nations. Every time I write, I try to acknowledge all nations. If you look at the medicine wheel, it acknowledges everyone: the yellow, the black, the red, the white, the other. They are all part of the medicine wheel. I suppose that would answer your previous question, too.

above Richard Silliboy (Mi’kmaq), Potato Basket, brown ash. Photo: David Shultz. Image courtesy of Home & Away Gallery, Kennebunkport, Maine.

Richard Silliboy of Littleton, Maine, is a first language Mi’kmaq speaker. Until the 1960s, many Mi’kmaq families worked on local potato farmed during harvests. His entire family made potato baskets to sell to farmers. Silliboy fought for federal recognition of his tribe, Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians, and has served on the tribal council. He managed an artist cooperative, Basket Bank in Presque Isle and has served as president of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance.

acknowledge where I’m coming from historically. Unlike most people, I have two sets of parents. I already buried my biological parents … My adoptive father just passed away last week; we buried him two days ago. Fortunately for me, I’m related to both my parents who raised me.

My mother’s half-sister raised me, and my mother’s half-sister married my mother’s first cousin, who incidentally ended up becoming the grand chief of the Mi’kmaq Nation. My father who raised me was a product of the residential school system.

My biological mother was also a product of the residential school system.

I think my artistic practice comes from that place of the unknown—constantly answering those “why” questions—the missing aspects of my life that never came into being. Ironically, communicating with my father was an issue.

I also recognize that communication was taken away from those who went to residential school. Healing from these losses and traumas took a very long time to understand. I’m still in the healing phase, possibly for good. Unfortunately, my father and I never had a chance to discuss our loss. Maybe one day I’ll write about that loss. I did write a poem that was published recently in the Capilano Review about what was missing and what happened with my own journey, as a child of a survivor, and how being a child of a survivor impacted my life as an artist, as a writer, as a human being. I was definitely impacted as an intergenerational survivor and as a human being. I suppose I’ll forever have these talks with my dad now—spiritually.

What is the most important writing advice you ever received?

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Coincidentally, I was just listening to Maya Angelou last night … I needed a way to calm my energy and re-center from the loss of my father. Last night, before heading to bed, I started to think about Maya Angelou and how her voice is so soothing and calming. So, I went on YouTube and started listening to her. She’s very grounding—an incredible poet and, from what I observed as a fan, she was an incredible human being. I regret never meeting her. To be honest, I don’t know what I would have said to her! [Laughs.] I would’ve been a star-struck poet.

Do you have any projects planned for the future?

As part of my doctorate fieldwork, I will be the artist-in-residence at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts sculpting the hieroglyphic language in stone and facilitating community capacity workshops involving the komqwejwi’kasikl language. The first project I will be doing is to sculpt in marble or alabaster the komqwejwi’kasikl bursting out of the ground. You may not know this, but the komqwejwi’kasikl symbols were initially used as maps so, in essence, the language comes from the earth. It was also used to record and document tribal records so once I’m done, it will be “written in stone!” [laughs.]

ART+LITERATURE

iapjiwunajo’tik -forever enlighten May 30, 2017 by Michelle Sylliboy

kjialikuluite’tnen -we think ambivalently

aqq -and

ejele’k -why not

kjiwketlewl -the great belief

tley -it is from

telkimulk -you are directed to

kaqi’sk -many times

ejelnitek -when one is weak

ejele’k -it is a shame

weskwiaknutmek -we don’t discuss all

aknutmn -to talk about

menaqaj -with care

telamukapnikl -the kinds of things

wskitqamu’k -in this world

klusuaqnn -words

tipituk -only Glyphs drawn by A. Meredith

kejitu -know: I know

ankite’tmek -we think of

etuk -perhaps

tle’l -they belong

tesip -to continue

kjipa’qalayuti -mystery: great mystery

I’n -as

ke’skmna’q-before

npuaqn -death: at death

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SPOTLIGHT: POWHATAN’S MANTLE

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ATIVE AMERICAN ARTWORK has been present in European collections ever since the cabinets of curiosity began to evolve into the museums of today. One outstanding textile may have been in European hands for 381 to possibly 410 years: the famed Powhatan’s Mantle. More likely a wall hanging than a garment, Powhatan’s Mantle is made from four trimmed deer hides sewn with sinew and embroidered with white shell beads. It remains a star attraction of the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford in England.

In September 1608, Captain Christopher Newport, an English privateer and one of the founders of the Jamestown Colony, staged a “coronation” of Wahunsenacawh (1545–1618), commonly known as Powhatan. He was the leader of the Powhatan Confederacy of more than 30 Virginia Algonquian tribes.1 While Wahunsenacawh refused to kneel to accept the crown that Newport offered as a subject of King James I of England, he did provide the British colonialists with gifts. So, while it is not truly known if Powhatan’s Mantle was a gift from Wahunsenacawh, it does date back to that time and belonged to a Virginia Algonquian person of high stature.

The embroidered “mantle” came into the possession of John Tradescant the Elder (ca. 1570–1638), an English gardener turned naturalist whose travels included the Russian Arctic and Northern Africa, and John Tradescant the Younger (1608–1662), who may have collected it during his 1637 trip to Virginia.2 The father and son showcased their vast collection of human made and natural exotica in a house in London called The Ark, England’s first cabinet of curiosity. This became the Musaeum Tradescantianum, England’s first public museum, which was open to the public for an entry fee by 1634.

The Younger Tradescant described the mantle in his 1656 catalogue of the museum’s collection: “ ‘Pohatan, King of Virginia’s habit all embroidered with shells, or Roanoke.”3 Historian Robert Beverley Jr. (ca. 1667–1722) described “roenoke” as a shell currency made “of the Cockleshell, broke into small bits with rough edges, drill’d through in the same manner as Beads, and this they call Roenoke…”;4 however, cockles are bivalves, and the shells in Powhatan’s Mantle are univalves.

The mantle is quite commanding, at longer than sevenand-a-half feet. The hides are from four white-tailed deer

1. David I. Bushnell Jr. “The Native Tribes of Virginia,” in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography XXX (April, 1922): 12.

2. Richard J. Dent Jr., Chesapeake Prehistory: Old Traditions, New Directions (New York: Plenum Press, 1995), 27.

3. John Tradescant, Musaeum Tradescantium, or A Collection of Rarities Preserved at South-Lambeth neer London (London: John Grismond, 1656), 47.

4. Robert Beverley and Susan Scott Parrish, The History and Present State of Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 179.

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(Odocoileus virginianus). The shells, likely seaboard marginella (Prunum roscidum), were ground down on one side and perforated to allow sinew threads through to sew them onto the hides. An estimated 20,000 shells form 37 shapes: one of a humanoid figure, two of quadruped animals, and 33 circles. The human is faced forward and flanked by two confronted animals, the heraldic term for animals facing a central figure from each side. While mostly symmetrical, the animal on the right has cloven hooves and is usually interpreted as a white-tailed deer, while the animal on the left has claws and a long tail. Captain John Smith described symbols of a “Leopard and … a giantlike man” on display in Wahunsenacawh’s family temple at Orapakes, a Powhatan settlement on the Chickahominy River.4 The animal on the left has been interpreted as a mountain lion. Eastern mountain lions (Puma concolor cougar), also known as cougars or pumas, lived in Virginia until the 1880s.

Dr. E. Randolph Turner III, a Virginia archaeologist, first hypothesized that the 34 circles represented “social districts under Powhatan’s control,” which he based on a “1612 reference by William Strachey [an early 17th-century English colonist who wrote The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia], who noted that Powhatan’s “petty Weroances [political leaders] in all, may be in nomber, about three or fower and thirty, all which have their precincts, and bowndes, proper.”5 This extraordinary, surviving example of Indigenous shell beadwork appliqué may then be a symbolic map of Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan homeland in Tidewater Virginia and the Eastern Shore. Even in its damaged state (some of the sinew threads and shell beads are missing), it still inspires awe among museumgoers and scholars alike.

—America Meredith

above & opposite Unknown Virginia Algonquian artist, Powhatan’s Mantle, ca. 1600–1638, deerhide, marginella shells, sinew, 92½ × 63 in., collection of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, presented by Elias Ashmole in 1677, from the Tradescant Collection, AN1685 B.205.

5. Gregory A. Waselkov, “Indian Maps of the Colonial Southeast,” in Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, ed. Gregory A. Waselkov, Peter H. Wood, M. Thomas Hatley (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 457.

6. Ibid.

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CALENDAR

NATIVE AMERICAN ART APPRAISALS, INC. SINCE 1936

CALENDAR February 2–March 23: Anadarko, OK Tobias Moore: Contemporary Expression at the Southern Plains Indian Museum, 715 E. Central Boulevard | (405) 247-6221 | iacb.doi.gov February 2–April 10: Minneapolis, MN Bring Her Home: Stolen Daughters of Turtle Island at All My Relations Arts, 1414 E. Franklin Avenue | (612) 235-4970 | allmyrelationsarts.com February 3–March 25: New York, NY Manifestipi at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center, One Bowling Green | (212) 514-3700 | nmai.si.edu February 5–28: Bemidji, MN Native Skywatchers: Earth Sky Connections at the Miikanan Gallery at the Watermark Art Center, 505 Bemidji Ave North | (218) 444-7570 | watermarkartcenter.org February 9–May 12: Santa Fe, NM Breaking Ground: IAIA 2018 BFA Exhibition at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place | (505) 988-6211 | iaia.edu February 9–May 13: Santa Fe, NM Art & Activism: Selections from The Harjo Family Collection at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place (505) 988-6211 | iaia.edu

(855) NAAA-INC INFO@NAAAINC.COM VISIT WWW.NAAAINC.COM

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Red Cloud Indian

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June 3 - August 12, 2018

February 10–May 13: Kleinburg, OH Ivory, Bone, Antler, and Horn: Masterworks of Inuit Art and Tukilik: Inukshuk and Inuit Art at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 10365 Islington Avenue | +1 (905) 893-1121 | mcmichael.com February 10–May 27: Baton Rouge, LA Tradition in Transition: Inuit Art & Culture at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, 100 River Road South | (227) 344-5272 | lasm.org February 10–TBA: Fairbanks, AK Decolonizing Alaska at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, 907 Yukon Drive | (907) 474-7505 | uaf.edu/museum February 10–TBA: Evanston, IL Native American Woven Arts at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, 3001 Central Street | (947) 475-1030 | mitchellmuseum.org February 16–18: San Rafael, CA 34th annual American Indian Art Show/Marin at Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, organized by Object of Art Shows. Saturday: 10:00 am–6:00 pm, Sunday: 11:00 am–4:00 pm | (310) 822-9145 | marinshow.com February 16–July 29: Santa Fe, NM Without Boundaries: Visual Conversations at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place, reception: Friday, February 16, 5:00–7:00 pm | (505) 988-6211 | iaia.edu February 17: Windsor, ON Arthur Shilling: The Final Works at the Art Gallery of Windsor, 401 Riverside Drive West | +1 (519) 977-0013 | aqw.ca February 24: Norman, OK FAAM No. 18 Launch Party and Gracelynn and GeorgeAnne Growing Thunder: Pop-Up Art Show at 1005 N. Flood, Suite 100, 2:00–4:00 pm (405) 561-7655 | firstamericanartmagazine.com February 27–March 31: Portland, OR Gail Tremblay: Woven Film Baskets at the Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis Street | (503) 222-1142 | froelickgallery.com

Shoshone Madonna II, Daniel McCoy Jr

Entry form and artwork due: May 11, 2018 www.redcloudschool.org/heritage

94 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

February 28–May 28: New York, NY Golden Kingdoms: Luxury & Legacy in the Ancient Americas at the Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 5th Avenue | (800) 468-7386 | metmuseum.org March 1–3: Fairbanks, AK 45th annual Festival of Native Arts at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (907) 474-6528 | fna.community.uaf.edu

CALENDAR

March 3 & 4: Phoenix, AZ 60th annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market at the Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Avenue | (602) 252-8840 | heard.org/fair March 3–June 10: Salem, MA T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America at the Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex Street | (978) 745-9500 | pem.org March 9–11: El Prado, NM Taos Pueblo Art Winter Show at the Millicent Rogers Museum, 1504 Millicent Rogers Road | (575) 758-2462 | millicentrogers.org March 9–June 1: Rapid City, SD Takuwe, sponsored by Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS), at the Journey Museum and Learning Center, 222 New York Street | (605) 394-6923 | nativecairns.org March 17–May 26: Warm Springs, OR Twanat: Celebrate Our Legacy! at the Museum at Warm Springs, 2189 US 26 | (541) 553-3331 | museumatwarmsprings.org March 18, 2018–February 2019: Vancouver, BC Culture at the Center at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 6393 NW Marine Drive, showcasing the work by five Indigenous-run cultural centers | +1 (604) 822-5087 | moa.ubc.ca March 27–August 11: Missoula, MT Corwin Clairmont: Two-Headed Arrow/The Tar Sands Project at the Missoula Art Museum, 335 N. Pattee Street. Reception: Friday, April 6, 5:00–8:00 pm. Artist Talk: Saturday, April 7, 11:00 am (406) 728-0447 | missoulaartmuseum.org April 3–April 28: Portland, OR Saimaiyu Akesuk: New Prints from the Dorset Fine Arts 2017 Annual Collection at the Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis Street (503) 222-1142 | froelickgallery.com April 5–June 30: Salem, MA Raven’s Many Gifts: Native Art of the Northwest Coast at the Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex Street | (978) 745-9500 | pem.org April 6–December 31: Bar Harbor, ME Emergence: Root Clubs of the Penobscot Nation at the Abbe Museum, 26 Mount Desert St, Bar Harbor | (207) 288-3519 | abbemuseum.org April 8–May 5: Park Hill, OK 47th annual Trail of Tears Art Show at the Cherokee Heritage Center, 21192 S. Keeler Drive | (918) 456-6007 | cherokeeheritage.org April 14–September 9: Seattle, WA The Brink: Demian DinéYazhi´ at Henry Art Gallery, 15th Avenue NE & NE 41st Street | (206) 543-2280 | henryart.org April 26–June 3: Nuuk, Greenland Annual KIMIK Exhibition at the Katuaq Cultural Centre, Imaneq 21, group show of Greenlandic artist collective | +299 36 37 70 | katauq.gl April 28–September 30: Mt. Pleasant, MI Miikawaadendaagwad: Artistic Expressions of the Saginaw Chippewa at the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways, 6650 E. Broadway Road | (989) 775-4750 | sagchip.org/ziibiwing May 4–September 3: Phoenix, AZ Dear Listener: Works by Nicholas Galanin at the Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Avenue | (602) 252-8840 | heard.org | dearlistener.org

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FırstAmericanArt

March 2–July 28: Missoula, MT The Shape of Things: New Approaches to Indigenous Abstraction at the Missoula Art Museum, 335 N. Pattee Street (406) 728-0447 | missoulaartmuseum.org

MAGAZINE

March 2–June 30: Lincoln, NE Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence: Henry Payer at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street | (402) 472-3082 | unl.edu/plains

Leading the conversation on Native art.

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SPRING 2018 | 95

CALENDAR

May 5: Gallup, NM Native American Art Auctions, hosted by the Friends of Hubbell National Historic Site, at the Gallup Community Services Building, 410 Bataan Veterans Street | (602) 370-2875 | friendsofhubbell.org May 5–June 16: Montreal, QC Contemporary Native Art Biennial, 4th edition, at Art Mûr, 5826 St-Hubert. Reception: Saturday, May 5, 3:00–5:00 pm +1 (514) 933-0711 | artmur.com May 12, 2018–January 6, 2019: Los Angeles, CA Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain at the Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way (323) 667-2000 | theautry.org May 12: Seattle, WA Native Art Market at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington Campus, 17th Avenue NE and NE 45th Street, 10:00 am–4:00 pm | (206) 543-5590 | burkemuseum.org May 13–August 12: Denver, CO Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer at the Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway | (720) 865-5000 | denverartmuseum.org

appraisals for Insurance, Estates, Donations, Divorce Identification of Items • Inventory of Collections appraisals of rugs, basketry, pottery, jewelry, paintings, sculpture, graphics

Leona M. Zastrow, PhD 505-466-8581 ✠ epicinc@earthlink.net americanindianartappraising.com

May 13–October 7: Santa Fe, NM Memory Weaving: Works by Melanie Yazzie at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo | (505) 982-4636 | wheelwright.org May 13–October 7: Santa Fe, NM Peshlakai Vision at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo | (505) 982-4636 | wheelwright.org May 18–20: Bar Harbor, ME Abbe Museum Indian Market in downtown Bar Harbor, hosted by the Abbe Museum, 26 Mount Desert Street | (207) 288-3519 | abbemuseum.org May 18–October 8: Victoria, BC Arts of Resistance: Politics and the Past in Latin America at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 6393 NW Marine Drive | +1 (604) 822-5087 | moa.ubc.ca May 20: Minneapolis, MN For Directions, a five-gallery art crawl, hosted by All My Relations Arts, 1414 E. Franklin Avenue | (612) 235-4970 | allmyrelationsarts.com May 25 & 26: Sulphur, OK 5th annual Artesian Arts Festival, sponsored by the Chickasaw Nation, in Artesian Plaza, West Muskogee Avenue, Friday evening reception, market Saturday from 10:00 am–8:00 pm | (580) 272-5520 | chickasaw.net May 25–27: Santa Fe, NM Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival, hosted by the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, at the Santa Fe Convention Center, 201 W. Marcy Street.

More than two hundred artists | (505) 216-0683 | nativetreasures.org May 26 & 27: Flagstaff, AZ Zuni Heritage Festival at the Museum of Northern Arizona, 3101 N. Fort Valley Road | (928) 774-5213 | musnaz.org May 26–July 27: Brantford, ON 44th annual Indigenous Art at the Woodland Cultural Centre, 184 Mohawk Street | (519) 759-2650 | woodland-centre.on.ca May 26–July 27: Brantford, ON Gichitwaawizi’igewin: Honouring at the Woodland Cultural Centre, 184 Mohawk Street | (519) 759-2650 | woodland-centre.on.ca May 26–August 19: Winnipeg, MB SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 300 Memorial Boulevard | +1 (204) 786-6641 | wag.ca For more events, visit our online calendar at

FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM/CALENDAR 96 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

benjamin harjo jr. american indian artist

creator and coyote compete to make man, gouache on Arches watercolor paper, 2016, 20 × 28 inches

Solo exhibition planned for fall 2018 at the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art in Stillwater, Oklahoma Children’s T-shirts with Benjamin Harjo’s designs now available through the Tea Collection

www.benjaminharjojr.com

W

Wheelwright Museum OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

www.wheelwright.org 704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505-982- 4636 or 1- 800 -607- 4636

W

A Universe of Meaning Through April 15, 2018

BAG DEPICTING A WHITE-TAILED DEER Sandra Okuma, Luiseño/ Shoshone-Bannock, 2011 Private Collection

Also on Exhibition Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry Permanent Exhibition

Eye Candy: Visual Treats from the Permanent Collection

Through April 15, 2018

Support for this exhibition is provided in part by the Enivar Charitable Fund in Memory of Nancy Florsheim; Leo and Donna Krulitz; Richard and Willa Sisson; New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts; the FRIENDS of the Wheelwright Museum; and several other donors. Photo: Neebinnaukzhik Southall.