First American Art Magazine No. 25, Winter 2020

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

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

NO. 25, WINTER 2020

BIRCH-BARK BITING

DISPLAY UNTIL APRIL 6, 2020

BRIAN ADAMS

TIPS FOR ASPIRING COLLECTORS

HEIDI K. BRANDOW

SEMINOLE/QUINAULT/QUILEUTE MEETUP

KEITH BRAVEHEART

CHICKASAW NATION’S VISION FOR ARTS

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

LA BIENNALE D’ART CONTEMPORAIN AUTOCHTONE CONTEMPORARY NATIVE ART BIENNIAL

APRIL 23 - JUNE 21, 2020 TIOHTIÀ:KE (MONTRÉAL) WWW.BACA.CA

AMERICAN INDIANS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS

John Vann

Ben Tincup

Roy Johnson

Jim Bluejacket

Bob Johnson

EXHIBITION OPEN THROUGH MARCH 28 Profiles of American Indian Major League Baseball players from 1897 to 1947. A rarely told part of baseball history and how American Indians shaped the game from its earliest years.

SPONSORED IN PART BY:

THIS PROGRAM IS FUNDED IN PART BY OKL AHOMA HUMANITIES (OH) AND THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES (NEH).

ANY VIE WS, FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, OR RECOMMENDATIONS E XPRES SED IN THIS E XHIBITION DO NOT NECES S ARILY REPRESENT THOSE OF OH OR NEH.

21192 S. KEELER DRIVE, PARK HILL , OK 74451 • 888.999.60 07 • CHEROKEEHERI TAGE.ORG

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

MUSEUM OF THE SOUTHEAST AMERICAN INDIAN The University of North Carolina at Pembroke March 2, 2020 – July 31, 2020 Opening Reception

Friday, March 20, 2020 JOANNA UNDERWOOD BLACKBURN | KRISTEN DORSEY | BRENT GREENWOOD | BILL HENSLEY JOSH HINSON | NORMA HOWARD | LISA HUDSON | BRENDA KINGERY | DUSTIN MATER | PAUL MOORE ERIN SHAW | TYRA SHACKLEFORD | MAYA STEWART | MARGARET ROACH WHEELER | DAN WORCESTER

C H I C KASAWA RT I STS .CO M

MARCH 7 & 8, 2020 MARCH 7 & 8, 2020

“The piece invites the viewer to look deeper within the lines of color and shape to feel and “The piece theattempt viewer toto focus look deeper within of color shapesaturation to feel and think.

Theinvites eye may on a section of the the lines tapestry, but and the bold of think.throughout The eye may to focus sectionfixed of theontapestry, bold saturation of color the attempt entire piece keepson theaviewer trying tobut seethe everything at once.” color throughout the entire piece keeps the viewer fixed on trying to see everything at once.”

- VENANCIO ARAGON - VENANCIO ARAGON BEST OF SHOW AWARDS RECEPTION MARCH 2020 AWARDS | $15,000RECEPTION BEST OF SHOW AWARD BEST OF6,SHOW MARCH 6, 2020 | $15,000 BEST OF SHOW AWARD

2301 N. CENTRAL AVE. PHOENIX, AZ | 602.252.8840 | HEARD.ORG/FAIR Venancio (Navajo), PrismPHOENIX, of Emotions.AZ Acquired by the Heard Museum Council at the 2301 N.Aragon CENTRAL AVE. | 602.252.8840 | HEARD.ORG/FAIR 2019 Indian Fair & Market. Photo Credit: Craig Smith, Heard Museum Venancio Aragon (Navajo), Prism of Emotions. Acquired by the Heard Museum Council at the 2019 Indian Fair & Market. Photo Credit: Craig Smith, Heard Museum

issue no. 25, winter 2020

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

Mazinibaganjigan: Pictures Bitten on Bark

By Adriana Greci Green, PhD

18

Recent Developments

By Travis D. Day and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

Seminole, Quinault, and Quileute Sharing Arts and Cultures: A 3,500-Mile Journey

By Jessica Osceola (Seminole Tribe of Florida)

24

Seven Directions 14

By Micah Wesley (Kiowa/Muscogee)

44

One Nation's Vision: 30 How the Chickasaw Nation Creates Culture and Community through the Arts

By Vicki Monks (Chickasaw)

Collecting Native Art with a Plan

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

40 50

Brian Adams: 44 Iñupiaq Photographer

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) 50

Keith Braveheart: Oglala Lakota Painter and Filmmaker

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

56

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Salish/Métis/Cree/ShoshoneBannock Cultural Arts Worker

By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

62

90

Spotlight: Mama and Papa 88 Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Calendar

By Travis D. Day and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

ARTIST PROFILES

Heidi K. Brandow: Diné/Kanaka Māoli Painter

By Suzanne Newman Fricke, PhD

Art+Literature 83 Eli Baxter: Ojibway Author, Educator, and Knowledge-Keeper

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD About Gordon Coons 87 (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa) Collections: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

Instruments of Passion: 36 Collecting Native Art

By RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Tewa)

10

94

REVIEWS

56

Exhibition Reviews

68

Book Reviews

79

IN MEMORIAM Bruce King (Oneida Nation) James B. King Sr. (Navajo)

89 89

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

62

cover Brian Adams (Iñupiaq), Kivalina, Alaska: Adams Boys, 2013, digital photograph, dimensions variable, part of the Disappearing Villages series featuring Alaskan villages that are undergoing coastal erosion due to global warming. Image courtesy of the artist.

WINTER 2020 | 5

Coe Center Connection and learning through Indigenous arts

issue no. 25, winter 2020 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Online) Publishing Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Managing Editor: Mariah L. Ashbacher Literary Editor: Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD (Euro-Canadian) Marketing Director: Barbara Harjo (Cherokee descent) Contributing Editor: Travis D. Day Copy Editors: Rosa Cays (Chicana), Jo Ann Reece Proofreaders: Travis D. Day, Staci Golar, and Jo Ann Reece Layout & Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Chase Earles (Caddo Nation) Social Media: Mariah L. Ashbacher, Travis D. Day, Staci Golar, Michelle J. Lanteri, America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho), and Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa)

Regional Representatives

Great Basin: Melissa Melero-Moose (Northern Paiute/Modoc) Great Plains: Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Northeast: Kelly Church (Ottawa/Ojibwe/Pottawatomi) Northwest: Miranda Belarde-Lewis, PhD (Zuni/Tlingit) Southeast: Michole Eldred (Catawba/Eastern Cherokee) Southwest: Holly Coonsis (Zuni) and RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)

Editorial Advisory Board

heather ahtone, PhD (Choctaw/Chickasaw) Jonathan Batkin, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian James T. Bialac, JD Cliff Fragua (Jemez Pueblo) Teri Greeves (Kiowa) Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Linda Lomahaftewa, Hon. DHum (Hopi/Choctaw) Jami Powell, PhD (Osage Nation) Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole) India Rael Young, PhD

Advertising Representative

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

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 © 2019 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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Peter Blake Allan D’Arcangelo Melissa Cody Rosalyn Drexler Paul Feeley Victoria Gitman Art Green Mark Greenwold Ralph Humphrey Nicholas Krushenick Al Loving Cannupa Hanska Luger James Luna Roy McMakin Gladys Nilsson Howardena Pindell Norbert Prangenberg Alexis Smith Jaune Quick-to-See Smith Richard Van Buren Garth Greenan Gallery 545 West 20th Street New York, NY 10011 (212) 929-1351 www.garthgreenan.com

EDITOR'S GREETING

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VEN DURING THE DARKEST CHAPTERS in our history, art has been the vehicle of expression that has consistently been open to Indigenous peoples of the Americas. During their imprisonment at Fort Marion, Southern Plains veterans of the Red River War drew ledger art.

At Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Angel De Cora (Winnebago, 1871–1919) led an art department outfitted with weaving looms, printing presses, and a state-of-the-art photography studio and darkroom. John Collier, Indian agent during the Indian New Deal era, promoted arts for Native communities who had been devastated by US federal governmental policies. A generation later, West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative was founded in Kinngait, Nunavut—the first of many printmaking co-ops—to provide a livelihood for Inuit people forced to live in permanent settlements.

Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee Nation, 1916–2002), cofounder of the Institute of American Indian Arts, saw art as a means to build young Native people’s self-esteem by allowing them to embrace their cultural identity and move it forward.

Visual, literary, media, and performing arts, allow audiences insights into the maker’s perspective. Currently developing a Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts states, “If we wish to develop not only a more equal society but a happier and more creative one, we will need to look outside ourselves and attempt to identify with the experiences of others. This critical skill is called empathy, which, according to Roman Krznaric, an expert on empathy, ‘has the power to transform relationships, from the personal to the political, and create fundamental social change.’”1 Krznaric believes empathy is “the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.’”2 Today, a wealth of information about Native peoples is available to anyone with a computer or access to a library, but making the general public care enough to learn about Indigenous peoples and issues is crucial. Here in the United States, Native people make up only 0.9 percent to 2 percent of the population, while in Canada, approximately 4.4 percent of the population are Indigenous peoples.3 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found: “The public gets basic facts about the Native community wrong.

When asked, most people admitted not knowing a Native person.”4 The Reclaiming Native Truth project revealed that invisibility and the systematic erasure of Native peoples from public awareness and discourse create barriers to overcoming the issues Native peoples face. “Across the education curriculum, pop culture entertainment, news media, social media and the judicial system, the voices and stories of contemporary Native peoples are missing.

above America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Alexander Posey, 2011, quail egg tempera on true gesso panel, 8 × 61/2 in., private collection. Alexander Posey (Muscogee, 1873–1908) was a journalist, humorist, and poet, who used his Fus Fixico column to speak out against land allotment.

Into this void springs an antiquated or romanticized narrative, ripe with myths and misperceptions.”5 Art is our tool to combat invisibility and erasure, because it has the emotional impact necessary to engage the public. Writing, film, song, dance, and visual arts allow us to share perspectives among ourselves and with others, so they can understand us.

Native people leverage the arts’ powers to make a profound impact on the world, transcending the limits of our demographics—due to genocide, disease, and displacement—a history the outside world is seldom willing to consider. Through the power and passions of our artists, writers, and musicians, we can coax the public to acknowledge our realities, and this exchange of stories and ideas benefits not only Native peoples but the larger society, as well.

The United States named Joy Harjo (Muscogee/Cherokee) as its first Native American poet laureate, and I could not hope for a better ambassador for our peoples. Harjo writes, “Our arts carry memories. … Where do we look when we want to know who we were in the past, to know where we’re going? We look to art, to the design tracks of our material world.”6 —America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

1. “Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts,” Minneapolis Institute of Arts, web.

2. Jon Carfagno and Adam Reed Rozen, “Why Empathy Should Be a Required Core Value for All Museums—Period,” in Fostering Empathy through Museums, ed. Elif M. Gokcigdem (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 204.

3. Central Intelligence Agency, “United States: People and Society,” The World Factbook, web; Central Intelligence Agency, “Canada: People and Society,” The World Factbook, web.

4. Reclaiming Native Truth, “Research Findings: Compilation of All Research,” June 2018, PDF, 50.

5. Reclaiming Native Truth, “Research Findings,” 8.

6. Joy Harjo, “Thoughts and reflections,” Muscogee Nation News 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2014), via Archive.org, web.

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Ledyard, Connecticut, selected Joe Baker (Delaware Tribe) as its new executive director. A curator and beadwork artist, Baker previously served as executive director of the Palos Verdes Art Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

The Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles hired Joe Horse Capture (A’aninin) to serve as vice president and curator. Horse Capture was the director of American Indian initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, and curator of Native American arts at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts chose Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk (Inuk) to fill its newly created position of curator and mediator of Inuit art. Koperqualuk, an anthropologist and curator from Puvirnituq, Nunavik, will oversee the museum’s Inuit collections, curate exhibitions, create educational programming, and strengthen collaborative relationships between the museum and Northern communities.

above, top Joe Baker (Delaware Tribe), new executive director of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. above, bot tom Joe Horse Capture (A’aninin), new vice president and curator of the Autry Museum of the American West.

The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of the University of California, Berkeley, appointed Carolyn Jean Fernald as its new executive director. Fernald, who earned her doctoral degree in Native American art history from the University of Oklahoma, previously served as the executive director of the Millicent Rogers Museum in El Prado, New Mexico.

The Detroit Institute of Arts named Denene De Quintal as its assistant curator of Native American art, a position that had been vacant for a decade. Previously serving as an Andrew W. Mellon PostDoctoral Curatorial Fellow in Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum, De Quintal earned her bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and her MA and PhD degrees in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago.

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The Burke Museum celebrated its new 113,000-square-foot location on the campus of the University of Washington with opening festivities on October 12, 2019, Indigenous People’s Day. Seattlebased Olson Kundig Architects designed the new building, which allows more visibility for collections and research activities. The museum consulted with 29 different tribes to follow the best possible practices and create an inviting, open space for both employees and the public.

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) has reinstalled its massive Kaigani Haida poles in its Northwest Coast and Alaska Native gallery as the first step toward a total redesign of the gallery. Reopening in June 2020, this gallery is part of the first phase of a $150 million renovation and construction project that will be completed in 2021, on the 50th anniversary of the building’s initial construction.

The American Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Oklahoma has changed its name to First Americans Museum (FAM). Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby stated that “FAM will carry forward tribal stories and culture for the benefit of all Americans today and into the future.”

The museum will open in May 2021.

ARCHITECTURE The Heiltsuk Nation built its first Big House in 120 years, after the prior structure was destroyed in suspicious circumstances. Marilyn Slett, chief councilor of the Heiltsuk Nation, officiated the opening of the new big house, which will serve as a locus for the community.

ART MARKETS Rhonda Holy Bear (Cheyenne River Lakota) won Best of Show at the Autry Museum of the American West’s American Indian Arts Marketplace in Los Angeles. Susan Hudson (Navajo) and Corey Stein (Tlingit) both won Jackie Autry Purchase Awards. Classification winners were Don Johnston (Qagan Tayagungin Unangax̂), basketry; Rhonda Holy Bear, beadwork and quillwork;

MELISSA MELERO-Moose Great Basin Native Artist (Northern Paiute/Modoc)

m e l i s s a m e l e ro. c o m The Big Wake Up, 2019 mixed media on canvas, 24 × 30 in.

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Michelle Tsosie Sisneros (Santa Clara Pueblo/Navajo), clothing and personal attire; Jolene Bird (Kewa), diverse cultural art forms; Ernest Benally (Navajo), jewelry; Terrance Guardipee (Blackfeet), painting and mixed media; Zoë Urness (Tlingit), photography; Anderson Jamie Peynetsa (Zuni), pottery; Lyndon Tsosie (Navajo), sculpture; Mona Laughing (Navajo), textiles; and Eric Kayquoptewa (Hopi), wooden carving.

AWARDS & HONORS The Hnatyshyn Foundation awarded Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota) a $25,000 prize for Outstanding Achievement by a Canadian Mid-Career Artist. The Ottawa-based foundation also gave its $10,000 TD Bank Group Award for an emerging curator to Tarah Hogue (Métis). Annie Beach (Cree/ Saulteaux) and Niamh Dooley (Oji-Cree) received $5,000 William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for emerging artists.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation named Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/ Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota) as a 2019 recipient of one of its 25 Painters and Sculptors Grants, with an unrestricted stipend of $25,000. Luger is a ceramic and installation artist, based in northern New Mexico.

The Ucross Foundation gave its Spring 2020 Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists to Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), an installation artist. The fellowship features a monthly art residency, a $2,000 stipend, and exhibition at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery in Clearmont, Wyoming.

above Computer-enhanced images of rediscovered Nazca geoglyphs. Images courtesy of Yamagata University. Used with permission. above, right Kathleen Wall (Jemez), the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture's 2020 Native Treasures Living Treasure.

The BC Achievement Foundation bestowed its 2019 Fulmer Awards in First Nations Art upon Gus Cook (‘Namgis), Henry Green (Tsimshian), Maynard Johnny Jr. (Coast Salish/ Penelakut), Doreen Manual (Neskonlith), and Michelle Stoney (Gitxsan/Cree). The foundation also gave its 2019 Fulmer Award of Distinction to Marianne Nicolson (Dzawada'enuxw). The awardees’ artwork was exhibited at the Roundhouse Community Arts Centre in Vancouver.

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The Women Artists Forward Fund has awarded Dakota Mace (Navajo) one of its two inaugural Forward Art Prizes that includes a $10,000 stipend. An interdisciplinary artist, Mace earned her MFA degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Audie Murray (Michif) and Skawennati (Mohawk) won Jurors’ Choice Awards in the biennial Salt Spring National Art Prizes for 2019, which include a $3,000 stipend, while Tim Alfred (Kwakwaka’wakw) won a People’s Choice Award with a $1,000 stipend. Works by all the award-winners were exhibited in September and October 2019.

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe selected ceramic sculptor Kathleen Wall (Jemez) as its 2020 Native Treasures Living Treasure. Wall will be honored at the Native Treasures Art Market during Memorial Day weekend 2020 and have a solo exhibition.

The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, Illinois, gave its Woodrow “Woody” Crumbo Award for Native arts and education to Tsymiyaanbiin, William White (Tsimshian). Tsymiyaanbiin is a Chilkat weaver from British Columbia.

PRECONTACT ART Researchers at the Institute of Nasca at Yamagata University in Japan have identified 142 long forgotten geoglyphs among the Nazca Lines. These newly rediscovered geoglyphs date from 100 BCE and 300 CE. The researchers used

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) to search satellite images of the region, and the AI program identified an additional geoglyph. The monumental earth works feature lines, fish, birds, monkeys, snakes, and even human-like figures, and the largest spans 197 feet in length.

REPATRIATION The Museum of Cultures in Helsinki, Finland, will return artifacts from Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, to descendant tribes. Gustaf Nordenskiöld, a Swedish researcher, excavated the cliff dwelling in 1891 and shipped artifacts and human remains to Europe, which helped prompt passage of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Twenty human remains and 28 funerary items will be returned to the Hopi Tribe and Acoma, Zia, and Zuni Pueblos for reburial in 2020.

The Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria is returning a 19th-century totem pole to the Nuxalk Nation.

Representatives from the First Nation approached the museum about returning the house entrance pole carved by Snuxyaltwa, Louis Snow (Nuxalk, 19th century). The Royal BC Museum agreed, motivated by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee and the United Nations’ Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

CRIME & LEGAL ISSUES Two tourists were caught carving their initials into the wall of a 1,300-year-old Maya temple at the Tikal complex in Guatemala. Tour guide Vinicio Alba Ruiz photographed and confronted the two men for carving A+P in a temple wall dating back to 732 CE. Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo (INGUAT), or Guatemalan Tourism Institute, issued a public complaint demanding that local authorities hold the tourists accountable for the damage they caused.

A precontact monolithic axe that was stolen from the Robert S. Peabody

Institute of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, between 1976 and 1990 has been returned to the museum.

Valued at $450,000, the axe is the third stolen artifact returned to the institute.

John Morgan, a collector, had purchased the axe from a dealer not knowing it was stolen, and the FBI negotiated with Morgan and the dealer for its return. An unassociated funerary item, the axe will not be on public display.

Shane Munroe and Christy Bruton have been convicted of violating the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 2017. US Park Rangers and Special Agents of the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch investigated approximately 150 illegal excavations in Ozark National Scenic Riverways near Van Buren, Missouri, and concluded the pair caused $34,974 in damage. Both convicts will have to pay $2,000 each in fines and serve three years of supervised probation. Additionally, Monroe has been sentenced to a year in federal prison.

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SEVEN DIRECTIONS

MICAH WESLEY Kiowa/Muscogee DJ, Educator, Framer, and Painter Shares His Top-Seven List

W

IDELY KNOWN AS DJ WEREWULF, Micah Wesley (Muscogee/Kiowa) is based in Norman, Oklahoma. The painter and educator earned his MFA from the University of Oklahoma in 2016 and his BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 2009. He has taught Native American art and Mesoamerican art history at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.

While attending IAIA, Micah cofounded the Humble Collective and its accompanying alternative art space that hosted experimental art exhibitions and concerts. Fellow Humble members include Razelle Benally, Jacinthe Demmert, DJ Miss Ginger, April Holder, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Douglas Miles, Hoka Skenandore, Rose Simpson, Matt Tsoodle, Doug Two Bulls, Marty Two Bulls, Michael Two Bulls, Cougar Vigil, and Rory Wakemup. The collective curated art exhibitions and hosted concerts and other events at their warehouse space in the industrial south side of Santa Fe. Waaaaaaaaay. wulfbrand.com EAST: RAZELLE BENALLY (OGLALA LAKOTA/DINÉ) I remember waking up in a smoky car at a gas station somewhere in Arizona, and Razelle was at the wheel and sound asleep. I was terrified of her driving, but we made it safely through the steep canyon pass, and Apache Skateblast was our next stop.

It has been an honor to see this filmmaker aid in the creation of the Humble—winning awards, taking Facebook pictures with Taika Waititi, and seeing her thrive in the graduate program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has shot camera, acted, written, and produced many films now. Razelle directed several shorts: I Am Weapon (2016), Raven (2016), Te Kaitiaki (2018), and War Cries, that will come out soon. You can find her all over the web.

opposite, top Micah Wesley, digital photo selfportrait, 2017. All images courtesy of the artists. opposite, bottom Jacinthe Demmert (Haida), Woven cedar baskets, backpack, purses, mat, and belt, 2019, Hydaburg, Alaska.

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WEST: JACINTHE DEMMERT (HAIDA) Jacinthe was there with us at the forging of the Humble, and she has not stopped since. Now based in Hydaburg, Alaska, Jacinthe weaves intricate baskets and textiles made with great care. She

SEVEN DIRECTIONS

weaves with cedar bark, spruce roots, wool, fern, and other natural materials.

I do not have the patience and brilliance to work with the materials and scale she divinely styles.

Instagram @justsynth NORTH: JUAN BARROSO (MEXICAN-AMERICAN) I say North, well, Juan is currently attending the University of North Texas in the MFA program, and he is putting all of his efforts into graduating in 2020, as he creates hyperrealistic portraits and ceramic sculptures with intricate drawings. I was a graduate assistant in the Painting I course at the University of Oklahoma when Juan was a student earning his BFA. I wish I could take credit for teaching this guy, but he is disciplined and makes amazing decisions in painting and ceramic processes. juanbarrosoart.com SOUTH: LISETTE CHAVEZ (MEXICAN-AMERICAN) My lady told me to meet her at the University of Oklahoma to hear a lecture from a visiting artist. I was tired and I tried to be late but was blown away by her talking about her Men Who Look Like Satan series and the stories of Catholic clashes with her dear mom.

After the lecture we spoke with her and while we were talking, she said “Wait ... do you know Dwayno Insano?” The world gets smaller and smaller. Amen.

Look for her solo show, From the Horse’s Mouth, opening in April 2020 at Freight in San Antonio, Texas. lisettechavez.com UP: JOSHUA ADAMS (EASTERN BAND CHEROKEE) My hat goes off to three-dimensional creators, and Mr. Adams, I am a fan. Dedication is a virtue seen and felt in his wooden sculptures. He carves booger masks and teaches woodcarving at Cherokee High School on the Qualla Boundary, North Carolina. You will even enjoy talking to this guy, and he carves while you visit. Indeed a surgeon of the woods. joshuaadamsart.com

above Lisette Chavez, I To My Beloved and My Beloved To Me, 2017, graphite, charcoal on paper, 20 × 16 in., collection of the City of San Antonio. left Juan Barroso, Loteria B o t t l e , p o rce l a i n , w h e e l thrown and hand-painted with underglaze dots, cone 6 electric fired, 9½ × 43/4 × 43/4 in.

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Joshua Adams (Eastern Band Cherokee)

Travis Mammedaty (Kiowa/Seneca/Cayuga)

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A gallery featuring traditional and contemporary fine art

by Native American artists in downtown Austin, Texas.

Keli Gonzales (Cherokee Nation)

DOWN: TRAVIS MAMMEDATY (KIOWA/SENECA/CAYUGA) Down as in the vernacular, my homeboy. If you are like me, you travel the globe meeting all the artists and makers. If not, you are also like me and discover gold on Instagram posts and yes, someone posted a picture of Travis’s rendition of T. C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo, 1946–1978), and I had to meet this guy.

He’s a painter with an expressive, impasto style. I had a booth at the Cherokee Art Market in Catoosa this year, and there I met Travis. I felt like I knew him since we were kids. We have to do a show together soon, Travis. Instagram @kiowa_artist CENTER: KELI GONZALES (CHEROKEE NATION) Keli has these amazing sticker packs that are filled to the brim with historic imagery and commentary of pop culture. She utilizes the Cherokee syllabary and even if you do not understand or read Cherokee, no need, you will get it. Inspiring to see an artist active in her community and making statements with her concepts. facebook.com/keli.gonzales above Keli Gonzales (Cherokee Nation), Shooting Daggers, 2019, digital art, dimensions variable. opposite, top Joshua Adams (Eastern Band Cherokee), Death to Power, Death to Politics, 2017, booger mask, hornet nest, wood, abalone, fur. opposite, bottom Travis Mammedaty (Kiowa/ Seneca/Cayuga), Southern Man, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 in.

ABOVE Pen Cayetano (Garifuna), Hazelnut Gaye (Cassava Baker), 2015, oil on canvas, Cayetano Collection. Photo: Ingrid Cayetano.

A Cold Winter’s Return

by Raymond Nordwall (Pawnee/Ojibwe/Cherokee)

Some very clever quote to draw the reader in.

805 Brazos Street, Austin, Texas ­— Quotable Person Gallery open by appointment only.

c @wyld.gallery f @wyld.gallery > ray@wyld.gallery v 512 657 6583

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MAZINIBAGANJIGAN Pictures Bitten on Bark Using only their canine teeth and ability to conceptualize images they can’t see, generations of Indigenous artists explore the possibilities of mazinibaganjigan1 or birch-bark biting.

By Adriana Greci Green, PhD

D

URING HIS VISIT to the Ojibwe village of Rivière au Désert on the St. Mary’s River (Garden River, Ontario) in October 1855, German travel writer Johann Georg Kohl heard “of a most extraordinary trade the Ojibbeways carry on. I was told, namely, of their birchbark biting, and of pretty figures of every description which they contrive to bite on the bark with their teeth.” Kohl resolved to meet Angélique Marte, a “celebrated birch-bark biter,” who lived in that village.

When he asked her “for some specimen of her tooth-carving,” she “began … immediately selecting proper pieces of bark, peeling off the thin skin and doubling up the piece, which she thrust between her teeth. As she took up one piece after the other, and went through the operation very rapidly, one artistic production after the other fell from her lips,” Kohl continued. “We unfolded the bark, and found on one the figure of a young girl, on another a bouquet of flowers, on a third a tomahawk, with all its accessories very correctly designed as well as several other objects.”2

ab ove Susan Ballantyne (Woodland Cree, n.d.), birchbark artist and mother of Angelique Merasty (Woodland Cree, 1924–1996), 1950s, Flin Flon Heritage Project, Flin Flon, Manitoba.

Kohl recognized this astonishing accomplishment as an example of Ojibwe “beaux arts.” His contemporary Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was less poetic in his description but nevertheless also noted that the Lake Superior Ojibwe practiced “a very ingenious art of dental pictography.… The designs presented are imitations of flowers, fancy baskets, and human figures.”3 And as early as 1687 Father Thierry Beschefer, a Jesuit missionary and superior of the Canadian mission and stationed in Quebec, had included “Pieces of bark, on which figures have been marked by teeth” in a box of curiosities he sent back to France.4 These observers were all enthralled by the skill inherent in the craft of birchbark biting, which they also recognized as a truly Indigenous art form. The source of this fascination rests in the particularity of creating a design with one’s teeth and without looking. A small piece of a very thin layer of bark of the paper birch tree (Betula papyracea) is folded over, and the design is created with the eye tooth biting down on the lower canine, lightly, yet firmly enough to leave a series

1. Miigwech to Alan Corbiere for providing Anishinaabemowin linguistic expertise, and to the artists for sharing their thoughts with me.

2. Johann Georg Kohl, Kitchi-Gami: Life Among the Lake Superior Ojibway (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985), 412–13.

3. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, History of the Indian Tribes of the United States: Their Present Condition and Prospects, and a Sketch of Their Ancient Status (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1857), 631 and plate 54. Schoolcraft served as Michigan Indian agent and married Jane Johnston (Bamewawagezhikaquay, Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky, 1800–1842). Jane, part of a prominent Euro-Ojibwe trading family of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, is recognized as the first Native American woman author; she is the source for many of Schoolcraft’s influential writings, including those that inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha (1855).

4. Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791; The Original French, Latin, and Italian Texts, with English Translations and Notes 63 (Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Co., 1900), 291.

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of indentations while the bark paper is turned about. Once the fold is opened, the patterns that are created by the biting are symmetrical. Kelly Church (Match-EBe-Nash-She-Wish Pottawatomi/Ottawa/ Ojibwe), a black ash basket maker from Michigan who also creates beautiful bitings, was encouraged to learn this art form by Ron Paquin (Sault St. Marie Chippewa) more than 15 years ago.

Until then, Paquin and Lois Beardslee (Lake Superior Ojibwe/Lacandon) were the only two known people in Michigan making bitings.

Church says that Paquin told her to peel apart the many layers of a piece of birch bark down to a single layer (a piece of bark can have 15 to 20 layers ), then to fold it just like the paper snowflakes one made in kindergarten, but instead of cutting, one bites into it. When she teaches birch-bark biting, Church repeats what her mentor told her, that “no matter what, any pattern you make will be a beautiful snowflake!” Teachers remark that they love seeing the expression of surprise when their pupils open up their bitten sheets and look with wonderment at the full design they have created.

Church adds that to make an intentional design, however, requires practice. It is like “drawing with your teeth, so you have to connect the mind with the teeth,” and also think about which way to turn the bark in the mouth, and what folds to make to render more complexly symmetrical designs.5 Poet and birch-bark biting artist Denise Lajimodiere (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) closes her eyes when she does a biting: “It’s like black velvet, and then I can see the biting on that black velvet. I can see how to do it.”6 The sheet of bark is cut square or rectangular, so it can be folded in various directions, straight across length and width but also from corner to corner along the diagonals. At the very least, there is one fold, but the sheet can also be folded over again into smaller sections.

5. Kelly Church in discussion with the author, August 15, 2019.

6. Denise Lajimodiere, “Native American Artist-inResidence Denise Lajimodiere,” Minnesota Historical Society, September 30, 2016, YouTube video, 2:48, web.

top Unknown artists, Birchbark Bitings, ca. 1907–1925, collected by Frances T. Densmore, collection of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology, E366459-0. bottom Unknown artists, Birchbark Bitings, ca. 1907–1925, collected by Frances T. Densmore, collection of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology, E366452-0.

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ab ove, top Ke l l y C h u rc h (Ottawa/Ojibwe/Pottawatomi), Turtles and Campfire, 2019, birch bark. Photo: Richard Church (Odawa/Ojibwe). These two photos illustrate the difference between a biting being front lit or backlit. above, bottom Angelique Merasty (Woodland Cree, 1924–1996), Floral Birchbark Biting, birch. Photo: Western Development Museum Collection, Saskatchewan, WDM-1973-S-8214.

The charm of the designs resides, in great part, in the effect created by the symmetrical composition, which can range from a single animal, flower, geometric or abstract form (done with a single fold line down the middle) to a quadripartite design of repeated elements articulated along the diagonal folds.

This array of folding possibilities inspired a culturally based inquiry curriculum for fifth, sixth, and seventh graders, featuring a birch-bark biting project designed to address learning outcomes in math, science, social studies, and visual arts. The project was driven by Josephine Peck (Mi'kmaq), an elder of the Wagmatcook First Nation in Unama’ki

(Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia), and her recollections of her mother teaching her birch-bark biting. The lesson is offered to help decolonize mathematics education for Indigenous students in Atlantic Canada.7 The geometry of shapes in birch-bark bitings, seen in the “lines of symmetry” made by folding the bark sheet, is also highlighted through the work of Rosella Carney (Cree), an artist from La Ronge, Saskatchewan, who has been making bitings since 1989.8 Several early 20th-century anthropologists were intrigued by the art of birch-bark biting. They documented this Indigenous art form, which depends on the presence of birch trees, across northeastern Native American and First Nations, including in Anishinaabeg, Cree, Algonquin, Atikamekw, Innu, Mi'kmaq, and Penobscot communities, and among the historical Beothuk. 9 Frances Densmore, in particular, devoted a section of her study of Ojibwe uses of wild plants to birch-bark “transparencies,” and collected more than 200 bitings, some of which are now in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. These include geometric and floral patterns but also representational designs, such a row of women holding hands or two people standing in a house. The women Densmore talked with and who made these works were from White Earth and Red Lake Reservations in Minnesota as well as from the Manitou Rapids Reserve in northwestern Ontario. She noted that the latter designs were made from a thicker, “stiff and heavy” bark, so that the folding marks are more apparent and the biting marks not as sharp as with thinner layers.10

7. “Mawkina’masultinej: Let’s Learn Together! Birch Bark Biting,” Show Me Your Math, web.

8. Aboriginal Perspectives “Examples of Birch Bark Biting,” University of Regina, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, web. The site offers teacher resources and is maintained by University of Regina, education faculty, science faculty, and students and the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program. Carney is profiled in “Making Waves,” Saskatchewan Arts Board 2017–2018 Annual Report, 10–11.

9. Daniel S. Davidson, “Decorative Art of the Têtes de Boule of Quebec,” Indian Notes and Monographs 10, no. 9 (1928): 115–49; James Patrick Howley, The Beothuks or Red Indians: The Aboriginal Inhabitants of Newfoundland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), 175; Frank G. Speck, “Symbolism in Penobscot Art,” Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 29, part 2 (1927); Frank G. Speck, “Art Processes in Birchbark of the River Desert Algonquin: A Circumboreal Trait,” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 128, Anthropological Papers 17 (1941): 229–74.

10. Frances T. Densmore, “How Indians Use Wild Plants for Food, Medicine and Crafts,” Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report 44 (1928): 275–397. The transparencies are discussed in pages 390–96, and many examples in the collection are published in the accompanying plates.

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Birchbark biting has been variously described as an activity carried out by both women and men, and that it was used as a pastime as well as a device for decorations. “Around the camp fire or stove, amidst the litter of refuse where birch-bark fragments occur, the children and women may be observed deriving mild entertainment from their skill with the teeth. It is distinctly a feminine avocation, and an art in which old women, who have but a single incisor or canine fang left from nature’s dental equipment, excel.”11 A woman at Lac Courtes Oreilles Reservation in Wisconsin remembered her father making bitings during the winter and encouraging the children to make up stories to interpret the designs he created.12 And writer and artist Lois Beardslee recalls her own childhood memory of going with her family to their winter bush camps in northern Michigan and Ontario. In the evenings the older men peeled birch bark from firewood and made bitings as entertainment for the kids. “Mostly I remember the joking and cajoling as the designs were held up to the kerosene lamp.” She also says the older ladies used the patterns for beading.13 Densmore reported that bitings made to be used as patterns for woven beadwork for knee and head bands had both geometrical and representational (tipis, houses) designs. The composition rendered by the fold and biting technique was helpful to delineate symmetrical shapes. In her study of Minnesota Ojibwe designs, Sister Bernard Coleman noted that “the Ojibwa star is distinctive in that it always contains either six or eight points.… The star is also one of the most common designs in the bitten birch bark patterns.”14 Others have posited that bark bitings were used as stencils 11. Frank G. Speck, “Montagnais Art in Birch Bark: A Circumpolar Trait,” Indian Notes and Monographs 1, no. 2 (1937): 76.

12. Ernestine Friedl, “Notes on Birchbark Transparencies,” American Anthropologist 46, no.

1 (1944): 149–50.

13. Lois Beardslee in discussion with the author, November 25, 2019; Lois Beardslee, “Birch Bark Biting,” in Lies to Live By (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003): 22.

14. Densmore, “How Indians Use Wild Plants for Food, Medicine and Crafts,” 392; Sister Bernard Coleman, OSB, Decorative Designs of the Ojibwa of Northern Minnesota (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947): 10.

above, top Century-old paper birches (Betula papyrifera) at the Marion Brooks Natural Area, Moshannon State Forest, Pennsylvania. Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli (CC BY 2.0). above, middle Lois Beardslee (Lake Superior Ojibwe/ Lacandon) creating a biting, 2011. Image courtesy of the Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies, Marquette, Michigan. r i g h t, b o t t o m D e n i s e Lajimodiere (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), Dragonfly, 2019, birch bark. Photo: A. Greci Green.

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above, left Wa n e s i a Misquadace (Fond du Lac Ojibwe), birch-bark biting backlit by sun. Photo: W. Misquadace. Images courtesy of the artist.

Above, right Wa n e s i a Misquadace (Fond du Lac Ojibwe), My Sweet Grass Dancer, 2016, birch, silver, coral, turquoise, horsehair. above, bottom Misquadace peeling bark off a paper birch tree in northern Minnesota.

for the double-curve design, prevalent in Wabanaki design, and as mapping trails among the Innu.15 Recently Denise Lajimodiere has experimented by embellishing some of her bitings with quillwork and beadwork.

Attention to and the practice of this ancient art form has grown in recent years.

For decades, every writing that discussed the topic also stated that it was “a lost art” and the biter the last one to have the skill, even though there are quite a few artists noted since the late 19th century. 16 Even if some artists were indeed isolated, it seems that there has been a constant desire to continue this artistic practice.

As a young woman in the mid-1940s, Angelique Merasty (Woodland Cree, 1924–1996), from Beaver Lake in northern Saskatchewan, learned from her mother Susan Ballantyne (who

was thought of as the best in her area).

Merasty has been a most celebrated practitioner, with an exhibition of her work at the Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre in 1983; her work continues to be admired by her fellow birch-bark biting artists (especially her ability to render elephants).17 Merasty found a passionate apprentice in Angelique Merasty Levac (Métis), a young woman that by chance shared her name and sought her out in the early 1980s. Levac still continues her elder’s legacy.18 There are at least a dozen—and by some counts close to 50—birch-bark biters practicing this art form in the United States and in Canada.19 Artists who work with birch bark express a reverence for this amazing tree and observe the proper gathering protocols. Birchbark is usually harvested in the spring, and, as Lajimodiere explains, “Always offer the tree tobacco. We say a prayer for the tree that we’re exchanging something. We don’t ever just take anything from nature and not give back.”20 Wanesia Misquadace (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) considers the tree to be “the foundation, the strength of our people.

The birch bark was used for storytelling, pattern-making, beadwork, quillwork.

We learned how to fold the birch bark origami-style; we learned how to fold our birch-bark baskets.”21 There are many stories about the birch tree, and teachings that go along. There are many stories about the birch tree, and teachings that go along. For instance, birch bark biting requires patience. Lajimodiere states, “You have to be patient in peeling …

Then you have to be very patient again when you open it up, because it can tear very easily.”22 Direct transmission is of course a critical element for the continuity of the art form, as is creativity. Kelly Church, who generously shares her skills and

15. Davidson, “Decorative Art of the Têtes de Boule of Quebec,” 152–53. Frank G. Speck, “The Double-Curve Motive in Northeastern Algonkian Art,” Canada Department of Mines, Geological Survey 42 (1914): 11; Speck, “Symbolism in Penobscot Art,” 77; Speck, “Montagnais Art in Birch Bark,” plate 13.

16. This observation prompted Cath Oberholtzer and Nicholas N. Smith to critique such a sentiment in “‘I'm The Last One Who Does It’: Birch Bark Biting, An Almost Lost Art,” in Papers of the 26th Algonquian Conference, ed. David H. Pentland (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1995): 306–21.

17. Elizabeth McLuhan, ed., Wigwas: Bark Biting by Angelique Merasty (Thunder Bay, Ontario: Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre, 1983).

18. Angela Simmons, “Artist Practises Ancient Art Form,” Windspeaker Publication 10, no. 18 (1992): 17.

19. Jeff Bullard of the Friends of Birch Bark in discussion with the author, March 22, 2017.

20. Lajimodiere, “Native American Artist-in-Residence,” video.

21. Wanesia Misquadace in discussion with the author, August 17, 2019.

22. Lajimodiere, “Native American Artist-in-Residence,” video.

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above Angelique Merasty (Woodland Cree, 1924–1996), Sewing Basket, mixed media with birch bark, collection of the Tweed Museum, gift of Dick Nelson. Image courtesy of the Tweed Museum, Duluth, Minnesota. above, right Angelique Merasty demonstrating birch-bark biting, 1954. Photo: Doug Evans. below, right Angelique Merasty Levac (Cree), Bitten Birch Bark Design with Birds, Butterflies, and Starburst, 1990, birch bark, collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, gift of Raymond A. and Ruth A. Reister, 2016.76.6. ©Angelique Merasty Levac. Image courtesy of Mia.

teachings, mentored Denise Lajimodiere.

They each make a variety of designs, but the turtle is special for Church and the dragonfly is special for Lajimodiere.

Misquadace, a trained metalsmith, creates elegant silver and birch-bark canisters upon which she sets her bitings in small turtle-shaped frames; she also designs exquisite silver jewelry featuring her bark biting designs.

Beardslee shares another way of maintaining the connections embodied by the art of birch-bark biting: Sometimes when I am out in the woods I pick up pieces of bark that the tree sheds naturally during winter’s harsh winds. I make bitings, then lift and release them to flutter away in the breeze. This is how I thank the woodlands for my livelihood. This is my way of leaving a message to future generations that the Anishnabeg are still here, that this one small tradition has not yet perished.23 Adriana Greci Green, PhD, an art historian and anthropologist, is the curator of Indigenous arts of Americas at the Fralin Museum at the University of Virginia.

23. Lois Beardslee, “Birch Bark Biting,” 23.

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SEMINOLE, QUINAULT, AND QUILEUTE SHARING ARTS AND CULTURES A 3,500 Mile Journey Crossing the continent from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts, members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida exchange art, customs, and life experiences with members of the Quinault Indian Nation and Quileute Tribe of Washington State.

By Jessica Osceola (Seminole Tribe of Florida)

A

T THE ENTRANCE OF THE JUANITA OSCEOLA CENTER in Naples, Florida, hangs the image of a grandmother as a reminder of the communities’ matriarch who dedicated her life to art, family, and culture. In this portrait the late Juanita Osceola (Florida Seminole, 1904–1987), dressed in colorful patchwork, a collar of beaded necklaces, and a tightly wrapped hair bun, gazes out with a stern expression. Juanita was a mentor for all her children and grandchildren and influenced the lives of her great-grandchildren yet to come. Her days were filled with sewing intricate patchwork, handstitching palmetto dolls, and weaving a variety of baskets from sweetgrass to palmetto. Juanita Osceola’s art has traveled far and into the collections of many famous people, as well as the homes of tourists and shoppers. Handcrafted items, made by Juanita at festivals throughout Florida, survive in the collections of her family, museums, and patrons who bought her work many years ago, and the Naples

members a place to gather, celebrate, and create. New ideas, old stories, and lots of laughter have filled this space for ten years. The JOC, as tribal members affectionately call it, has been a central hub for Indian Day events (annual celebrations held across the Seminole reservations in late September), communal dining, afterschool culture classes, health programs, and tribal meetings. Over the years, the center has also become a place for friends to catch up with each other and visit with the 40 families that have inhabited the area for several generations.

REACHING OUT

matriarch lives on through the craftsmanship and art of her descendants, as well.

The Seminoles honored Juanita Osceola’s legacy by opening the community center in 2009, which provides tribal

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EVERY MONTH, Brian Zepeda (Florida Seminole), an artist, canoe maker, and the Naples liaison for the tribe, hosts meetings at the Juanita Osceola Center. Here, the JOC serves as the birthplace of every event and project that comes to fruition. At one meeting, he asks the community to choose a location to experience a new Indigenous

culture, and Zepeda’s knowledge of the Northwest Coastal peoples becomes the seed of a new, intertribal project.

Tribal community outreach specialist Sandy Osceola and JOC staff nurture this seed and propose a trip to bring together the Quinault Indian Nation, Quileute Tribe of Washington State, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Osceola plans a culture exchange to take the Naples Seminoles into the Northwest Coast landscape, patterned with cedar trees, to go out on canoes where the Quileute River meets the Pacific Ocean, and to immerse them in the daily lives of Quinault and Quileute people—far from the hot, sunny, humid days of the Florida Everglades.

Sandy Osceola then contacts Quileute tribal events coordinator Justin “Rio” Jaime, who begins to recruit drummers, singers, canoes, and cooks from his Quileute community. Rio also plans an event where Seminoles could engage in the customs that have sustained his Northwest Coastal tribe throughout history and into present day. “I was the Quileute Tribe’s contact for communication of the culture exchange,” Rio recalls. “During the exchange I brought a group from Quileute over to Quinault to perform a couple of songs and dances.

In La Push I coordinated the traditional meal, skippered a canoe that went out for a ride, and hosted the healing circle performance.” All the complex preparations would take shape months before the Seminoles were set to arrive in La Push, Washington.

PREPARATIONS BACK IN FLORIDA, a pot of beef stew and dumplings are set out for lunch at the JOC. “In order to properly conduct a culture exchange,” says Sandy Osceola, “we need to make something to give our hosts.” So, she puts out a call to local Seminole artists to help. Volunteers arrive at the JOC ready to contribute to a project they know will have a lasting impact on the fellow Indigenous peoples. Seminole tribal elders and mentors Douglas Osceola and Maggie Billie Porter join the group,

bringing their knowledge to the project.

“If 80 people are going to be in attendance then we will need 80 gifts,” says Sandy Osceola.

In the months leading up to the exchange, local artists harvest materials and gather supplies. They handcraft Seminole dolls, sweetgrass baskets, and beadwork to place in beaded gift bags. A handful of women create other artworks portraying a colorful and well-crafted display of Seminole culture.

Three of us—Karie Osceola Gamez, Marissa Osceola, and myself—are the great-granddaughters of the late Juanita Osceola. We agree to lead a specific portion of the project, while many community members help assemble the artwork. Most Seminole arts are learned from family members, handing

above Karie Osceola Gamez (Seminole) sewing patchwork doll clothing for display boxes present at culture exchange.

Photo: Jessica Osceola. opposite Juanita Osceola (Florida Seminole, 1904–1987) sewing on her Singer machine at the Florida Folk Festival, White Springs, Florida, 1977, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Photo: Merry Belland (CC0).

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bark is the first step in the process of stripping, pounding, and finally weaving the material into containers, clothing, and other exquisite items. Cedar bark clothing and hats naturally repel water—a vital need since the tribes’ home on the Olympic Peninsula gets 115 inches of rain each year. Ann Walker (Quileute) carries on the knowledge of weaving cedar to make items such as baskets, skirts, capes, and hats. The Quileute community gifted a woven basket made by Ann Walker to the Seminoles as a gift for traveling to their home to visit.

FOLLOWING THE SEMINOLE ART

above Maggie Billie Porter (Seminole), tribal elder and mentor arranges displays to be given to Quinault and Quileute tribes. Photo: Jessica Osceola. opposite Northwest Coast dancers wearing their customary regalia with cedar bark mantles, button blankets, and woven cedar hats at the ceremonial dance during the cultural exchange.

Photo: Jessica Osceola.

techniques and designs down through the generations. Each one of us has an art we know and are willing to teach others. Karie practices patchwork and sewing daily, Marissa coils sweetgrass to make baskets, and I stitch palmetto fiber together to make dolls. For several months the three of us host classes to inspire community members to get involved.

Meanwhile in La Push—a coastal community of about 400 people at the mouth of the Quillayute River on the Quileute Reservation—Quinault and Quileute tribal members gather within their communities to make preparations.

During the early summer, Northwest Coastal tribes of Washington harvest bark from the cedar tree. Fir, spruce, and hemlock live among the cedar forests so navigating the hammocks—narrow strips of woods often growing from dunes or islands—takes experience. Harvesting

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KARIE OSCEOLA GAMEZ is fixed in front of her sewing machine. An established seamstress and a mother of three, she leads the others in sewing floor-length patchwork skirts with matching capes.

“These outfits for women and girls are worn for stomp dancing during Corn Dance or for a special event such as a culture exchange. Sewing strips of fabric feels never-ending, but the reward is knowing a little bit of my design is making its way to Washington’s Northwest Coastal tribes” says Osceola Gamez. The sewing machine runs eight hours a day, stitching together years of accumulated techniques, colors, and designs of all the women that gave influence to a new generation of patchwork clothing.

“If you look at the way old patchwork clothing is constructed and the style of design it will tell you exactly who made them,” says my father, tribal elder and mentor Douglas Osceola. Douglas Osceola joined the classes at the JOC to help guide the doll-making process in the style of his grandmother Juanita Osceola.

Karie Osceola Gamez shares her understanding of patchwork clothing, crafting milk-can shakers, and stitching miniature dolls’ clothes in the months leading up to the cultural exchange. She has a wealth of knowledge, but more importantly Karie always emphasizes the importance of quality and pride in her work. As a teacher, my sister takes the

time to demonstrate every step properly, so nothing leaves her sewing machine that won’t hold up for years to come—just as matriarch Juanita Osceola would have done it. Osceola Gamez grew up watching her grandmothers sew day in and day out.

My sister Karie and I would sit on the floor stringing glass beads to sell at our grandmother’s craft booth. Crafting was at one point a necessity. I used to teach as a Traditional Arts Specialist for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, where I would put together classes on harvesting natural fibers or learning new beading patterns.

Teaching and sharing seems to run in my family. I taught students how crafting was once a means of economic survival, but now it can be an artistic expression and a pursuit of excellence.

The Juanita Osceola Center serves the community in such a way that culture and craft can fit into their daily living.

Classes are revolving, and the objects being created for the exchange are ongoing daily, giving ten-year-old Amelia Zepeda a chance to come in after school to help make doll faces. With needle in hand, Amelia stitches eyes by overlapping white onto black embroidery thread into the doll heads made from red-orange palmetto fiber. This is her first time trying to make Seminole dolls.

Maggie reminds the younger seamstresses how she has seen these objects being made in the past. She recalls lessons from her 100-year-old aunt Mary in harvesting, cleaning, and weaving sweetgrass into baskets. Sweetgrass is a long needle-shaped grass that has a pleasant aroma when dried out. We typically weave baskets with palmetto fiber bases with strands of sweetgrass coiled up from the bottom and stitched together with cotton thread. Since south Florida lacks clay, sweetgrass baskets fill the role of pottery and baskets have historically been used for cooking, storing, and carrying items.

Now the JOC, a living and breathing community center, is headquarters to a revived interest in Seminole art that will be taken across the country and given to some new friends.

MEETING OUR HOSTS THE QUINAULT NATION graciously hosted the Seminoles at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino, their flagship hotel and casino in Ocean Shores, Washington. The tribe operates a number of culturally and economically significant properties important to their past and future, but Quinault enterprises are set apart from where they live, in order to have less impact on the tribal people and their heritage sites. We meet our Quileute hosts, who introduce us to the Akalat Center, a community center like the Juanita Osceola Center with a gym.

The center, which overlooks the water from a hill, serves as a hub for Quileute

people. The name Akalat means “Top of the Rock” and refers to a neighboring rock formation, known as a resource of spirit power and a historical place where high status individuals were placed in canoes in the trees after their death.

THE EXCHANGE JUNE 18, 2019, marks the first day of the culture exchange in Ocean Shores, Washington. The Quinault Resort and Casino hosts the gathering of three tribes: Seminole, Quinault, and Quileute.

Seminole families fly into Seattle and drive along the dramatic coastline with long beaches. In the evening the three tribes share a meal together and socialize before presentations begin. The hosting tribes warmly welcome the Seminole WINTER 2020 | 27

above, top Northwest Coast girl showing her family’s crest and holding paddle for dancing. Photo: Beverly Bidney, Seminole Tribune. Used with permission. above, bottom Two Quileute men roast salmon in a fire pit at the Akalat Center in La Push, Washington. Photo: Jessica Osceola. opposite Seminole and Quileute canoe together in La Push, Washington. Photo: Jessica Osceola.

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Tribe of Florida with drumming, songs, and sacred dances, as the cultural exchange bridges the 3,500-mile gap from the swamps of Florida to the rugged Pacific coastline of Washington.

The cultural exchange starts that evening. As I look around the room, I see women of the Northwest Coast tribes wrap themselves in blankets that proudly display their families’ crests atop patterns in red and black. Cedar bark hats and capes are well represented, and images of their cultures’ most revered animals, such as the raven, wolf, and iconic killer whale, adorn paddles.

We Seminoles wear colorful patchwork clothing, designs of our clans, and a range of beadwork. All age groups from the three tribes have come to share their families’ art and heritage.

As the guests, Seminoles begin the evening with an exhibition of stomp dances, including the Catfish and Friendship dance. Male dancers, rattles in hand, gather at the front of the room and sing to begin the dance. The women line up and then alternate between the men as they begin to stomp their shakers for the dance. They proceed in a circle around a fire, just as it is done at our Green Corn Dance.

Quileute and Quinault drummers and singers gather in a circle while women dancers with paddles enter from the side.

The dancing weaves around the room with a slow, rhythmic pattern. Each family has a welcome song that is passed down throughout the generations. Seminoles, Quinault, and Quileute people stand side by side for the first time as each tribe invites the others to dance along. Through dance, music, and ceremonial clothing the tribes quickly find common ground.

Seminole youth, Dominic Osceola, presents display boxes of Seminole dolls, woodcarvings, and basketry on behalf of his family and community who handcrafted these for the head representatives of the Quileute and Quinault. Bruce Wagner (Quinault) joins the Seminoles in an exchange of dance and kindly offers a cedar canoe paddle from his family and himself.

Wagner, wearing a woven cedar hat, introduces the communities involved and with a big voice and bigger smile he gets the room talking and listening. Ann Walker is represented by her masterful weaving skills with a cedar basket to give to the Seminole community on behalf of her family.

The next day, the three groups prepare for a full day of learning. The Seminoles split up in different directions. Guy Osceola takes a special tour of the Quinault Cultural Center and Museum in Taholah, while many other families travel to the Quileute Harbor Marina to learn canoeing from the tribal people that make yearly journeys into the Pacific Ocean.

In La Push, a skilled group of Quileute fisherman go out to catch king salmon in preparation for the evening drum circle. “The salmon is caught and butterfly filleted—removing the backbone and keeping the fish whole,” explains Rio Jaime.

They place the salmon on a larger stick, holding the fish open in the butterfly shape, and cook it over an open pit fire. Outside places for cleaning fish and pit-firing are a permanent, built-in feature of the Akalat Center.

In the late afternoon, the Seminoles meet at the center. The salmon roasts over an open pit fire for about three hours before

the community feasts on them. Kids play games in the field nearby, and the sounds of hand drums echo from inside the community center. A Quileute team of cooks, drummers, singers, and dancers prepare all day for their guests to arrive.

Capping off the day, Nicole Davis, a Seminole living in Michigan says, “The end to such an enriching experience is to eat a loving and nourishing meal with new friends and to have given my young children a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The Davis family lives away from her Seminole family but found their way to this exchange because the opportunity was too important to miss.

COMMUNITIES PERSEVERE RIO RECALLS A QUOTE he once heard from a Quileute elder: “Culture is not an object. Culture is about being able to do the things our people have always done.” Rio says, “That’s why I feel like it is important to continue to do things the way the old people did.”

And as the three communities sit together and sink their teeth into the king salmon, the importance of this intertribal gathering is clear, the importance of community is clear, and the emphasis on sharing experience has taught each tribe something new.

“I wish we had experiences like this more often,” says Connie. “When I was a little girl I remember different clans coming together to talk about things that were happening among Seminole people. Not as many people are doing that anymore. This exchange is showing us how other tribes keep up their culture and traditions in 2019. We have learned new things from our new friends about staying involved.”

Several elders speak about the importance of oral history and cultural perseverance. Community involvement, coordinators, teachers, mentors, and physical spaces like the Akalat Center, the Juanita Osceola Center, and soon-to-bebuilt Quinault community center are all central in keeping connectedness.

Jessica Osceola (Seminole Tribe of Florida) is an adjunct art professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, artist, environmental activist, organic farmer, and mother who lives and works in Estero, Florida. Her most recent art project, based on sustainability, environment, and culture, includes a 500-piece handmade paper/ceramic installation at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum.

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ONE NATION'S VISION How the Chickasaw Nation Creates Culture and Community through the Arts In a region of the country where the arts are perennially underfunded and undervalued, Governor Bill Anoatubby and the Chickasaw Nation understand how vital visual, performing, literary, and media arts are to a healthy society. By supporting art education, institutions, and individuals, the Chickasaws lift up Native and non-Native peoples within and beyond their own communities.

By Vicki Monks (Chickasaw)

I

N 2005, when the Chickasaw Nation commissioned worldrenowned artist Mike Larsen to paint a series of portraits of Chickasaw Elders, the project was as much about honoring the remarkable histories of those elders as about the paintings themselves. While Larsen sketched studies for his paintings, interviewers coaxed the elders to share stories of the joys and hardships of their lives. Most were born in the 1920s and lived through the Great Depression and the 1950s, when the US federal government actively sought to terminate tribal sovereignty. Larsen’s paintings reveal the emotions and insistent determination in the faces of his subjects.

The three Chickasaw Elders series now consist of 72 paintings, each 40-by-30-inches. Currently, the third series, Listening to Our Elders, is on display at the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Larsen, a tribal member, credits Chickasaw Governor Bill Anoatubby with the vision and good grace to support such a monumental undertaking. And Larsen says, beyond the paintings, he’s thankful on a personal level. “It brought me back into the Chickasaw family,” he says. “It has made me more Chickasaw than I ever thought I could be.”

The Chickasaw Nation was originally centered in northern regions of Mississippi and Alabama and southwestern Tennessee.1 In 1837 and 1838, the US federal government coerced the tribe to move to Indian Territory, where they established a new homeland in the western Choctaw Nation in what eventually became south-central Oklahoma. Today, there are more than 68,000 Chickasaws.

1. Robert A. Brightman and Pamela S. Wallace, “Chickasaw,” in Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 14, Southeast, ed. Raymond Fogelson and William C. Sturtevant (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004), 478–79.

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Over the past two decades, the Chickasaw Nation has become a major supporter of the arts, within and outside of the Chickasaw Nation. The Chickasaws are one of the few tribes with an entire division devoted exclusively to arts and humanities. In addition to support for individual artists, the tribe has made major investments in arts education, art festivals, galleries and exhibitions, art purchases, and art business development.

The Chickasaws also intervened to help rescue the First Americans Museum (formerly known as the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum) in Oklahoma City after the State of Oklahoma threatened to cut off funding.

Chickasaw funding has become increasingly important to artistic endeavors on a broader scale, as well.

Governor Anoatubby says he believes that art connects us with our history, heritage, and culture and helps Native people share who we are with the world. “It does much more than bring beauty into our world,” he says. “It enriches our lives by helping to inspire understanding and a sense of community.”

Thirty-two years ago, when Bill Anoatubby was first elected governor, he

made a commitment to cultural revitalization at a priority level right alongside support for basic services such as healthcare, housing, and education. Lona Barrick (Chickasaw), who is currently in charge of Chickasaw Cultural Tourism, was on staff with Governor Anoatubby in those early years and recalls conversations about why arts and culture are so important. “One way of telling our story is through the arts,” she says. “It’s through dance and language, but even more through art. If you can show that, if you can write that, if you can sing that, if you can help tell that story in that way, then it opens up all kinds of doors for conversation and dialogue.”

From the beginning, Barrick says the governor also recognized the importance of arts and culture as an avenue for economic development. He asked her to come up with events and activities that would strengthen cultural awareness and at the same time help attract visitors to the Chickasaw Nation. It was a symbiotic relationship. Arts became a crucial part of economic development, which in turn generated more resources for cultural programs. “A way to revitalize that

above, top Lowak Shoppala' and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra at the Oklahoma City Civic Center.

Photo: Shevaun Williams and Associates. above, bottom Governor Bill A n o at u b by (C h i c ka s aw ) .

Image courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation. opposite Mike Larsen (Chickasaw) and one of his oil portraits of Chickasaw elders.

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above, top Crowd scene at the Artesian Arts Festival, Sulphur, Oklahoma. above, bottom Governor Anoatubby greets a young Chickasaw at the Artesian Festival. opposite Joanna Underwood Blackburn (Chickasaw), Woodpecker, bronze sculpture, 84 in., Chicksaw Cultural Center, Sulphur, Oklahoma.

culture was to diversify our businesses,” Barrick says. “We knew that they would complement each other, and Governor Anoatubby had a clear idea of those things that needed to be done.”

Today Governor Anoatubby holds a place among the savviest business leaders in the state. He has been named the “Most Powerful Oklahoman” several times in statewide newspaper polls, besting executives of major energy companies and congressional leaders. Cultural tourism was an early success in what has become an array of profitable businesses, ranging from gaming to medical facilities, cybersecurity, and manufacturing heavy industrial equipment “We’re blessed with having a lot of working capital with the success of gaming and the multitude of other businesses,” says Laura Stewart (Chickasaw), the executive officer of the Chickasaw Arts and Humanities Division. “With business success, there’s more opportunity to create art endeavors that also generate capital.”

By way of example, Stewart points to the increasingly popular art festivals the Chickasaw Nation sponsors, including the Southeastern Art Show and Market (SEASAM) in Tishomingo, and the Artesian Arts Festival in Sulphur, which offer substantial prize money and sales opportunities. Stewart says those festivals, now attracting top Chickasaw and other Native American artists from across the

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country, create hubs for artists and buyers.

And beyond that, she says those festivals help rural economies. “Last year with the festival in Sulphur, more than 11,000 visitors came to this community, and while they’re here, they’re purchasing meals, they’re staying in hotels, and they’re shopping locally. This art event is providing an economic driver.” And economics aside, Stewart says Chickasaw support for the arts is also essential to tribal identity.

No one knows the full extent of cultural knowledge that was lost during more than 150 years of cultural suppression after the Chickasaws and other tribes were forcibly removed from their homelands. heather ahtone (Choctaw/ Chickasaw), who is the senior curator at the First Americans Museum, says, “Only a small contingent of community members managed to carry our arts and culture forward, and they did so often at great personal cost.” For ahtone, the Chickasaw Nation’s investment in the arts honors that sacrifice and makes it possible for other tribal members to reconnect.

“The truth is that being connected to our Native culture and being connected to our Native arts are interwoven. These are the things that strengthen community bonds and give us the strength to carry forward individually,” she says. “We are creating a future in which Chickasaw people will still have our arts and our culture as part of our identities. I believe

our ancestors practiced this, and we have a responsibility today to act on those same principles.”

Joanna Underwood Blackburn is one of those Chickasaw artists who have resurrected historical ways of fabricating pottery by researching ancient clay and firing techniques. For the exhibition Visual Voices, Underwood created an installation representing a stomp dance fire, with clay tablets arranged in a swirl above, evoking the rise of smoke carrying prayers to the heavens. On each tablet, Underwood inscribed prayers in multiple Native languages.

The Chickasaw Nation provided a grant to support Visual Voices, a nationally traveling museum exhibition featuring 15 Chickasaw artists. The show opened at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and will be traveling through fall of 2020. During Santa Fe Indian Market in August 2019, according to museum curator Manuela Well-Off-Man, the Visual Voices exhibition drew the largest crowd of any opening reception ever held at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.

Margaret Roach Wheeler (Chickasaw/Choctaw) was one of the artists who first approached the Chickasaw Nation about backing a specifically Chickasaw touring exhibition, and Wheeler’s haunting sculptural weavings

are included in the show. Wheeler says that much of the general public and many art collectors are unaware of Southeastern tribal art and the specific designs and motifs that are unique to those tribes.

Wheeler remembers seeing a map at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian showing the major divisions of Native American art. “Looking at that map, you’d see Woodlands style, Iroquois, Plains tribes, Northwest Coast, California, the Southwest, but there’s nothing indicated for the Southeast,” Wheeler says. “We want people to know that our artwork and our designs are different. We want to put Southeastern art on the map.”

For many years, Wheeler has taught community classes in weaving at the Artesian Gallery and Studios in Sulphur, which offer a workspace for area artists and those interested in learning. And in another step forward, the Chickasaw Nation has invested in Mahota Textiles, a business venture that sells woven goods based on Wheeler’s Southeastern art designs. Fabrics for blankets, pillows, purses, and furniture upholstery are commercially woven and marketed through major art museums, including the Smithsonian and the Autry Museum in Los Angeles. The business is also designing woven products for the Dallas Cowboys and for hotel suite décor.

As an artist in residence with the

Chickasaw Nation, Wheeler was tasked with designing the set and costumes for the stage production of Lowak Shoppala'— which translates as “fire and light”—a symphony composed by Jerod Tate with libretto by poet Linda Hogan (both Chickasaw). The project was a major step for the Chickasaw Nation in supporting performing arts. The cast includes members of the Chickasaw Dance Troupe and the Chickasaw Children’s Chorus with vocals sung entirely in the Chickasaw and Choctaw languages. The Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Oakland Symphony, and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra have all performed excerpts, and a studio recording with members of the Grammy award–winning Nashville Symphony will be released in early spring 2020, with album design and cover art by Chickasaw graphic artist Dustin Mater.

Governor Anoatubby points to Lowak Shoppala' as a prime example of how Chickasaw culture encompasses all forms of artistic expression. “Chickasaws have a long tradition of oral history and storytelling that is the source of inspiration for much of the Chickasaw literature and music being created today,” he says.

“Oral historians, storytellers and artists have been culture bearers for generations, helping bind Chickasaws together as a distinct nation of people.”

The governor personally knew the famed Chickasaw storyteller Te Ata, who WINTER 2020 | 33

above, top Brent Greenwood (Chickasaw/Ponca), artist and Chickasaw Nation Arts and Humanities Division fine arts director. above, bottom J o a n n a Underwood Blackburn (Chickasaw), ceramic artist, bronze sculptor, and graphic designer. opposite Poster for the movie Te Ata (2016), starring Q'orianka Kilcher (Huachipaeri descent).

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died in 1995 at the age of 100. Te Ata’s life story became the basis for a critically acclaimed movie, one of three full-length feature films developed by Chickasaw Nation Productions. In addition, the Nation has also produced a number of major documentaries and ongoing shorts for Chickasaw.tv online.

Arts education also ranks among the governor’s top priorities. The Chickasaw Arts Academy for students ages 8 through 18 offers instruction in painting, ceramics, dance, vocal music, video production, fashion design and other disciplines.

Governor Anoatubby says on a practical level arts education “helps encourage creative thinking, develops a sense of accomplishment and helps inspire understanding of different cultures.

Beyond that, arts education can help develop problem solving skills and improve performance in math and strengthen reading skills.” And he says that perhaps even more importantly, “Art offers unique forms of expression that enable young people to tell their own stories in ways that are meaningful to them.”

Chickasaw fine arts director Brent Greenwood (Chicksaw/ Ponca), who oversees arts education, says he feels blessed to be part of that effort because of the difference it makes in young people’s lives. “Sometimes you really do find a diamond in the rough—a student who says, ‘I had no idea I was going to enjoy singing, acting or drawing so much.’ That’s the joy of seeing these young people really blossom in this academy,” says Greenwood.

Greenwood, who is also an accomplished painter, says his early foundation with exposure to arts and cultural activities had a profound effect on him. “I think today it has the same effect for the young people. They may not be raised up with the culture readily available in the household, but if we can get them around it, expose them to it, they’ll have that desire to learn more,” he says. “They will understand that they have a heritage they can claim—language, arts, culture, worship, whatever it may be—there’s a sense of community that’s established once they really get involved.”

Chickasaw Nation also provides outreach programs to area schools with after-school arts enrichment and grants for arts education. The tiny community of Ravia, just a few miles west of the historic Chickasaw National Capitol in Tishomingo, had gone without a school arts program for more than decade until 2019 when a Chickasaw grant made it possible for the school to purchase art supplies. Ravia Schools Superintendent Barbara McDonald says many of the district’s 97 middle school students come from low-income families, which makes it difficult to afford art supplies. When state funding was cut years ago, art classes were the first to be eliminated. McDonald believes that was a huge mistake. “I believe that art is a necessity,” she says. “It’s part of our culture. Art classes allow students to express a lot about their emotions or environment.”

In addition to providing support for programs and productions, the Chickasaw Nation has also become a major collector of Native American art. The tribe has purchased multiple sculptures created by Enoch Kelly Haney (Seminole/Muscogee), whose The Guardian (2002) adorns the dome of the Oklahoma State Capitol. One of the many jobs of Markus Milligan (Chickasaw), Chickasaw Nation director of visual arts, media, and design, is procuring artwork for Chickasaw buildings. “We do our best to try to help each facility get outstanding artworks,” he says. “We

try to use Chickasaw artists, but we also look to other Native American artists for work. Sometimes Governor Anoatubby will find art at the Jacobson House and other places that we purchase for our facilities.”

On top of that, the Chickasaw Nation has become a major supporter of the broader arts community. Deborah McAuliffe Senner, president and CEO of Allied Arts based in Oklahoma City (OKC), says the Chickasaws have contributed close to three million dollars to support partners including the OKC Philharmonic, the OKC Ballet, the OKC Museum of Art and around 40 other entities. “We simply could not touch the number of lives we do without their generosity,” Senner says. The Chickasaws are the largest donor to Allied Arts, and Senner says those donations “lead to higher quality performances, and allow us to expand our reach by funding programming throughout the state and to assist underserved communities.”

This past November, nearly 10,000 children from across the state were bussed to Oklahoma City to hear a symphony orchestra performance. For most of those students, it was their first time hearing classical music live. Most of the schools that participated are in low-income districts where 85 percent of the children are entitled to free lunches, and the Chickasaw Nation paid for transportation and ticket costs. Senner says the experience ignites a passion for the arts and music. “I was almost in tears watching it,” she says. “The conductor teaches the children about the instruments and how they make sounds. They play music the children are familiar with and also introduce them to new works. It encourages the children to think about music in a different way. They all know the Star Wars theme music. They’re in awe to see how the music is played.” A teacher from Crutcho Elementary School adds, “When they get to attend this type of event, they get to see that the world has possibilities for them.

They get to dream.”

In keeping with the commitment to support arts and culture on a broad scale, the Chickasaw Nation also stepped in with a financial plan to ensure that the First Americans Museum (FAM) would become a reality after the Oklahoma legislature baulked at providing continued funding. Former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, who shepherded the project from its inception, was dismayed when the state lost interest in funding.

“There were certainly times when we didn’t have any idea how it was going to turn out,” Cornett says. “What we knew was that leaving the building half-finished was not an acceptable option.

We had to come up with a better solution.”

In its origins, FAM was touted as a major tourist draw, and Cornett is convinced that it will be that. “From a tourism standpoint, it’s probably one of the best locations in the United States,” he says. “The only obstacle beyond that is: Can we build something that is going to be of such quality that it will become a must-see for travelers who are driving from one part of the country to the other? From what I’ve seen, I think it’s going to live up to all those expectations. And people will get a better idea of where Americans first came from and how they existed for generations. I think it’s an important part of America’s story.”

“We needed an entity that could come in and address some of our concerns,” Cornett says. “The Chickasaws have a reputation of doing things right. If they get involved with it, it’s usually worthwhile. They’re experienced in running facilities that deal with tourism, running entities that are designed to bring in large crowds from outside the state like they’ve been doing with the Chickasaw Cultural Center.”

Current Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt (Osage), adds that people come to Oklahoma with the expectation of engaging with Native culture. “Now, they will finally have that opportunity in the most convenient location, Oklahoma City, and they will have that opportunity for engagement through a truly world-class facility,” Holt says. “We are eternally grateful to the Chickasaw Nation for helping us ensure that this facility opens and realizes its full potential.”

Brent Greenwood sums up the Chickasaw Nation’s support for the arts with this: “It’s like having a diverse portfolio. You have these different investments which in turn come back to the people you serve, to your nation. So putting money and investments into the arts and humanities, into commerce, into medical, into culture, it’s all interconnected. When you have all of these different programs working one with the other with one mission, it’s a great combination for success.”

Vicki Monks (Chickasaw) is a freelance writer, reporter, photographer, and radio and television producer, with a focus on environmental threats to Indigenous peoples.

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INSTRUMENTS OF PASSION Collecting Native Art

By RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)

All my life I’ve relied on this measured process of aesthetic absorption, whether the work is a Renaissance plaquette or a Native American wearing blanket. It involves returning over again to the individual work of art. I revisit and bear constantly in mind the objects of my own collection, however large or small, to gain insights. They are not trophies but instruments of passion, with the power to unexpectedly reveal mysteries.

—Ralph T. Coe1

I

NDIGENOUS FAMILIES and tribal members first collected Native art. The larger world began creating formal external collections of Indigenous art not for art’s sake but in the interest of providing objects of study for the curious and scholarly. In the last two centuries, some of the nation’s most iconic museums and institutions of higher learning, including the Peabody Essex Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, School for Advanced Research, the Laboratory of Anthropology/Museums of New Mexico, and countless others, have amassed great numbers of Native artworks from tribes across the Americas. In many cases, acquisition was often realized by less than savory means. These collections continue to fuel academic research.

Significant collecting of Native American art among the non-Native private sector began with European

above Ralph T. "Ted" Coe (1929–2010), collector, curator, and author. opposite Bess Murphy and Rachel Wixom. Both images courtesy of the Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe.

soldiers, priests, fur trappers, and government agents. At the turn of the 20th century, the movement to integrate art

by Indigenous peoples of the Americas into the global art canon began. Some Native artists exhibited in mainstream exhibitions, and some early Native curators, such as Angel De Cora (Ho-Chunk, 1871–1919), showcased Indigenous art in mainstream exhibitions as part of the burgeoning Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Exhibition of Indian Tribal Arts (1931) in New York proclaimed itself to be “the first exhibition of American Indian art selected entirely with consideration of esthetic value.”2 A decade later, the Museum of Modern Art devoted its entire exhibition space to Indian Art of the United States. The collecting of Native artworks in Indigenous and Western media exploded.

In the early 1960s the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) began acquiring work made by students of its high school honors program. Today that collection, known as the National Collection of Contemporary Native American Art, holds more than 7,500 individual works of art—all collected for art’s sake. This helped lead the way toward more Native-directed art-making practices and removed some of the external, non-Native dictations from the picture.

Long considered one of the world’s most significant private collections of Native American art is the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, part of which

1. Ralph T. Coe, The Responsive Eye: Ralph T. Coe and the Collecting of American Indian Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 15.

2. Janet Catherine Berlo, “The art of Indigenous Americans and American art history: A century of exhibitions,” Perspective 2 (2015), PDF, web.

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is on exhibit in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection was assembled from 116 masterworks representing more than 50 cultures across North America.

In 2010 James T. Bialac donated over 4,000 artworks to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. This collection includes approximately 2,600 paintings and works on paper, over 1,000 katsinam and 400 works of varying media, including ceramics and jewelry.

Another important private collection is that of Ralph T. Coe (1929–2010), known throughout Indian Country as Ted Coe. In his pursuits to obtain the best examples of Native American art of the time, he traveled extensively by car, “wearing out two of them, one of which lost its engine off the mounts after 97,000 miles of res roads.”3 Coe also wrote about the importance of appreciating the more ethereal aspects of collecting: Well known are the people who pick over the jewelry, pottery, and weavings without knowing how to respect the non-material values these arts represent. But generally welcome are those persons who take time to learn Indian ways, who do not press indelicate questions about Indian spirituality, and most of all who carefully sustain respect as well as interest when he or she is vouchsafed a glimpse into that Indian spiritual world.

In collecting I was interested not in ‘names’ alone but in the whole tribal cultural fabric. Outsiders, due to an understandable enthusiasm, have a tendency to create cult figures out of Indian artists and to stick with those names, not going very far afield. Is it not time to give other worthy artists a chance, especially young ones coming along—the continuators?4 The Coe Center for the Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded on much of the collection of its namesake, with more than 2,200 objects from around the world. Formerly known as the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, the nonprofit

organization is directed by Coe’s niece, Rachel Wixom, and is looking forward to opening a new, larger venue for its collections and exhibitions.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, private collecting of Native art thrived, especially in the Southwest. It was not uncommon for an in-demand artist to arrive at his or her Santa Fe Indian Market booth to be greeted by a collector (sometimes two or three) who had spent the night in the space in hopes of a chance to purchase something. This prompted some artists to set out lottery tickets the night before to ensure a fair or at least less chaotic purchasing process for collectors.

Means of collecting Native American art have changed through the decades, and though the archaeological approach is old news (and illegal), there may still be some digging involved in creating a collection of art. It still requires serious dedication, especially now that there are hundreds of galleries that specialize in Native American art and dozens of new art markets established in the last 20 years or so by museums and tribes throughout the country, which keeps the possibility of travel in the cards.

Collecting Native American art is an art in itself, and with so much out there to choose from, how and where to buy what from whom is the question so often at the forefront. To help take some of the guesswork out, I asked two staff members of the Coe Center for the Arts and some of today’s most esteemed collectors to reflect on their collecting experiences and philosophies and share a few words of advice for those just embarking on the journey.

Each has a slightly different approach to art collecting, but all stress the importance of building relationships with artists and galleries, doing the legwork before setting afoot on the collector’s path, and buying what moves you. Here’s more of what they had to say.

BESS MURPHY

Curator, Coe Center for the Arts Santa Fe, New Mexico I BELIEVE that collecting has the potential to be a critical means for building and sustaining community. In that sense, I encourage anyone interested in beginning

to collect art to start close to home. Learn about the living artists who are working nearby, spend time going to gallery openings, setting up studio visits, going to fairs, and learning from the artists first.

Buying art can be a valuable investment, but it is also the opportunity to participate firsthand in meaningful learning and to help build a thriving arts community. Be respectful of the intense labor and time that goes into the creation of a work of art and honor an artist’s price and their voice.

And buy art that speaks to you, that makes you think every time you look at it, wear it, or touch it.

RACHEL WIXOM

President, Executive Director, Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico COLLECTING IS A CHARGED TOPIC because of the infinite number of reasons why people collect, as well as how and what they collect. I grew up in a family where collecting is a passion, whether it be books, objects, photographs, paintings, etc. It is in our DNA and synonymous with being curious about the global world in which we live—from the far past to this moment.

I wou ld ne ver re commend collecting for investment only, as, to me, it is a soulless and clinical act about trophies, money, and status. If you collect with passion, you will enrich your life in ways never imagined. It can blow your mind as you learn about the world and the world teaches you back—you are forever changed, approaching life being awake.

It brings you together with individuals,

3. Ralph T. Coe, “Collecting American Indian Art: In the Field, 1977–1985.” SWAIA Magazine (1985).

4. Ibid.

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peoples, and cultures from the past through to the present moment that you never expected to meet or get to know; it is an incredible and rewarding feeling even when connecting beyond one’s comfort zone. Art should speak to your heart and soul, and to me, once owned it becomes family.

JAMES (JIM) T. BIALAC

Collector, Lawyer, Phoenix, Arizona I GUESS YOU COULD SAY I’m a born collector—as a kid I collected matchbooks and pennies. My first purchase was a painting by Robert Chee, also Hashke Yil E Cale [Diné, 1937–1992]. That was in 1964, and that’s when I started collecting Native American art, and it continued for almost 50 years.

To the aspiring collector, I would say find out what you want to collect and do some research. There’s no sense in walking in cold if you don’t know what you’re buying. Find out who the reputable dealers are, find out who’s good, and know what you’re getting into. Maybe you want to focus on one kind of art, one pueblo or tribe. Get to know people, join clubs, and attend auctions.

James "Jim" T. Bialac, JD. Image courtesy of Christy Vezolles.

And buy what you like, not what your best friend likes. You’re the one who’s got to live with it.

EDD GUARINO

Collector, Westchester County, New York MORE THAN 30 YEARS AGO I started a collection, though I had no idea what I was doing. During that period there were a number of gallery exhibitions in Manhattan that focused on Pueblo pottery, including a gallery in Greenwich Village

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that specialized in Native American art.

It was there that I first saw huge, ceramic ollas, which were completely unknown to me. Perhaps the deciding factor was an exhibit of Acoma Pueblo pottery at the Brooklyn Museum.

Over the years my collection has grown to encompass basketry, beadwork, sculpture, paintings, drawings, prints, photography, as well as Inuit sculpture and works on paper. The first piece I acquired in the mid-1980s turned out to be a mistake, but I didn’t discover this until many years later. In my passion for my newly acquired interest, I was buying indiscriminately without looking very carefully because no one had taught me how to look or what to look for. In 2005 Bruce Bernstein [director of innovation and senior curator at the Coe Center for the Arts] came to my home to help select artwork for Forms of Exchange, an exhibition drawn from my collection. In the process he pointed out the mold-made pot to me, showing me the clearly visible line where two pieces [of molded greenware] had been joined together [rather than formed using the classical Pueblo method of coiling]. I was mortified! That

over the years. And it is also about more than collecting for ourselves; we love to share what we have with others. We were involved with the Pablita Velarde Museum for Indian Women in the Arts when it existed in Santa Fe and were happy to loan pieces for display in the museum so others could enjoy them.

Research the art that interests you, get to know the artists and galleries, and form relationships when you can. And don’t buy something just because it’s a good investment—buy what you love.

Edd Guarino and Jody Folwell (Santa Clara Pueblo) at Santa Fe Indian Market.

piece is still in the collection—I use it as a teaching tool.

So, do your homework. Go to museums and galleries so you can learn what is considered the best examples of what you want to collect. Buy what you love, and buy the best you can afford. Once you develop an “eye,” trust your inner voice. Don’t buy a piece simply because it is by a famous artist. Consider acquiring work of beginning and emerging artists.

Use layaway plans; most galleries will let you buy a work you love by paying for it in installments. Just ask.

RICKI & SCOTT KRESAN Collectors, Placitas, New Mexico

ON OUR FIRST TRIP to the Southwest in the 1980s, we found a beautiful Navajo rug in Sedona but realized we didn’t know enough about Navajo weaving to make the purchase. The gallery sent us home with a good book, and on our next trip a year later, we purchased a Two Grey Hills.

As our collection expanded to include pottery, katsinas, bronze sculptures, and paintings, we read many books to expand our knowledge. We bought directly from the artists when we could.

When we did buy from the galleries, we sought out those that were members of the Indian Arts and Crafts Association because they were pledged to accurately represent the art and treat the artists they represented fairly.

We never collect for investment purposes. We collect the art that speaks to us, the art we love. It is also about so much more than the art. It is about the artists and their families, the history, the great relationships we have developed

Michael and Jody Wahlig.

Christy Vezolles. Photo: Gil Waldman.

CHRISTY VEZOLLES Art appraiser, Phoenix, Arizona

PEOPLE OFTEN SAY, “Buy what you love,” and I’m in total agreement with that.

But in buying what you love, it’s important to educate yourself. Talk to collectors and curators of the genre you are considering collecting to find out which galleries are the most reputable. Visit museums and attend art lectures. Build relationships.

Never buy an artwork just because someone tells you it’s a good investment.

And never let anyone pressure you into buying something. A reputable dealer will hold a piece for you if you need to sleep on it. And don’t be afraid to ask if you can make payments over time if that piece you love is out of reach.

MICHAEL & JODY WAHLIG Collectors, Minneapolis, Minnesota

OUR FIRST PURCHASE was made while on a trip to Santa Fe. A relative owned some Native American art, and we were intrigued. We turned a corner in a gallery and saw a ledger piece by an

artist we knew a little about. After making that purchase, we heard about the Santa Fe Indian Market, and that was where the real collecting began.

Our Native art collection coexists with Russian dolls, holiday décor, needlepoint, and art books. We’ve always believed that if something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.

Visit Indian markets and fairs to purchase directly from the artists. The two largest and oldest are Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix, but there are many others throughout the country year round. Focus on specific art: Santa Clara pottery, Zuni fetishes, Northern Plains ledger art, etc. Learn about the culture the art comes from, the artists, how the art is made, and how to best acquire the work. You’ll be teaching yourself a process for collecting that you can use when you inevitably branch into other areas.

Find and support the shows, galleries, and museums that feature what you want to collect. Curators and gallery personnel can help you understand the scope of the field you’ve chosen to collect in, and artists are happy to share their knowledge with you. Study and collect the art books and exhibition catalogs that cover your area of interest, find a mentor who can teach you and challenge you, attend museum and gallery presentations, mine the internet, and subscribe to Native art magazines.

RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo) is a freelance writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At last count, her collection of dictionaries stood at 302; thesauruses, 121.

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COLLECTING NATIVE ART WITH A PLAN

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

M

INOR ART PURCHASES are easy, but how do you go about purchasing major artworks? How do you develop a plan to buy art for which your appreciation will deepen over time? The advice from the experts runs counter to how Native art is typically marketed— at a crowded weekend art market, in a museum benefit auction, or in a posh gallery opening in Vancouver or Santa Fe. Realizing my own my mad assortment of purchased, traded, gifted, and inherited artworks does not constitute a coherent collection, I turned to the wisdom of San Francisco art consultant Alan Bamberger. He wrote The Art of Buying Art: How to Evaluate and Buy Art Like a Professional Collector, a wonderful resource, but one that made me realize the stark differences between collecting Native art as opposed to mainstream art.

Beginners tend to buy impulsively.

“You can overpay, get stuck with forgeries, buy inferior pieces, be fooled by get-richquick schemes, buy art with serious condition problems, buy copies or reproductions when you think you’re buying originals, and so on,” Bamberger warns.1 Instead of rushing to snatch up a prized piece, the key to building a true art collection is to slow down and be deliberate in your choices. As you spend years and even decades with artworks, they should merit deep contemplation and reveal their secrets over time. They should fill you with joy or beauty, or challenge you long after their newness and novelty have waned.

What is an art collection? Instead of a hodgepodge, an art collection explores a central theme. Bamberger writes, “What an experienced collector essentially does is pose a problem and then illustrate the solution to that problem by piecing together a collection. That way, everything fits, and it all makes sense according to the master plan. Michael Reid, an Australian art critic and dealer, writes, “A collection

must be a story. It is as simple as that.”2 An overarching narrative unites an art collection. To discover what narrative will prove so compelling that it resonates with you even decades from today, you may have to unlearn some habits and preconceived notions and cultivate a beginner’s mind.

Bamberger outlines four steps to buying art: defining, selecting, researching, and buying: “to define those types of art that attract you the most … to locate and select specific works of art for possible purchase … to learn more about them by researching them,” and “to evaluate art prices and how to buy art advantageously.”

To begin your journey, try and forget everything you know about Native art. Look at as much Indigenous art as you possibly can without reading about it or asking questions. Observe at a preverbal level. You can peruse books and magazines or look online at art-focused websites or Instagram under hashtags like #IndigenousArt or #NativeArt. Go see Native works at art and natural history museums, tribal cultural centers, historical societies, galleries, trading posts, art markets, historical Native sites, tribal colleges, reservations, pueblos, and pop-up shows. Check out the calendar on page 94 in this issue or consult FAAM’s online calendar and search for art events in your state or province. When you travel, research Native art venues at or near your destination.

Look at everything, whether you like it or not, and you’ll get a bigger picture of the overall Native art world. Study the artworks’ formal qualities such as color, texture, value (lightness or darkness), shape, mass, or composition. Is it light and delicate like a beaded feather dance fan or heavy like an alabaster sculpture?

Perhaps start a journal to jot down your observations. So many aspects of art might potentially resonate with you— geography, history, materials, techniques, personalities, content, formal qualities,

humor, and so much more—track them and see the pattern. Ask yourself questions and observe your responses to different artworks. Are you attracted to brilliant palettes, like a Norval Morrisseau painting, or do you prefer more muted earth tones, such as a Kewa Pueblo heishi necklace?

Your tastes might change over time as you observe Indigenous art anywhere you can while training your eye.

Now that you have a mental map of Indigenous art, where do your interests lie? Reread your journal notes and revisit art sites, but this time, ask questions and read all the wall text. Bamberger suggests seeking out knowledgeable institutions that can educate you about art. Visit galleries specializing in Native art, attend lectures or docent-led tours at museums or community art centers, visit tribally run cultural centers or reservation trading posts. Ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. Seek out opposing viewpoints. Read voraciously. If you have a college art library in your town, visit it.

Who are the artists that interest you?

What are their tribes and what region do they come from? What materials do they use? Record this in your journal.

Ask for referrals from other collectors, dealers, and artists. What galleries do the artists speak highly of? What artists do collectors praise? You can even ask artists what fellow artists they admire. Filter all this information and ultimately only buy the work that speaks to you.

Now start looking at specific works of art you might consider purchasing.

Bamberger writes, “A good place to begin any art gallery search is by looking at advertisements in major national or international art periodicals and publications, both online and hard copy.” By a happy stroke of fortune, you have the leading journal of Native American art in your hands right now, and all the galleries advertising in this issue have websites.

Bamberger feels very strongly that novice collectors should buy from established dealers and galleries. “Stay away from second-hand or resale or consignment stores, places that sell art on the side but really specialize in other types of merchandise … These are all high-risk ventures, and you need plenty of experience buying art before you start

1. All Alan Bamberger quotes are from Alan Bamberger, The Art of Buying Art: How to Evaluate and Buy Art Like a Professional Collector (London: Robinson, 2007).

2. Michael Reid, “What Constitutes a Collection?,” Art Market Monitor (October 13, 2010), web.

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Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market March 7 + 8, 2020 Booth H-41

KERI ATAUMBI AtaumbiMetals.com shop online

photo: razelle benally

to shop wherever you happen to see art for sale.” With galleries you can discuss the condition of the artwork, possibly use their research libraries, get money-back guarantees and sometimes payment plans.

In the Native art world, many artists don’t have gallery representation, and the selection of Native art at most art fairs is minimal. Buying directly from the artist, particularly at Native art markets, is commonplace. You can still do this as a beginning collector; just do your research beforehand to find out which artists you truly wish to collect.

When researching Native artists, you can check the Heard Museum’s Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives, in person or online, and the Philbrook Downtown's Adkins Study Center, which has 1,500 files on individual Native artists. For painters active prior to 1995, Patrick D. Lester’s The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters is invaluable.

Study the artist’s résumé—if they have one. Is the artist a student, emerging, mid-career, or established artist? Within

the Native art world, the barriers to exhibiting publicly are far lower than in the mainstream art world, and it’s very common for an artist still working toward their undergraduate art degree to exhibit.

Two things to consider are cultural sensitivity and ethnic fraud. Not all items that Native people create are art; some are so sacred they are not meant to be seen by the public. For instance, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee decreed in 1995, “No masks can be made for commercial purposes. Individuals who make masks for sale or sell masks to non-Indians violate the intended use of the masks, and such individuals must cease these activities as they do great harm to the Haudenosaunee.”3 For the most part, if you stick to works from the 20th and 21st centuries intended for sale, you will be safe. If you are unsure if an item is inappropriate to collect, contract tribal museums, cultural centers or tribal historic preservation officers.

To address the second issue, that of ethnic fraud, familiarize yourself with the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which

defines Native art as artwork created by a member of a federally recognized tribe or a state-recognized tribe, or someone who has been designated a tribe artisan by one of these tribes. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board, part of the US Department of the Interior, provides educational literature about this act. Dealers should clearly answer your questions about the name and tribal affiliation of the artist and be willing to put this information in writing.

Look at online lists of artists at a previous year’s market. The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), the nonprofit that hosts the Santa Fe Indian Market, the largest and oldest Native art market in the United States, just began posting images of artworks online of the participating adult artists at swaia.org/ exhibitors. This is an incredible resource to see what types of works are available.

Close to a thousand artists participate in the Santa Fe Indian Market every August. The Heard Fair held annually in Phoenix is the second largest, typically

3. Chief Leon Shenandoah, “Haudenosaunee Confederacy Policy On False Face Masks,” Peace 4 Turtle Island, archive.org for February 9, 2001, web.

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with 600 to 700 artists. The third largest is the Kewa Pueblo Labor Day Art Market with 345 artists. Many more art markets, from Alaska to Florida, host 100 to 200 artists. Smaller art markets provide intimate opportunities to visit with the artists.

If you visit the Santa Fe Indian Market, leave the Saturday morning buying frenzy to others. Wait, look the art over, consider it carefully, then come back and purchase it if you feel confident it will hold lasting appeal to you. If you miss out on one particular piece, ask the artist about future exhibits; get on their mailing list.

Don’t be swept away by hype. Better to miss buying one piece at the beginning of your collecting journey than to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a purchase you may later regret. Art may be valuable, but it is not liquid, and reselling is far more difficult than buying.

At this stage, study prices. These are easiest to find in commercial galleries or exhibitions at nonprofit art centers.

Sometimes you can find them online, particularly on artists’ websites; however, the value of an artwork is based on the sales price, not the asking price. A seller can ask any price she or he wants, for instance on eBay, but if the work doesn’t sell at that price, then it is irrelevant.

Consider what your budget allows. Buy the best art you can afford, but make sure you can truly afford it. Only spend discretionary income on art. Native art is extremely affordable, and works sell at every price point. Save major purchases for later as you become more informed and hone your artistic eye.

Auction prices help determine fair market value. While online auction sites usually require a paid subscription to access the realized prices, some, like Bonhams, do list sold prices and others share descriptive information on their websites, as well. For instance, mutualart. com shows images and titles of works sold at auction and shares by what percentage the realized price was above or below the mid-range estimated price. Artnet. com offers a one-day pass for $32.50, but make sure they cover the artists you are interested in before you buy a pass.

Unfortunately mainstream art databases

tend to lack good coverage of Native artists.

Don’t just study the one painting you are interested in; look at as many works by the artist as possible. Develop a mental picture of the artist’s oeuvre. What are their major works? How do the subject matter, style, techniques, and materials compare to other works by the artist?

Don’t just buy a name—a practice rampant in the Native art world. Even famous artists produces inferior works, or the work could be damaged. Is the piece you are considering a major or minor work? Bamberger advises, “If all you can afford is a minor work, you may wish to move on to a more affordable artist.”

Now that you have identified specific works of art you want to own, say from a gallery, nonprofit center, or the artist herself, buying online might be something you do in the future with artists whose work you know. Only buy online if you have a written, not just spoken, money-back guarantee. Auctions and the secondary market are great venues to pursue later on when you are familiar with the ins and outs of the Native art market.

While galleries might be happy to accept partial payments in installments, it isn’t appropriate to ask that of an individual artist. They already have a full-time job of making art and don’t have staff for bill collecting.

It’s also inappropriate to ask for discounts from artists. Hans Abbing, a Dutch conceptual artist and economist, wrote the fascinating study, Why Are Artists Poor?: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. He discovered that the art economy operates like no other market, and that of all the players (curators, gallerists, framers, art photographers, etc.), the artists are the least paid of all.

Also, not all artists accept commissions, that is, create art based on a collector’s request. If you have collected extensively from an artist, you can ask if they accept commissions, but if you are just beginning as a collector, don’t do this.

When you make your purchase, save every bit of paperwork involved in the process. This is part of the artwork’s provenance or record of ownership. Even an artist should furnish you with a receipt.

“If you are shown any documents relating to the art, ask that they be included in your purchase. When that’s not possible, borrow them and make copies for your records,” advises Bamberger.

Create a database of your art purchases—a simple Excel file, an online Airtable database, a box of index cards, or whatever works best for you. You should create files for every single work of art you purchase. While you may think you’ll remember all the details the seller told you about the artwork, or even the price and date of purchase, details will definitely slip as years roll by. It’s much safer to write everything down. If the gallery provides a certificate of authenticity or a condition report, definitely save those. The gallery or artist might also provide an artist statement. Take a digital photograph of the work.

As time goes by, “the reasons why you buy what you like should become increasingly more conscious, detailed, well thought out, and purposeful,” writes Bamberger. “In a superior collection, every piece belongs; nothing is random or arbitrary or out of place.”

New York-based art consultant Doug Woodham shares similar advice: “Find an area of focus,” or specialize so you can deeply understand the art and its market. “Develop visual acuity,” or train your eye by constantly looking at all types of art. “Buy with your eyes and ears” and glean as much information as possible from experts in the field before buying. “Stretch for A works,” that is, buy the best quality artwork you can afford and seek quality not quantity. “Upgrade over time” and let go of work that doesn’t fit your collection. Ultimately “support a museum” and partner with an institution that will help you learn more, whether it’s local or somewhere you regularly visit.4 “Do a good, comprehensive job researching and selecting art, and you’ll find yourself immersed within your chosen area of collecting to a degree that few casual buyers ever experience,” Woodham writes. “By getting involved, your collecting adventures can literally turn into a love affair with art.”5 A love affair that, if done thoughtfully, could very well last a lifetime.

4. Doug Woodham, Art Collecting Today: Market Insights for Everyone Passionate about Art (New York: Allworth Press, 2017), 58–59.

5. Woodham, Art Collecting Today, 381.

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benjamin harjo jr. american indian artist prairie thunder gouache on Arches watercolor paper 14 × 18 inches 2019

benjaminharjojr.com

PROFILE

IÑUPIAQ PHOTOGRAPHER

BRIAN ADAMS

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

F

OR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT experienced the North, it may be imagined as a place of fascination and mystery, a place that is cold, barren, dark, and isolated. This imagined perception, however, does not always fit the lived reality of people who reside here.

What is the North? Who are the people who live here? What are their lives like?

What does the Arctic look like? How is it changing?

Iñupiaq photographer Brian Adams (born 1985) provides an intimate view of life in America’s northernmost region centered from his home in Alaska. Born in Girdwood, raised in Anchorage, and with family ties to the Iñupiaq village of Kivalina, Adams has traveled throughout the state to document the daily life of the people and landscape of this place.

Specializing in environmental portraiture and medium format photography, Adams’s work looks at the human aspects of life in the Arctic.

His photographs are not staged, romanticized images of unnamed Indigenous peoples but rather personal and often spontaneous shots of individuals. Some of his subjects are strangers, but they are also his neighbors and his extended family—children playing on beach dunes in Shaktoolik, fishermen picking salmon from their nets, boys out hunting on the tundra, a carver in his studio in Hooper Bay, dancers at Bethel’s annual Cama-i Dance Festival. Some of Adams’s photos capture Alaska’s vast and dramatic landscapes such as a mountain pass in the Kigluaik Mountains, cottongrass in Naknek, a snowdrift in Kaktovik, the muddy waters of Bristol Bay. These are not unpeopled, unknown locations but living landscapes where Alaska Native

peoples subsist and have continuously lived for generations. He also represents urban Alaska as an unexpected melting pot of cultural diversity, sometimes gritty and often hipster infused. In his photographs I see community leaders, strong mothers, respected Elders, young people, and close-knit communities full of pride in culture. I see an Inuit perspective on how we relate to each other, to other living beings, and the world around us. I see a place that I recognize.

Adams has been interested in photography since he was a teenager.

He became drawn to medium format camerawork after experimenting with it in a high school photography class (Adams primarily shoots using a Hasselblad 503CW). After a short stint working as assistant for Clark James Mishler, a wellknown Alaskan portrait photographer, Adams became a freelance photographer

1. Brian Adams, I am Alaskan (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2013), 23.

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in 2005 and found a niche in photographing rural Alaskan villages. His work has been featured in National Geographic, Audubon, The Skateboard Mag, Newsweek, Orion, and Al Jazeera America, among many other publications, and he has also been included in exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the world including the Anchorage Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Galleri Nord-Norge in Harstad, Norway.

In 2018 he was recognized as a fellow with both the Rasmuson Foundation and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

Adams’s work is increasingly and seriously considered as the world ponders the importance of the North in the rapidly changing world.

As a lifelong Alaskan, his work stands out from other photographers who may come to Alaska for a short period to take images and then leave. Adams notes, “Alaska has been defined in the media by its politics and its oil. It has been defined in stories and science by its cold climate and wildlife. While these elements are part of Alaska, they do not define Alaska to me.” 1 As an Alaska Native person documenting Alaska, Adams captures the nuances of the place and frames it in a way that is meaningful for Indigenous audiences. Many of his photographs are about Inuit community but also a means to celebrate the community’s Inuit ways of life.

Adams’s work fits in with a growing trend in making space for Indigenous self-representation. “For the last 200 years, most stories about us have been told by white European males who traveled everywhere,” Adams explains. “Right now we are working to reclaim our own voice and we can tell our own stories. I believe

BRIAN ADAMS

journalism is better when done by locals.

It’s more in depth and more interesting.”2 We have our own photographers now, our own writers, our own media makers. We can represent the story of who we are to share with the world on our own terms. In this light, earlier this year Adams helped to launch and was an inaugural member of the project Natives Photograph, a database of more than 30 Indigenous photojournalists with a mission “to support the media industry in hiring more Indigenous photographers to tell the stories of their communities and to reflect on how we tell these stories.”3 Adams recommends the following to

emerging Indigenous photographers, “Don’t try to do it alone—it’s best to do this work with a team. My best work has been done with others involved who are there to back and support me. We can’t do this alone.”4 Much of Adams’s photography has been developed as different series including Disappearing Villages, a project that looked at how Alaskan communities are being impacted by coastal erosion and literally falling into the ocean. For this project, Adams photographed villages at the epicenters of climate change like Kivalina, Newtok, and Shishmaref. The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of

2. Brian Adams in discussion with the author, November 2019.

3. “Mission,” Natives Photograph, web.

4. Brian Adams in discussion with the author, November 2019.

We have our own photographers now, our own writers, our own media makers. above Kaktovik, Alaska—July 15, 2018, digital photograph from the Ilatka: The Inuit Word For My Relatives series. Danny Gordon, Marcus Gallager, John Tikluk, and Donald Gordon riding their bikes on a foggy night in Kaktovik, Alaska. In July, the sun never sets in Kaktovik. opposite Brian Adams. Photo: Ash Adams. All images courtesy of the artist.

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PROFILE

above Kivalina Sea Wall, 2007, digital photograph from the Disappearing Villages series. o pp o s i t e S h i n g l e Po i n t , Canada— July 26, 2018, digital photograph from the Ilatka: The Inuit Word For My Relatives series. Bruce Inglangasak (Iñupiaq) watching the wind and water from a cabin at Shingle Point in Canada. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, the sea ice could be pushed up against the shoreline, making it difficult or impossible to continue boating to Alaska from Canada.

the rest of the globe, and this has had profound impacts on how people live.

Weather is unpredictable; the loss of sea ice affects where and how subsistence takes place; invasive species are proliferating, and receding ice is opening up new ocean transportation routes. Adams’s photographs capture the change that communities are experiencing from a very human perspective. Where most visual journalists who document climate change may focus on melting glacial ice, polar bears, and homes falling in the water, Adams’s photographs show the faces of people who are directly impacted and whose lives are changing in real time.

Adams has helped others to document their stories about climate change.

In 2016 he spent two days in Shishmaref sharing photography tips alongside photojournalist Ash Adams, and National Geographic photographer Katie Orlinsky through a community photography workshop aimed at helping local residents capture climate change firsthand.

One participant in this project, Dennis Davis said, “Nobody knows down in the states what’s going on in Shishmaref, and we are Americans, you know? I thought it would be my job to show the world what’s actually happening here.… I want people to see that these are actual people dealing with climate change.”5

5. Heather Anderson, “Heather Anderson in Conversation with Brian Adams,” in Brian Adams: Confluence, 61–62.

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BRIAN ADAMS

The largest series that Adams has worked on, I am Inuit, was developed through a collaboration with the Alaska branch of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), an international NGO that represents all Inuit on matters of international importance. The project had the target to “connect the world with Alaskan Inuit (Iñupiat, Yup’ik, Cup’ik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik) and the Arctic, through common humanity.”6 Through this project Adams traveled to 16 villages to photograph and record the stories of the people who are often not seen or heard by the rest of the world. Travels took him to Quinhagak, Teller, Shungnak, Utqiagvik, Point Hope, Wainwright, Anaktuvuk

Pass, Kaktovik, Kotzebue, Buckland, Noorvik, Noatak, Nome, Shishmaref, Shaktoolik, and White Mountain. The resulting photographs were first shared via Instagram and eventually were published as a book, I am Inuit (Benteli, 2017).

Viewers might not immediately realize the challenges that Adams faced in his work on this series. Getting around Alaska is not trivial. Reaching Alaska’s most remote villages, which are typically off the road system, requires traveling on small bush planes that land on gravel runways. To fly from one side of the state to the other can take an entire day.

Travelers must be prepared for unpredictable delays due to storms. Freezing

temperatures impact how a camera works.

Adams embraces these challenges and appreciates the opportunity to go places that few will have the chance to see.

Subsistence is an important theme in Adams’s work and a thread that ties much of his subject matter together. For Alaskans, subsistence is an active way of life and a necessity in a region where the cost of food is much higher than elsewhere in the nation. There is deep respect in having the ability to draw from generations of inherited knowledge and sustainably harvest from the land around us. One of my favorite images that captures the importance of subsistence from the I am Inuit series shows

6. Brian Adams, email message to author, July 23, 2019.

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PROFILE

ab ove Marie Rexford of Kaktovik, 2015, digital photograph from the I am Inuit series. Marie Rexford of Kaktovik, Alaska preparing maktuk for the villages Thanksgiving Day feast. opposite Josephine Aloralrea and Agnes McIntyre, digital photograph from the I am Inuit series. Both women are Yupiit from Bethel, Alaska.

Marie Rexford (Iñupiaq) standing in front of a home in Kaktovik. Giant slabs of maktuk (the blubber and skin from a bowhead whale) are spread out before her. In Alaska, subsistence whaling is protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowing eleven villages the right to harvest these massive mammals as they have for centuries. The portrait of Rexford conveys a sense of family, sharing, the bounty of the ocean, and the hard work that goes into feeding a community.

What does an outsider to a whaling community see when encountering this image? For the viewers foreign to this

life, how do they find their way into this image? Viewers can read Rexford’s interview to learn from her directly.

As she shared with Adams, “We are getting the maktuk ready to serve during Thanksgiving. We caught this whale on September 23rd. It is a bowhead whale.

We are allowed three, our quota. We had lost one, so we had asked one of the villages if it was okay to have one of their whales, and we are thankful to Kivalina for giving up one of their whales. In the past we did that with them. We knew we would be short on maktuk if we had only two, so we asked one of the captains to ask them. Ours was 44.6 feet long. I am the captain’s wife, second in authority.”7

7. “I Am Inuit,” PDN Photo of the Day, January 16, 2018, web.

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BRIAN ADAMS

Another important theme that shows up in Adams imagery is the celebration of Alaska Native identity through cultural arts. Photos taken at the Cama-i Dance Festival, which is held each year in Bethel, share the beauty of Yup’ik regalia and capture a feeling of pride in culture.

A striking image of Josephine Aloralrea and Agnes McIntyre depicts the women in elaborate handmade regalia, fur headdresses, and beaded collars holding woven grass and caribou fur dance fans. As the women shared with Adams, “You know what? When it comes down to it, it is really truly timeless. That’s how we feel, we are carrying on something that we have been doing for 30 centuries, right here.

Imagine that. Thirty centuries!”

Adams is currently creating a new series, Ilatka: The Inuit Word For My Relatives, which looks at Inuit identity across the circumpolar borders. Adams explains that Inuit people have family ties that span from Russia, to Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, and he hopes to be able to visit and photograph Inuit across these nations over the next several years. In 2020 he will have an opportunity to travel to Greenland to photograph for

this project and anticipates the finished work will result in a book project with the Anchorage Museum.

As the dialogue of the Arctic life and identity continues to evolve, artists and photographers like Adams provide an unfiltered view from the top of the globe.

Quyana to Brian Adams for the powerful gift of sharing his vision of the North with the rest of the world. His images will be cherished for generations.

BRIANADAMS.PHOTOSHELTER.COM Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) is an art historian and museum consultant based in Homer, Alaska. She works as a program director at The CIRI Foundation where she oversees a program dedicated to supporting Alaska Native arts and artists. Her research interests include Alaska Native art, cultural revival and Indigenous curation.

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DINÉ/KANAKA MĀOLI PAINTER

HEIDI K. BRANDOW

By Suzanne Newman Fricke, PhD

W

ITH THEIR GLOSSY SURFACES, VIVID COLORS, and quirky charac ters, the paintings of Heidi K. Brandow are attracting ever more attention. The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts awarded her the Rising Artist Fellowship Award in 2013, and The Magazine listed as her one of “12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now” in 2019. The Ucross Foundation, the National Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe Art Institute’s Story Maps, and the First People’s Fund have all recently endowed her with art fellowships.

Brandow credits her parents for instilling in her the importance of heritage, family, and education. Born in Provo, Utah, and now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she was raised in Dinétah (Navajo homelands) and in Hawaii.

“My dad is Diné (Navajo), and my mom is Native Hawaiian,” the artist says.

“I’m the sixth of seven kids, and there’s a big age gap between my little sister and me and our older siblings, so my sister and I grew up both in a large family but also on our own.

“We were raised to understand who we are and where we come from. I grew up mainly in Hawaii and on the Navajo Nation, in Fort Defiance in particular.”

Brandow’s island heritage followed her to the mainland. “My mom was a strong influence on me even when we were living in the middle of the Navajo Nation. She and her side of the family are all deeply enmeshed in Hawaiian culture, including our songs, chants, and dances, including hula.”1

INDIGENIZED EDUCATION THE ARTIST’S cultural education began when she started elementary school in Fort Defiance, Arizona. “Then we moved to Hawaii where I finished elementary and middle school at Keaukaha Elementary, which was on a Hawaiian homestead, a concentrated area for Native Hawaiian communities, and almost all of my classmates were Native Hawaiians. We arrived in the middle of

1. All quotes are from an interview with the artist, October 31, 2019.

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what could be considered an extended Hawaiian cultural renaissance. We were immersed in Native Hawaiian language and culture.”

Her parents considered the best options for her education and enrolled Brandow and her sister in a private boarding school. “I went to high school at the Native American Preparatory School in San Ysidro,” she explains. Richard Prentice Ettinger Jr., son of one of the founders of Prentice Hall publishing house, established the school. “Ettinger

HEIDI K. BRANDOW

above Hi!, 2017, acrylic, graphite, found illustration, plaster, resin on wood panel, 6 × 12 × 1 in., private collection. opposite Heidi K. Brandow. Photo: Gabriella Marks. All images courtesy of the artist.

had read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and it inspired him to promote Native youth education. He opened the school on the site of a former resort. My dad found out about the school and he took my sister and me on a tour of the campus … it was so gorgeous, beautiful buildings set near the mountains. The majority of our faculty were Native, including my dad who taught there for a bit.

“I still maintain the friendships I made there. They are like family at this point,” says Brandow. “It strongly informed my understanding of myself and my connection to Indigenous communities. Everything was taught through a Native lens by Native academics and leaders in their respective fields. Greg Cajete was my science teacher.” Cajete, a Santa Clara Pueblo professor of education and author, focuses on Indigenous perspectives on science.

For her undergraduate studies, Brandow attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). In 2013 she earned a bachelor of fine arts in painting with a minor in printmaking. “I already knew what kind of art I wanted to make, but I needed the degree. At IAIA, I worked with so many amazing artists, including Dana Chodzko, Deborah Jojola, Alex

Peña, and Jeff Kahm.” Brandow’s earliest printmaking carried many of the features that became hallmarks of her work, especially the abstract patterning, bright colors, and hand-drawn elements.

ABSTRACTION, MONSTERS & OBJECTS BRANDOW CITES JEFF KAHM (Plains Cree) as an inspiration for her painting. “I still consider him a mentor and I especially love his work,” she says.

Known for his hard-edge abstraction with strong lines and complex color relationships, Kahm explores the intersection between non-Native modernist abstract painting and Indigenous abstract designs painted on parfleches and tipis. “Beyond being an excellent teacher, he maintains a strong studio practice, producing works that offer a new perspective on the possibilities of art, all while balancing his work with teaching. People are always surprised by his work, though he sees a relationship to his upbringing and how it informed his work. Because of this experience, I was inspired to push beyond [what is]

commonly accepted as Native art. I aspire to his cleanness and his precision.”

Like Kahm’s work, Brandow considers how abstraction is found in many historic Native arts and in non-Native modernist paintings. She creates vibrant, luminous works built up in a glossy surface on a wooden matrix, which she layers with gesso and plaster, then draws on the surface with pencil, paints with acrylics, and finishes with resin. When completed, her pieces combine the linear qualities of sketching with saturated, often contrasting colors.

Around 2015 Brandow began adding collaged elements to the surface as well, including Japanese newspapers, patterned paper, and comics.

Her Monster series features paintings based on Japanese monster figures as seen in the anime movies by Hayao Miyazaki and others. “The monsters are something I’ve always doodled. In Hawaii there is a large Japanese population, and I was influenced by that aesthetic, especially in my adolescence. My sister and I collected Sanrio, like Hello Kitty. When I started making the Monster paintings, I did it purely out of personal amusement,” she explains. “The first show we did together was at Counter Culture, a

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café and gallery in Santa Fe. We didn’t know how it would be received but when we came back a few days later, the show was almost sold out.”

About five years ago a specific orange monster emerged and became the heart of the series. “I decided to stick with it and develop this character,” Brandow says. “He—though I think the monster doesn’t necessarily have a gender—is a monster, but he’s a nice monster, never angry or mean.

“I think about who and what are the real monsters in our world and how we live with them. I’m interested in exploring our initial, implied biases when confronted with someone or something new. Initially it may appear harmful or scary, only to realize that it’s not a threat but perhaps more complex and nuanced.”

While Brandow says we may immediately react based on biases, “if given time to familiarize yourself, those biases fall to the wayside and you recognize the ‘monster’ is a friend and not a foe.”

In addition to her Monster paintings, Brandow began drafting scientific renderings of different items in her paintings, illustrating maps, objects, body parts, and mechanical plans that represent objects both real and imaginary. Her Object series was inspired in part by an industrial design program at the Istanbul Technical University in Turkey.

EXPANDING VISIONS IN TURKEY How can you decolonize something that is by virtue of its founding a colonial construct?

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above surrounding me, 2016, acrylic, graphite, plaster, resin on wood panel, 18 × 24 × 4 in., private collection. opposite object: animal + mechanism, 2013, plaster, graphite, acrylic, resin on wood panel, 44 × 24 × 4 in., private collection.

“I WENT TO TURKEY as an undergrad in my final year. I knew that I wanted to be an artist, but I have also always been interested in industrial design. Dana Chodzko, one of my mentors at IAIA, had taken students to Turkey a few years prior, and she recommended I look into it. Once I heard about the program, I knew I had to apply,” Brandow recounts.

“Many family members and friends questioned what I was doing because of their negative stereotypes associated with Turkey,” the artist continues. “I didn’t know much about Turkey, but I

HEIDI K. BRANDOW

was open to the experience. As the plane was landing, I thought, When I get off the plane, I’m either going to love it or hate it.”

Turns out she loved it.

Istanbul Technical University taught Brandow about the fundamentals of the industrial design process of addressing a specific need and developing solutions.

“In Turkey I took courses in industrial design, history of design, art history, and a theory-based course where I discovered the intersections between art and design.

We applied all of these skills in areas such as drafting and building prototypes. We were assigned design challenges usually related to items in our everyday life, such as home goods, storage issues, bathroom items, coffee holders, etc.,” she recalls.

“We would go into the field, take photos, do research, interview people, and create sketches based on our work in front of a jury, similar to a critique at art school.”

While in Istanbul, Brandow was an artist-in-residence at Halka Sanat Projesi, a nonprofit art initiative that focuses on art, community awareness, environment and education. With the flood of political refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries moving to Turkey,

the country struggles to help settle and provide for the new population while also serving its own citizens. Brandow considered how their experiences paralleled those of her Indigenous ancestors. Funded by the Turkish Cultural Foundation, she created the defining: home project, a social engagement series in which she collected stories and images from recent immigrants and longstanding residents of Turkey to tell their stories and to consider the idea of home.

PUSHING FURTHER WHILE CONTINUING HER WORK as an artist, Brandow returned to school and is currently pursuing a master of design with an emphasis in art, design, and the public domain at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). This program is vastly different than her studies in Santa Fe. As a working artist in the Native American art world, Brandow sees the benefits but also the limitations in the Santa Fe—based Native art system.

“I question the usual approach for how careers are made and sustained for

different artists within a system largely defined by non-Natives. There have to be other ways to engage. I needed a break from all of it. Harvard is a different atmosphere where I can be challenged and try to resolve some of these questions and pose new questions to help us move into the future.”

Brandow’s studies are centered on developing sustainable and ethical approaches for artists and art institutions to engage with Indigenous and minority communities. She had previously attended the GSD Design Discovery Program and says, “This graduate program has pushed me to draw upon all of my experiences in design, art, and, most importantly, my perspective as a mother and Native person. In this context and at this pace, these are my strengths. There’s almost an insatiable urge inside of me that wants to constantly evolve and push myself. I’m always curious, I’m always questioning, and I’m always trying to find the connections. I don’t want to be the person that does one style of art for the rest of my life.”

Brandow’s focus in her studies critically examines art engagement practices.

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grown to include social engagement,” Brandow explains.

“While they were mostly positive, I encountered instances where ethical conflicts came up for me,” she continues.

“I began to question artist and curator approaches applied toward working with Indigenous people and minorities at large. I see many projects where people go in, identify an issue, expose it, and they get credit and leave. Once their work with the community is complete, there isn’t a continued relationship. The issue, the conflict, the culture, and the people involved essentially become a springboard for the artists’ career without any reciprocity or sense of responsibility to the community involved. This is a continuation of a colonial narrative. I don’t want to participate in that.”

Echoing a growing sentiment among Native scholars, Brandow says, “The conversations we have around decolonizing institutions like museums can seem ridiculous to me. How can you decolonize something that is by virtue of its founding a colonial construct?” she asks. “As long as the structures are still there, the way people approach curation and museum building needs to be broken down. You cannot follow the historic model while also breaking the ideas of the model.

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HEIDI K. BRANDOW

above Photocollage from defining: home project, 2014, social engagement–art project, Istanbul, Turkey. opposite, above Of My Mind, 2018, plaster, graphite, acrylic, paper, image transfer, resin on wood panel, 24 × 48 × 1 in., private collection. opposite, below Eliza Naranjo Morse, digital photograph and text, from defining: home project, 2017, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“We need to engage in more critical means and perhaps work outside of commonly accepted notions; perhaps even from an abolitionist perspective in reclaiming and conveying our stories. I’m interested in expanding the conversation to move beyond these catchphrases, which can trivialize progress.”

Brandow admits, “I don’t know what the best approach is, but we’re artists; we can be creative in proposing new ideas and best practices. This program teaches us that artists play an important role in engaging with important issues of today beyond the confines of an artist studio.

We physicalize theoretical ideas about community engagement, question our own values, or physically manifest the ideas we propose based on the coursework, the conversations, and the Harvard environment.

“Beyond museums and into the public sphere, we consider the responsibility of an artist working with sensitive issues,” Brandow continues. “In a broader art-world context, there are potential ethical violations occurring. When people have been historically exposed to trauma and violence, it takes time and effort to

reestablish trust; we have a responsibility to change the narrative.”

Since her studies in Turkey, Brandow continues to think globally from an Indigenous perspective. “I’m also pursuing Turkish language studies because I plan to continue my work in Istanbul. Some people question why I continue to go there, but everyone would be blown away by the deep sense of kinship within Anatolia. I was there last summer with the US State Department, and at one of our many stops throughout Turkey, we visited Selçuk University’s art department. They were excited to share their textile and natural-dye practices with a Navajo,” she says. “Turkish people have an interesting relationship with Native people, different from the (near) fetishization in Germany. Turkish people have a sincere desire to connect and an

impressive comprehension of Native American history.”

Though Brandow approaches her studies as part of her wider goals, all of her efforts relate back to her family. “I often think about my work in relation to my two boys. They are a huge part of why I went to Harvard to finish this part of my academic career. It’s been a sacrifice for all of us. I kept my home in Santa Fe so my boys could continue to reside there with their dad.

“We do everything remotely, but we know this is a temporary situation” says Brandow. “Our love is strong, and we support one another. Everything I do is for my boys. I want to continue making art and most importantly, I’m working to secure a better future for me and for my kids.”

HEIDIKBRANDOW.COM SUZANNE NEWMAN FRICKE, PhD, wrote her art history dissertation at the University of New Mexico on 20th-century Native pottery. She has taught art history at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, University of New Mexico, and Institute of American Indian Arts and has curated several international traveling exhibitions.

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OGLALA LAKOTA PAINTER

KEITH BRAVEHEART

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

B

ORN IN 1983, Keith BraveHeart grew up in Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. His interest in art and visual culture developed in high school. He recalls watching his grandmother sewing Lakota star quilts.

BraveHeart earned a bachelor’s degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and a master’s degree in fine arts focused on painting from the University of South Dakota (USD).

For more than a decade, BraveHeart has mentored Indigenous youth in the arts. At the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute at USD, he has helped to encourage the next generations of promising artists. Currently BraveHeart teaches art at the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, where he advocates for the importance of art in everyday life. In 2018 he was one of 29 Lakota artists featured in Takuwe, an exhibition curated by the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies that reflected upon the Wounded Knee Massacre. In February of this year, BraveHeart was appointed to the South Dakota Arts Council.

MRS: How did your early years on the Pine Ridge Reservation shape your interest in arts and culture?

KB: Throughout my youth, I went back and forth between New Mexico and South Dakota. I have always had two homes— my mother is Santo Domingo and Isleta Pueblo, and my father is Oglala Lakota— but I have lived the majority of my life with my father’s family, the Brave Hearts and Iron Crows from the Medicine Root area (also known as Kyle). Pejuta Haka (Medicine Root), one of the nine districts on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is a small community of families. The significance

of family transcends tribe or nation and provides structure for cultural foundations. I am thankful for all my relatives and family, because their support and guidance were instrumental in the development of my artistic identity.

Growing up, our family was huge (and when I speak about family, I am referring to my extended family or tiospaye), and this was a distinctive feature of Lakota society. As a child, I was taught the basis of family through customary relationships connected to a kinship practice. Our Lakota functions mimicked our ancient ancestors and their keen observation of a Buffalo Nation (Pte Oyate). As a Lakota, you value your aunts and uncles as one would a mother or father, and view cousins as brothers and sisters. Surrounded by relatives was a lifestyle which nurtured my cultural foundation, and although significant to

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me, I know that way of life is found to be similar across tribal homelands.

As I recollect my childhood and growing up on the rez, I can remember all of us (my grandmother had twelve children and numerous takoja or grandchildren) being happy and content—ikce (a simple, common life). Most of us lived together between a small cluster of houses, with my grandmother’s home being central. To us, “home” was on the reservation, but a reservation system never determined our viewpoint or altered our being Lakota. Because of our constant relative thinking and embedded spirit with our home, the cultural significances that define and present Lakota life were easy to interpret, and I now recognize them as fundamental in my artistic expressions.

My experiences growing up were a manifestation of the Lakota philosophy, Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (all are related). Being a “relative” is an ideology that distinguishes a perspective of belonging. Critical relationships with my family, community, and nation enriched my confidence as an individual. I understand that my existence is connected to others, therefore, any individualism that I may exhibit is supported by a collective synergy. Our Lakota concept of “relative” extends beyond human-to-human [connections], to also include nature, elements, energies, and the metaphysical. Growing up, these understandings were not fully apparent, but were always present.

I know that my inherited ties to a complex, cultural platform provide the significations I consider to be profound in Lakota aesthetics, but they are also what influence my interests in art. I am thankful to have witnessed and been a part of a lifestyle that I have seen change

KEITH BRAVEHEART

above Keith BraveHeart (Oglala Lakota) and Micheal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota), Lakotacentric: Cante Kin Tiyate Ounye (Home Is Where The Heart Is), 2019, acrylic, oil, serigraph on unstretched canvas, 72 × 132 in. opposite Keith BraveHeart. All images courtesy of the artist.

over the past decades. I am also hopeful that my involvement in our Lakota culture led by a desire for art will resonate with any following generations. In appreciation for my cultural foundation, I am dedicated to my life as an artist.

MRS: How were your high school experiences transformative in your arts education? How can we improve arts education for youth?

KB: Throughout my youth, I would constantly draw … [and enjoyed] drawing a painted mustang running through the Badlands or felt excitement in putting the Joker against Batman. As I grew into a teenager, I found pleasure in drawing portraits of 2Pac or other rappers for my friends and relatives.

In my youth, I never aspired to be an artist. I drew because it made me happy. I think every child feels that. I believe that same authenticity is visible in Indigenous expressions, and that serenity is what develops a dynamic artist.

Most of my schooling was on the rez, which unfortunately meant that it

wasn’t really until high school that I was afforded a true opportunity—although limited—to explore any principles of art. Appreciative as I was for a full class period of drawing, I was mostly confined to minimal still-life practice and largely uninformed of any greater art context. I recognized distinct separation between what my Lakota relatives were doing (sewing star quilts) and what I was doing (observational drawing). I can remember references to the Mona Lisa or Picasso’s name in popular culture, but I was still in the dark as to their significance. I was isolated from an “art world” and most definitely distant from any ideas of a contemporary Native art sphere within that art world. I was oblivious, and at that time, unaware of a generous opportunity awaiting me.

Throughout high school, I would get nominated to attend the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute (OHSAI) at the University of South Dakota—an intensive, two-week art program for high school students, particularly Native American students from the Northern

Plains region. Naïve to what this opportunity represented, year after year I discarded my nominations. Finally, right before graduation, I made the decision to follow through and made the trip out to Vermillion, South Dakota, in 2001.

The OHSAI was established by the groundbreaking Dakota artist, Oscar Howe. Considered one of the grandfathers of a modern Indian art movement, Howe was also professor of art at USD and founded his institute in the 1960s as a way to support fundamental artistic development in tribal youth. Under Howe’s guidance, an amazing group of talents emerged to claim prolific status. Notable students included Arthur Amiotte, Donald Montileaux, Herman Red Elk, and Robert Penn. In the 1990s, Howe’s protégé Robert Penn would carry forward his mentor’s legacy and operate the OHSAI, and in the 2000s it would then be coordinated by Lakota artist Gerald Cournoyer.

Under Cournoyer in 2001, I entered in.

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above Chases Yellow, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 20 × 16 in. opposite Winuhca Waits On Wicahca, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 36 × 30 in.

proficiency and knowledge of Native American art (with focus on modern to contemporary). The experience changed my life, and through it I developed a clear vision for my future. I consider that opportunity crucial and very much the start of my academic pursuits, because while attending OHSAI I also learned of the Institute of American Indian Arts. So, immediately following my first summer at OHSAI, I applied to and was accepted into IAIA. I would return back to the OHSAI every summer for over a decade, rising from a student assistant to eventually program coordinator.

Looking at arts education for our youth, exciting opportunities are always within reach. I am drawn to cultural perspectives that rely on critical thought and active listening. Within such cultural

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perspectives, we find welcoming methods for outreach and frameworks that often reflect family and community foundations. Fostering trust rebuilds confidence in our youth to pursue those natural urgencies and counter any attempts to possibly “break” from organic expressions.

I think of how we—those associated with and invested in the arts—provide adequate voice and encouragement to our youth and how being reminded of a relative perspective may reinforce strategies.

Maybe we seriously look into “coloring outside the lines” or place praise upon our students that “although you may wake up on the reservation, you are most capable of greatness!” When I think of how an internal light turned on for me when I attended the OHSAI, I know it is because the sharing of influence and passing of generational knowledge was humble and sincere, especially by those who were providing it.

I can say with compassion that the sad reality is most tribal schools are underexposed to art. This obstacle cannot stand as a defeat, because art is persistently shaping our settings, and we can understand that if we challenge the ways we think about art. When we look to our communities, we can find them extremely rich in educational opportunities, and maybe we can begin to recognize art as key to robust possibilities for diverse developments.

MRS: The importance of being taught by one’s family and community cannot be overstated. How has this idea influenced you?

KB: I agree that there is value to gaining knowledge from our relatives. In my youth I would observe the everyday life practices of my relatives. Those observations of family and community assembled a value system for me. Guidance, instruction, and discipline based on cultural foundation informed my identity as an artist way before I ever conceived ambition for a degree or career.

My greatest influence is my Unci (grandmother), and I remember watching and listening to her as she sewed her

KEITH BRAVEHEART

star quilts. I was not merely fascinated with her process or dedication or even beautiful objects, I was attracted to the transcendent energy I felt as she created.

Although she had never attended any school, I watched her create with methodical ease. Often accompanying her, as we grandchildren usually did, I saw how she exhibited her works to the community at wakes or giveaways. Her work always carried humble intent to be given away.

Although primarily a Lakota speaker, I could remember times I heard her critique in her own work or critically analyze the work of others—mainly her daughters or nieces. When any one of us from my expansive family would reach an achievement, such as graduation, she would gift us a star quilt, refined in craftsmanship and particular in color scheme … She was always thinking about her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

My grandmother never called herself an artist, but community members addressed her as such. I am uplifted when I hear of her unmatched skill to wospi (pick wild berries), or how today no one can make buffalo berry wojapi (berry pudding) as she did.

My grandmother was my first influence and I have learned so much about art through her, but honestly, I could speak equally about any of my relatives and each of their art forms. As Lakota, when we view a relative, we don’t stop at bloodlines.

Our concept of community represents a sophisticated viewpoint.

MRS: What is your philosophy toward teaching art?

KB: Since I have such a profound love for art and my Lakota culture, it is my responsibility to pass that love onward. I will forever be thankful for the moments that define my life as an artist, and always acknowledge those who were generous with their time. My philosophy of teaching art reflects a cultural perspective of continuum: it is simply my time to hold certain topics, and I must be attentive to those approaching their time. Working with students is a gift. I am constantly engaged with the ever-changing world

and I am able to listen to the voices who inspire tomorrow’s art.

MRS: Your paintings often combine Indigenous iconography with elements of pop culture. Take, for example, Winuhca Waits on Wicahca (2014), which depicts a Lakota Elder reading People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue. Can you talk about your subject matter and how you arrive at the meanings of your paintings?

KB: The Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute and IAIA allowed me to see what contemporary Native art could look like.

A painting did not only have to be one way—the notions of marketable “Indian” art. In my opinion, the most compelling works depicted our tribal nations as they

exist today, maybe as people who enjoy reading People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue. Indians read magazines, right?

I decided very early that if I was going to paint to satisfy myself first, I had to paint in elements that reminded me and any viewers that we Lakota are people of today.

MRS: I was struck the first time I saw your painting Remembered Landscape #1 (2011). It is an interpretation of a photograph of Spotted Elk (Mniconjou Lakota, ca. 1826–1890) lying dead in the snow after the Wounded Knee Massacre.

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As a Lakota, the memory of Wounded Knee is part of your DNA.

above Remembered Landscape #1, 2011, acrylic and photo on panel, 11 × 14 in. opposite Wowicala Iciwayankapi (Differences in Worldviews), 2018, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 60½ × 103¼ in.

of the original photograph and event still haunt it. Can you deconstruct this painting for me?

KB: Growing up, I was familiar with the iconic image of Chief Big Foot from the posed photograph after the massacre at Wounded Knee. Living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, you are always familiar with the location of Wounded Knee and the memorial site. As a Lakota, the memory of Wounded Knee is part of your DNA. When I was at IAIA, I remember being so impressed and inspired by the works from the 1960s. In those works, I saw postmodern approaches that spoke to historical memories that our grandparents never spoke of. Seeing such expressions motivated me to look at what I could say.

Remembered Landscape #1 was inspired by a piece by T. C. Cannon. While I was at IAIA, I discovered T. C. and it was

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like seeing God. I would overanalyze his work and get lost in the way he painted.

I came across his piece of Chief Big Foot, and it was very simplified with great use of color and space. That is what informed my approach to placement of the figure and palette. For me, the piece was first about home, thought of as a cold landscape, and then it was about making sure I remembered home. I loved my time in Santa Fe but would encounter little reminders of my real home, and those reminders pushed me in my artwork.

M R S : Yo u p a i n t e d Wo w i c a l a Iciwayankapi for Takuwe (Why), an exhibition that analyzed moments surrounding the massacre at Wounded Knee, and you wrote, “I am a descendant of a woman who survived that horrific experience, and I felt responsibility to my relatives to contribute my artistic

KEITH BRAVEHEART

effort to sharing a perspective that derives from a collective viewpoint as Lakota people.” Can you discuss the relationship between painting and generational responsibility?

MRS: Other portraits such as Blue Remembering Woman (2017) and Chasing Yellow (2017), with sprawling flat forms that play with colorful patterns, have T. C. Cannon influences.

KB: I have mentioned how I feel responsibility as a Lakota artist to provide voice for my relatives. This sense of responsibility is shaped through a collective upbringing or simple compassion for others. I have this viewpoint that if I am going to speak to a memory, especially one that I did not witness myself, I need to activate the voices of those who know more than I do.

The memory of Wounded Knee is beyond any individual. It spans generations.

KB: I think any painter that attributes their artistry to a tribal culture must pay homage to T. C. He left so much to discover for those of us who follow behind him. When I encountered Oscar Howe’s work, I knew I wanted to be a Lakota artist, but when I discovered T. C. Cannon’s work, I knew I wanted to be a painter.

MRS: Is there an ethic to painting historical trauma?

KB: I feel historical traumas are a part of who we are today. They are hurtful wounds but part of our stories regardless.

Artists have a huge ability to facilitate dialogue and healing. When we create, we create with the voices and sometimes spirits of others. These moments challenge an artist’s values.

MRS: What other influences make their way into your work?

KB: My primary influences are the cultural significances that surrounded my every day as a Lakota. I have always been engaged with the world around

me. I can remember all us kids playing outside almost all day long. Although our playgrounds were the Badlands and creeks that surrounded my grandmother’s home, we were ingrained in our landscape and we could imagine ourselves into reinterpretations of popular movie scenarios, or sometimes we [would] re-create the Battle of Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn).

We were grounded in popular culture and our Lakota identity.

To me, the Lakota were not only seldom-seen photos of historic ancestors. To me, the Lakota were my cousins playing freeze-tag, my uncles and their friends playing 21, my rummaging aunts, and my generous community of artists.

All of that influences my art, but I also have deep appreciation for the many artists and movements throughout the world and throughout history. As a painter, I don’t believe there is anything that I can’t find influential.

KEITHBRAVEHEART.COM Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, is the curator at Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ontario and the Canadian Section Editor of the Art Market Dictionary. Matthew works in London, Ontario.

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SALISH/MÉTIS/CREE/SHOSHONE-BANNOCK CULTURAL ARTS WORKER

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

J

AUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH’S personal art collection fills every corner of her New Mexico home. The artists represented provide a visual register for myriad relationships she has developed over decades. “Most of these were trades,” she says.1 I see work by Enrique Chagoya, Alison Saar, José Bedia, Fritz Scholder, Linda Lomahaftewa, Harry Fonseca, Ernie Pepion, Frank Big Bear, Star Wallowing Bull, Rick Bartow, and so many more. A Roger Shimomura hangs in her granddaughter’s bedroom. Inside one doorway, a Joseph Beuys drawing faces childhood paintings by her two sons.

Among the works is a life-size wooden silhouette screen-printed with an image of a young African-American man in a World War I uniform. The figure is one of many created by Mildred Howard for her installation, In the Line of Fire (2005). Smith turned the figure around, revealing a target on the back. The practice of using Black and Indigenous people as target practice has never been confined to officially recognized periods of war.

As Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation) relayed, “My father remembered seeing a child shot by cowboys, who used her as a moving target because she was on a swing. Then they simply rode away, out of Indian Territory.”2 Smith has addressed the histories of settler-colonial violence through drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, and sculpture for more than six decades. Her content (and her activism) derives directly from her experiences being marginalized—as a woman, as a Native person, and someone living at poverty level.

Smith serves as many students’ introduction to contemporary Native art.

Her 1992 collage, I See Red: The Red Mean (Self-Portrait), entered the fifth edition of Marilyn Stokstad’s widely used survey of art history published by Pearson. On a ground of tribal newspapers, the artist traced her own body in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (ca. 1487). Across the figure’s chest is a sticker that reads, “Made in the U.S.A.” Underneath is her enrollment number, 7137.

Engaging with Jaune, one learns not so much about her studio practice and artistic development as much as her work to promote contemporary Native American art broadly. She speaks earnestly about decades of activist strategies and initiatives: mentoring, organizing artist groups, curating exhibitions, petitioning institutions and governments, and creating opportunities for others—especially Native women.

A member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead

Reservation, Smith’s biographical details are readily available from numerous sources.3 Born in 1940 at St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, Smith was raised by her father—a horse trader—and numerous foster homes. Her father, aunt, and uncle were sent to boarding school at St. Ignatius Mission. Smith’s journey from working as a child farmhand and horse wrangler to becoming an internationally acclaimed artist who has had more than 120 solo exhibitions is not a smooth trajectory. It is a story about persistence in the face of many obstacles. This artist, curator, author, and activist who has received the highest accolades in the art world was told in high school she “was not college material.”

“At Olympic Community College in Bremerton, Washington, an art teacher told her that although her drawing skills were better than those of her fellow male students, she should not consider a career as an artist, since it was a man’s field.”4 Then the University of New Mexico (UNM) rejected her twice from its MFA program and told her, “Indians don’t get fine art degrees.” The department changed their minds after Art in America reviewed a New York exhibition of hers.

In 1977 Smith organized Grey Canyon Artists Collective with fellow UNM graduate students Larry Emerson (Navajo, 1947–2017), Conrad House (Navajo/Oneida, 1956–2001), Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo), and Paul Willeto (Navajo). They convened to discuss issues still relevant today: shared experiences of racism, the relationship between the Native art market and the mainstream art market, and how to advance their careers.

1. All quotes, unless otherwise noted, from an interview with the author, March 22, 2019, or through email messages to author, October and November 2019.

2. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, ed., The Submuloc Show/Columbus Wohs: A Visual Commentary on the Columbus Quincentennial from the Perspective of America’s First People (Phoenix: Atlatl, 1992): 66.

3. See Carolyn Kastner, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith: An American Modernist (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013); Smith also authored an important essay about her family in Partial Recall, edited by Lucy Lippard.

4. Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin, Junctures in Women’s Leadership: The Arts (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018): 110.

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JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

In 1982 she initiated Coup Marks on the Flathead Reservation where she advised Native artists. G. Peter Jemison (Seneca) helped the group have exhibitions in New York and Washington, DC. Smith hopes these co-ops are the subject of more in-depth studies in the future.

Women—especially women of color—still face myriad inequities today, from unequal pay to objectification in everyday life and having their lived experiences dismissed in mainstream politics. This perspective makes it all the more remarkable that during the 1980s, Jaune’s activism and art-making shifted into high gear while she was raising three children. With Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/ Choctaw) and Karita Coffey (Comanche), she led a letter-writing campaign and worked with Alan Lovesee, who wrote legislation to make the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) independent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Representative Dale Kildee submitted the legislation to Congress. This transferred control of the college to an independent board of directors and greatly expanded the course offerings and degree options.

Smith was instrumental in creating the Heard Museum’s Native American Fine Art Invitational, a biennial exhibition that ran from 1983 to 1997. A decade later she advised the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art to host its own biennial; this became the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship.

An independent board honored her as one of the first recipients of this award in 1999, alongside George Morrison (Grand Portage Ojibwe, 1919–2000), Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka’wakw), Rick Rivet (Sahtu/Métis), Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk 1944–2019), and Lorenzo Clayton (Diné).

In addition, she was active with Friends of the Albuquerque Petroglyphs, who succeeded in establishing Petroglyph National Monument in 1990. (She reflected on this difficult process in an art series, including one piece called The Court House Steps [1987].)

Smith came to curating as a means to challenge the art world’s focus on white European and settler-colonial male artists. Naturally she found allies in the women’s movement like Lucy Lippard and Harmony Hammond.

The Submuloc Show/Columbus Wohs may be the most-cited exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art. This was organized as a counterpoint to numerous events celebrating the 500th anniversary of the invasion of Turtle Island. Smith remembers the US federal government actually opposing any exhibitions critical of the Columbus Quincentennial. Thirtyseven artists contributed work and the show traveled to twelve locations. Gail Tremblay (Onondaga/Mi’kmaq) collaborated with Neil Tall-Eagle Parsons (Blackfeet) to create a mixed-media

above I See Red: The Red Mean (Self-Portrait), 1992, mixed media on canvas, 90 x 60 in., collection of the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA. Image courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York. opposite Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Photo: Thomas King.

Image courtesy of the artist.

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above Modern Times, 1993, lithograph, 301/8 × 22½ in., 10/30, collection of Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence. Both images courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York. opposite Details of Paper Dolls for a Post Columbian World, 1991, watercolor, graphite, and photostatic reproduction on paper, 17 × 11 in. each, collection of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis.

installation. Muscogee/Cherokee poet Joy Harjo’s profound and beautiful text, “Wolf Warrior,” is included in the catalogue.

Paper Dolls for a Post Columbian World with Ensembles Contributed by US Government was not part of The Submuloc Show but stands as one of Smith’s retorts to the 1992 celebrations. This sardonic drawing includes a boarding school outfit for the child with notes such as “Priests will whip if child speaks Salish.”

“Ken and Barbie Plenty Horses were used to tell the story of my tribe and its forced march from the Bitterroot Valley to our present location,” Smith writes. “I

gave them ensembles for cleaning houses of white people and smallpox suits, which fit the whole family. I Xeroxed and handpainted them for museum exhibits as far away as Europe.… In October 1992 the US Forest Service in Hamilton, Montana, removed them from an exhibition because they were too offensive.”5 While The Submuloc Show may be the best known exhibition curated by Smith, others have also been watershed moments. Photographing Ourselves: C onte mporar y Native Ame r ican Photography (1984), a traveling exhibition launched from the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma, was the first exhibition featuring vernacular photography by Native people.

This was inspired in part by the work of Jesse Cooday (Tlingit). Smith reached out to everyone she knew, asking them to contribute images; the aim was to highlight everyday Native perspectives rather than the settler-colonial gaze. In her curatorial statement she wrote, “This show [does not] record a vanishing race.

Cultures that do not change will die with the times. Dying cultures do not make art.

This show is proof of the vitality of our Indian peoples today.”6 Looking back, she reflects, “When I did this show, Hulleah [Tsinhnahjinnie and other Native people who became well-known photographers] were just kids.” The opening was packed; the Horace Poolaw family and T. C. Cannon’s father, Walter Cannon (Kiowa) attended. Sixty individuals exhibited photography in this show, which traveled to Fort Lewis College in Durango, the American Indian Community House in New York, and eventually the Heard Museum in Phoenix. A decade later, Smith and Cooday organized Positives and Negatives: Native American Photographers, the first exhibition of its kind to tour Europe. “I do shows not just to educate a larger public but to lift up Native artists and inspire experimentation,” she explains.

Thirty-four years before the widely acclaimed show, Hearts of Our People, Smith and Harmony Hammond orchestrated Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar and Sage: Contemporary Art by Native

5. Lawrence Abbott, I Stand in the Center of the Good: Interviews with Contemporary Native American Artists (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994): 229.

6. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Contemporary Native American Photography (Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board, 1984): n.p.

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JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

American Women (1985) with work by 30 artists. Hammond had been a visiting professor at UNM in 1978 when Smith and Whitehorse were graduate students.

Rooting the artists firmly in the present, Smith wrote, “We connect our past with our knowledge of New York expressionism, minimalism, color field painting, and modernist mark-making which we have absorbed through education and travel.”7 To date Smith has curated more than 30 exhibitions, launching and promoting dozens of artists’ careers.

In her studio, Smith continues to develop numerous series from a personal iconography. “I move back and forth working on maps, canoes, headless figures, trees, Custer, women’s cut wing dresses, horses, rabbits, coyotes,” she says.

“It’s all inhabited landscape. I use those cultural icons as space holders to riff off of for my stories that have no beginnings and no endings. Even so, they do say something of importance about American history, human rights, treatment of animals, environmental issues, cultural issues, women’s rights, [and] war.”

Like many contemporary artists, injustice against the environment and humanity drives Smith to respond visually. “Since war has never ceased, America

is involved in war all the time somewhere on the planet, if not in multiple places. I mix images such as George Grosz, Picasso, Goya, medieval Spain, ledger books, corporate America, José Guadalupe Posada [Aguilar], and comic books that reference war in order to tell my stories.”8 War Is Heck (2002) is a five-by-fivefoot lithograph with collage. Text at the top captions an image below, “Pipe of Peace.” A ledger-style drawing of a winged figure rides a monumental horse, who closes his eyes and weeps. Ghostly images of the American flag, Spanish-language lotería cards, bison, cattle, and bingo cards fill the background. Smith relays, “The title is from a New York Times headline, so cavalier, so American, I felt it needed to be used.… This print has [Eadweard] Muybridge photos of bison in the background as a reminder of Natives and bison being led to slaughter in the Great Invasion (my term) as well as people today such as the Kurds or the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar all being treated like cattle. There are copies of lotería and bingo cards that I filched from a casino reminding us that life is a gamble.”

While working in a range of media, Smith’s style is immediately recognizable: painterly, expressive, vibrant, physically

and conceptually layered. Her work is ideal for teaching and understanding semiotics as she uses strategies of appropriation, parody, and wordplay. One can see many aesthetic parallels between her approaches and that of Jasper Johns (flags, maps), Robert Rauschenberg (collage, dripping paint), and Carl Beam (M’Chigeeng Ojibwe, 1943–2005). She has cited the influence of Paul Klee and Richard Diebenkorn. Several works reference Paul Gauguin’s painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, and she has appropriated vignettes from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) many times.

At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, What is an American? (2003) hangs next to a tipi cover that Hé Nùnpa Waníca, also Joseph No Two Horns (Hunkpapa Lakota, 1852–1942), painted around 1915.

The juxtaposition places Smith’s gestural, postmodern lithograph in dialogue with an Indigenous drawing from a century ago. Hé Nùnpa Waníca relayed personal experiences in battle with graphic vignettes. Like many of No Two Horns’s figures, Smith’s wears a man’s shirt and leggings, a pipe bag, and beaded necklaces. Both artists included text within the image. Smith used chine-collé to collage

7. Harmony Hammond and Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar and Sage: Contemporary Art by Native American Women (New York: American Indian Community House, 1985): n.p.

8. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, “A Political Life,” statement for 516 Arts Exhibition, March 16, 2019, 2.

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above Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art, 1995, collagraph, 76½ × 53 in. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Fifty Shades of Brown, 2017–18, mixed media on canvas, 48 × 72 in., collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Image courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.

consumer icons (Barbie, Mickey Mouse, Perrier water labels, and bingo sheets) signaling wealth and poverty.

Last year Smith received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Printmaking from the Southern Graphics Council International.

“I didn’t even see prints or printmaking except in a book when I went to community college. Even at Framingham State College (now University) where I studied for an art education degree, I don’t recall seeing printmaking in a classroom,” Smith explains. “When I was in my mid-30s and going for an MFA at the

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University of New Mexico, I was exhibiting work in a student show and was invited to make a print at Tamarind [Institute] by Clinton Adams’s assistant, Marge Devon.

I’m now the longest working woman artist at Tamarind and with more prints than any woman artist [there].”

UNM maintains a complete searchable database of all Tamarind prints online. Editions range from five to 100 prints. Modern Times (1993), a lithograph made in an edition of 30 at Tamarind, utilizes a 1940s advertisement for Hi Yu apples with a profile of a man wearing a headdress. The artist added a torso in a suit. About this image she says, “I have some old fruit labels from farm produce and made this lithograph a story about the contemporary Native lawyers I see in the airport with their braids, suits, cowboy boots, and briefcases. They might have a cat at home and dance in a powwow on the weekend. There are medicine plants in the background and pictographs to represent a long cultural history. The title is from Charlie Chaplin’s movie [from 1936].”

The rabbit is a repeated motif in her work; perhaps the best known is the lithograph Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art (1995). To Ojibwe and Cree peoples, Nanabozho is a trickster, a giant rabbit with a human body. Rabbit is also a trickster to Southeastern tribes.

In 1992 Smith began painting alternative maps of Turtle Island. Only states named after tribes are marked in State Names Map (2000). Tribal Map (2000) indicates where nations are located today: i.e., the Miccosukee and Seminole in Florida, and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in North Dakota. The Midwest is markedly absent of any significant Indigenous presence, the result of forced removals. Most recently she completed Fifty Shades of Brown (2018), with each state labeled as a different color, including “Spanish chestnut” and “toast,” emphasizing the great variety and nuance of flesh tones.

Another major series is Trade Canoes, which she also started in 1992. To date she has created about 15 large-scale, mixed-media paintings depicting this subject, as well as prints and drawings.

Don Quixote in Sumeria (2005) satirizes

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. This canoe is full of skeletons and appears to float in a river of blood.

Known primarily as a painter and printmaker, Smith has also collaborated with other artists on numerous public art commissions. In 1994 she worked with James Luna (Payómkawichum/Ipi, 1950–2018) to create Oché Wat Té Ou (Reflections) for Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. This honors the Ohlone people who still live in San Francisco.

Smith and Ken Iwamasa designed the Great Hall Floor at the Denver International Airport. Realized in 1995, their design borrows imagery from Arapaho parfleche bags. When the airport required renovation, she and her son Neal Ambrose-Smith, designed a replacement floor in 2008. Sadly, this commission was destroyed in 2018 when the airport underwent further construction.

In 1996 she collaborated with Joe Feddersen (Okanagan/Sinixt) and

Donald Fels on the West Seattle Cultural Trail. With this project the artists marked Salish “memories as they are attached to place” with pavers, ten bronze plaques, and public works on the Duwamish Waterway.9 In situ texts and a catalogue highlight historical moments related to Puget Sound, addressing the significance of Chief Sealth (Suquamish/Duwamish, ca. 1786–1866), western red cedar trees, canoes, and salmon—devastation brought by clear-cutting, effects of Native and non-Native recreation on Alki Beach, and immigration.

Jaune continues to collaborate with her son, artist and educator Neal Ambrose-Smith, painter, printmaker and chair of the art department at IAIA.

Smith relates her commitment to community in her heritage: “My activism—organizing Indian exhibitions, seeking out, advising, and supporting young Indian artists—is another extension of [my Salish] trading legacy,” Smith reflects. “I trade and network information and systems rather than material goods.”10 She adds, “I am so proud of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers, for they were true leaders in their communities at the same time they hunted and harvested to feed their families, were expert bead workers, hide tanners, cattle wranglers, and long-distance traders. They often lived without men around.”

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery.

JAUNEQUICKTOSEESMITH.ORG Andrea L. Ferber, PhD, is an art historian and independent curator. She has taught for seven universities and worked at four museums. Her current project is parenting a teenager.

9. Joe Feddersen, Donald Fels, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, and Gail Tremblay, Voices of the Community: The West Seattle Cultural Trail, 2nd ed. (Seattle: Seattle Arts Commission, 2001): 6.

10. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, “Family Album,” in Partial Recall, ed. Lucy Lippard (New York: The New Press, 1992): 63.

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MADISON, WISCONSIN

Ho-Chunk Art: Sharing our Sacred Voices through our Art Overture Center for the Arts

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HIS MIXED-MEDIA ART WORK may best be described as natural elements cast in an abstract setting.

Nine sticks of wood thrust up out of a black acrylic field at various odd angles, almost like reeds growing in a stream.

Corresponding hazy images mirror the sticks in blue chalk against the black field. Taken together, the total imagery resembles an alphabet of letters not fully realized yet strident in their posturing.

Black River, created in 1998 by the late Truman Lowe, was one of 15 pieces by 14 Native American artists that made up Ho-Chunk Art: Sharing our Sacred Voice through our Art. The exhibition was on display November 1, 2019, through January 5, 2020, at the Playhouse Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.

It’s worth noting that the city’s downtown—including the acreage encompassing the Wisconsin state capitol building as well as the nearby University of Wisconsin campus—were originally home to the Ho-Chunk, one of the state’s eleven federally recognized Native American tribes. In a way, the art represented a homecoming of sorts for participating artists.

In English, the name Ho-Chunk translates to “people of the sacred voice.”

What at first seemed to be a modest exhibition truly came to life upon closer examination of the individual works.

Their approaches ranged widely in multiple media according to Melanie Tallmadge Sainz, the artist, educator, and Ho-Chunk Nation member who curated the show.

“We’re committed to our culture,” says Sainz, a Wisconsin Dells native whose chosen medium is porcupine quills, an approach predating European influences.

“Some people think Native American art has to be all feathers and beads, but this exhibition featured a wider range.”

Among the artists represented, Lowe, who passed away this past March, is one of the art show’s two bona fide superstars. Born in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, Lowe served as a tenured professor of fine arts at the University of Wisconsin and curator of contemporary art at the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, among other professional appointments.

The exhibition’s other superstar was the late Harry Whitehorse, also a Black River Falls native. As proprietor of Chief Auto Body in Madison’s Monona suburb for 40 years, Whitehorse honed his art on the side, drawing on his auto-body work experience to become an accomplished metal sculptor.

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above Simone Brown (HoChunk), Homp Hamani, 2017, silk appliqué, 28 × 20 in. Photo: Augusta Brulla. Image courtesy of Overture Center for the Arts. opposite Alan Michelson (Mohawk), Wolf Nation, 2018, high-definition video, color, sound; 9:59 min. Soundtrack by Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, purchased with funds from the Director’s Discretionary Fund 2019.327.

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Whitehorse’s Untitled, a 1985 oil on canvas, captures a seemingly prosaic scene of a pair of whitetail deer, a buck and doe, captured in a wintry Wisconsin landscape, the scene’s long shadows indicating either the start or end of the animals’ day. A closer look reveals the artist’s use of Pointillism, the French Impressionistic technique of painting with distinct color dots, to bring the sun-soaked image to life. Viewers may have failed to notice this, instead becoming transfixed by the buck’s direct stare at viewers who have interrupted his respite.

Culturally based works were among the exhibition’s most compelling. Levi and Verna Blackdeer’s 2016 Smoked Art Ensemble, for example, consisted of a purse and wall hanging made from deerskin that had been braintanned, a time-consuming application of an emulsified solution of animal brain matter and water. Oils from the brain create a hide much more supple and absorbent, which is then smoked to create reverse images from stencils affixed to the hide prior to smoking.

A pair of bracelets made from natural materials, including a porcupine quill weave by Sainz, followed Indigenous techniques. Josephine Lee’s Untitled (2019) work is an attractive red and tan bracelet woven from black ash. Sainz’s black, blue, and tan bracelet, which also uses the braintanned deerskin methodology with natural and dyed quills edged in tiny Czech glass beads, takes a little more complicated approach.

“Porcupine quills are made out of keratin, like our fingernails, and are pliable, almost like spaghetti noodles when they are wet,” Sainz says. “I called

the piece Rain Cloud because I was inspired by weather extremes. Mother Earth is trying to heal herself from all our damage. I tried to make a statement through the materials and design aesthetic.”

Other pieces also mixed old and new elements. Rita Kingswan’s Love Sustained Beaded Ensemble (2019) features beautifully crafted hair ties and draping earrings in bright colors.

The designs appear ancient even if the materials, including Czech glass beads, are not. Simone Brown’s Homp Hamani (2017), silk appliqué follows a similar ethos, offering a beautifully crafted wall hanging highlighted with Indigenous Great Lakes designs.

On the more experimental side, Henry Payer’s 2018 Oil. Water. Land.

Spirit. uses motor oil, oil paint, oil pastel, and spray paint on canvas to create an earth-toned abstract with bright lines vertically framing faint images of Underwater Panther over horizontal lines that repeat the word land more than two dozen times.

Sainz is quick to point out that despite the range of materials and media and the variety of color and styles, Ho-Chunk Art: Sharing our Sacred Voice through our Art represents art as distinct as a thumbprint in visually defining the nature of the Ho-Chunk people.

Among the 573 federally recognized tribes and other Indigenous groups in the United States, each has its own visual style, Sainz says.

“Each nation has its own set of design aesthetics that show exactly who we are, where we live, and our tribal affiliation.”

—Michael Muckian

NEW YORK

Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation Whitney Museum of American Art

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LAN MICHELSON: WOLF NATION is a compact yet impactful exhibition that encapsulates Alan Michelson’s (Mohawk) experimental, artistic practice.

The Whitney Museum of American Art has recently increased its representation of Indigenous artists and perspectives, exemplified by the 2018 exhibition, Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, curated

by Marcela Guerrero, and the inclusion of artists Nick Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/ Cherokee), Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) in the 2019 Whitney Biennial.

Michelson’s exhibition will hopefully be followed by more solo exhibitions of Native American artists with diverse practices in contemporary American art.

Organized by curator Chrissie Iles and senior curatorial assistant Clémence White, the four works that comprise Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation are evocative of Michelson’s oeuvre, emphasizing the natural world and history through sound and moving images. Michelson collaborated with Steven Fragale, who assisted in the creation of two augmented reality (AR) installations. Laura Ortman deftly composed the soundtracks. The art’s constructed beauty and the responsiveness of Michelson’s AR pieces to the Whitney as site make the exhibition largely successful, though his work would have benefited from more space in the museum.

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above Alan Michelson with Steven Fragale, Town Destroyer, 2019, wallpaper and augmented reality, with video, color, sound, 5:57 min. Soundtrack by members of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.

Collection of the artist.

T h e f i r s t A R i n s t a l l at i on , Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field) (2019), was created specifically for the lobby, a virtual tobacco field that sprouts from sleek, grey floors. With the Fragale app, visitors can imagine the space as a Lenape tobacco field planted with a sacred strain of the herb—as it was believed to have once been. A nearby iPad allows viewers without a smart device to experience the piece. Sapponckanikan overtakes the lobby with wide, verdant, curved-leaf plants; visitors are subsumed into the tobacco field, which will “grow” during the exhibition’s run. Sapponckanikan thus provides a window into the past when the indigeneity of the land was undeniable.

Most of the exhibition occupies a side gallery on Floor 5. Town Destroyer (2019), an AR and wallpaper piece by Michelson with Fragale, dominates the entrance to the exhibition. Its long, horizontal format recalls Michelson’s public installations and panoramic works, such as Mespat (2001). Town Destroyer is a translation of Hanödaga:yas, the Haudenosaunee nickname for George Washington, remembered for his role in eradicating over 60 Iroquois confederacy towns as part of the 1779 Sullivan Expedition. The backdrop for Town Destroyer is a simplified, digitally printed interior wall of George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation estate in Alexandria, Virginia, with two ornate, golden mirrors reflecting candelabras,

blue brocade curtains, and a hint of a wooden door. The mirrors allude to the portal-like quality of the piece. Using the Fragale app, the bust of George Washington juts out from the wall and becomes a platform for images related to the expedition, including maps of the towns, the marker in New York for the site of the town’s destruction, and Mount Vernon. The soundtrack is the repeated name, Hanödaga:yas, spoken by members of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Michelson’s reserve in Canada. The artist’s adroit research skills are apparent in his choice of images and maps. He uses Washington’s image to problematize his legacy as the first of many Americans presidents to displace America’s Indigenous peoples.

In the gallery, a small screen on the wall behind this installation allows viewers without a smart device to view the AR component. The screen replicates the AR app experience, but a larger one would have made for a more compelling experience of the piece. At any scale, Town Destroyer is mesmerizing and, like Sapponckanikan, it demonstrates the deftness with which Michelson uses new media to explore Indigenous perspectives on history.

The long hallway where Town Destroyer is on view leads to the main exhibition text of the show, the titular piece of the exhibition, Wolf Nation (2018), and the high-definition video, Shattemuc.

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Wolf Nation was first installed in the Storm King Art Center in Cornwall, New York, the traditional land of the Munsee, the Wolf clan of the Lenape people. Wolf Nation has an otherworldly aesthetic and honors Munsee people through their animal, the now near-extinct red wolf. In a darkened projection gallery, Wolf Nation spellbinds viewers with its ethereal purple color and soundtrack composed entirely of wolf howls by Laura Ortman. Purple evokes the wampum belt, a powerful Haudenosaunee object notably gifted to George Washington. Michelson made the video using intentionally ordinary webcam footage from a wolf rescue center in New York, transforming it into an entrancing, sensorial piece. As one watches, the juxtaposition of the howling and the calm animals becomes unsettling. The wolves move about as the camera remains still below them. Their consuming presence acts as a metaphor for the displacement of the Munsee, who, like the wolves, once oversaw a markedly different environment.

In a shorter hallway between Wolf Nation and Town Destroyer, Shattemuc (2009) takes viewers along the path of sea captain Henry Hudson’s 1609 expedition, particularly the shores on which he had violent skirmishes with the local Rumachenancks. The 30-minute video begins silently, then Ortman’s melodic guitar riff gradually accompanies the journey. The footage was shot on a vintage police boat lit by a single headlight surveying Rumachenanck land near pristine nature and brightly lit industrial areas. Through the title, Shattemuc, a native name of the Hudson River, Michelson underscores the indigeneity of a place with a well-known colonial legacy.

Shattemuc displays Michelson’s tendency toward panoramic imagery paired with music. In its most entrancing moments, objects appear slowly out of darkness, such as the floating buoy tower visible at first from its numbers at the exact moment that the music begins. The slight wave of the camera as the boat turns and catches its own wake echoes this moment of quiet beauty.

Shattemuc’s ethereal quality is slightly diminished by the competing howls of Wolf Nation and by external light from a nearby doorway. In a darker space, the intricacy of the footage’s

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varying levels of light would have more impact. Despite the many familiar trappings of an American industrial coast, Shattemuc transforms the coast at night into an ominous atmosphere. Viewers are potentially made to feel as Indigenous peoples have: unsettled, suddenly shaken from their understandings and worldview by an initially unknown terror.

Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation showcases the artist’s ability to conceptualize new site-specific responses to American history, using augmented reality to indigenize the digital space of AR and physical spaces of the museum.

With appealing aesthetics, Wolf Nation invites viewers to consider Indigenous perspectives on lesser known histories, a conceptually ferocious move.

—Marina Tyquiengco (Chamorro)

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA

Misunderstood!

Indigenous Art and Poetry as Political Resistance Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma

at Yale University, returned home to Oklahoma for three months this past summer to work on this curatorial project.

The exhibition began at a much smaller scale, and, upon the museum staff ’s closer consideration of the themes conveyed, Smist met their request to increase her checklist twofold for the project to hold a larger presence. Smist’s concept grew from the poem, Misunderstood! (ca. 1970s),

by Kiowa/Caddo artist T. C. Cannon (1946–1978), who served in the Vietnam War. The artist’s sister, Joyce Cannon Yi (Kiowa/Caddo) granted permission for her brother’s writings to be included and gave her nod to the exhibition’s significance.1 A November poetry reading lent local community voices to the exhibition gallery through compelling performances of ten of the featured poems.

While there is a formal entrance into the Misunderstood! gallery at the top of the stairwell to the mezzanine level, visitors also have the opportunity to enter the exhibition space from the elevator at the opposite end of the floor. The two access points allow for audiences to experience the artworks and the poems through multiple pathways. New dialogues between the visual and the verbal come

into view, and one may find themselves quickly whisked into the critical stories being told. I entered the gallery from the elevator and found that the large, diagonal wall near this end activated the space, working as a layer to cross through and move toward the core of the exhibition.

Upon reaching the center room, Oglala Lakota writer Layli Long Soldier’s poem, Three (2017), punctuated the area with its square-shaped installation and words that confronted the pressures put on Native American peoples to fit within a boxed-in identity. Not far from a poem

by Joy Harjo (Muscogee/Cherokee), the 2019 United States Poet Laureate, Long Soldier’s words excitedly evoke the crux of Smist’s exhibition concept.

The gallery features more than 40 artworks made in the 20th and 21st centuries and places some emphasis on Oklahoma-based tribes by including paintings by the Kiowa Six and Diane O’Leary (Comanche, 1938–2013) and drawings by Phyllis Fife (Muscogee) and T. C. Cannon. Works on paper make up the majority of the art on view, with two sculptures and two cases of civil rights-era ephemera further diversifying the space.

The exhibition’s logo is adapted from

O

N VIEW from October 4 through December 29, 2019, Mi sunderstood! offered audiences a chance to consider the relationships between the written word and the visual arts.

In doing so, this exhibition resonates beyond the gallery as deeper meanings emerge from the connections between both art forms. Curated by Anna Smist (Sac & Fox/Seminole), Misunderstood! features a group of poems reproduced as larger-than-life vinyl installations interspersed with works from the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The effect creates lively, rhythmic movement between each artistic expression, and the gallery gives voice to a chorus of artists speaking pointedly about the urgencies of accurate representation of Native American and First Nations peoples.

Through an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation internship at the museum, Smist, an undergraduate literature student

above Diane O’Leary, PhD (Comanche, 1939–2013), Epitaph, n.d., acrylic, 39¾ × 47¾ in., collection of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma, Norman; The James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection, 2010. Image courtesy of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.

1. Anna Smist in discussion with the author, November 16, 2019.

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a 1970 newsletter from Indians of All Tribes, the word Alcatraz replaced with Misunderstood and an exclamation point to recall Cannon’s poem title. Throughout the exhibition, varying perspectives of the Red Power movement linger.

All of this sets the stage for audiences to mentally twist between recent decades and earlier moments in time. Kiowa artist N. Scott Momaday’s painting, My Handshield (1978), is paired with his poem, The Wound (2011). The painting depicts a red shield at its center and a yellow background, and the artist has visually included himself through four handprints, with one impression on each quadrant of the shield. Through this performative gesture, Momaday expressed his belonging in both the art world and the Kiowa Tribe. This personal touch forges a thematic bridge to the adjacent poem. In The Wound, Momaday examined how pain and beauty form identity. He confronted the wound as something he wished to heal but could not, because it had become him. Momaday suggested wisdom came from the wound and was integrated into all aspects of his life, from the damaging to the regenerative.

Momaday won the 1969 Pulitzer Price and more recently the Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s 2019 Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.

Hopi/C ho c t aw ar t ist L ind a Lomahaftewa’s Honanie (1989), a monotype with chine-collé on paper, portrays her Hopi great-great grandfather in a brightly colored cloudscape with lightning at its center. Here, Lomahaftewa shows Honanie as residing in the clouds and having joined their ancestors—a visual reflection of Hopi worldviews of the cycle of life. Creating an ongoing dialogue with past generations, Hopi ceremonies put forth prayers for rain, as symbolized in art and in regalia by clouds and zigzag lightning. As such, Lomahaftewa’s print creates a residue of memory, where the artist voices her great-great grandfather’s vital presence in the contemporary. This portrait communicates Lomahaftewa’s active engagements with her family history, and the vibrant palette conveys Honanie’s importance to the artist.

Northern Paiute/Achomawi artist Jean LaMarr’s Just Wanna Dance (1983), a hand-colored etching, expresses

her concern with the future of Native American cultures. Sitting in front of a Southern California landscape with two trees, a young woman wears glimmering, magenta-rimmed sunglasses, with moccasins reflected in one lens and high-heeled shoes in the other. She wears a strapless garment and faces viewers with a hand resting on her face. Farther back in the landscape, an older woman wearing a calico dress sits near a tree.

The women’s gazes do not intersect, thus communicating LaMarr’s comment on younger generations being disconnected from their Native ancestors and histories.

LaMarr covered the paper’s surface with glitter, perhaps alluding to the phrase, “All that glitters is not gold.” This opens the artwork’s associations to the violence of the California Gold Rush and its conflicted legacies, and it provides a visual connection to the older woman and her belonging to an earlier era.

White Earth Ojibwe artist David P. Bradley’s Rio Grande Madonna (1987) lithograph recasts Italian renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as a Pueblo woman. She smiles at audiences, enacting a visual association between continuance and motherhood with the Rio Grande landscape in the background.

Wearing her Pueblo-style manta, a tablita in hand, the subject communicates pride through these cultural signifiers and her direct gaze. A portrayal of reciprocity, she depends on place as much as place depends on her. Bradley defies stereotypes through his appropriation of da Vinci’s iconic painting. He calls out both the centrality of Native peoples to international and intercultural exchange and how Indigenous arts have been mistakenly undervalued by Western European cultures throughout the centuries.

Smist’s curation of Misunderstood!

Indigenous Art and Poetry as Political Resistance relies upon audiences to listen to the artists’ words and metaphors. The sentiments expressed through poetry and art media provide a complicated texture of representation for viewers to consider. The exhibition remains grounded in its clear and globally relevant statements. Also influenced by the Animals’ version of the song, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (1965), Smist has brought together Native American and First Nations

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peoples’ voices in words and visual depictions to show the beauty of the real, with all of its uneasiness and starlit moments.

—Michelle J. Lanteri

PHOENIX

David Hockney’s Yosemite and Masters of California Basketry Heard Museum

A

S YOSEMITE IS THE HEART OF CALIFORNIA, basketry is the heart of the people.

The Heard Museum has brought together works of incredible art of Yosemite from diverse artists: David Hockney, Carrie Bethel, Tina Charlie, Maggie Howard, Mary Poole, Lucy Telles, Leanna Tom, and Nellie Jameson Washington.

David Hockney’s Yosemite and Masters of California Basketry is in keeping with the Heard’s updated mission statement, which is “to be the world’s preeminent museum for the presentation, interpretation and advancement of American Indian art, emphasizing its intersection with broader artistic and cultural themes.” This unusual grouping of artists makes a spectacular exhibition featuring prize-winning basketry and digital drawings. It runs through April 5, 2020.

The Southern Sierra Miwok have called Yosemite home for countless generations. They made baskets, the tools of daily life for everything from carrying acorns and babies to food preparation and storage. Life changed with gold mining, ranching, and land grabs. President Abraham Lincoln gave Yosemite to the State of California in 1864, and it became a national park in 1890. With the growth of tourism in this land of natural beauty, Indigenous people became domestic servants, local guides for tourists, and makers of baskets to sell. From 1916 to 1929, Indian Field Days were held in Yosemite, during which Miwok and Mono Lake Paiute weavers competed in basketry competitions. Perfection in weaving

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coupled with dramatic patterns led to majestic works; some are displayed here.

Masters of California Basketry ties this art form to the land, with focus on Yosemite as a garden where people tended the plants they needed for weaving.

Willow, redbud, and other plants were trimmed to promote the springtime growth of straight shoots, very desirable for this art form. Materials were scraped to a uniform size before being used, as even stitches require carefully prepared wefts.

Then came the weaving process, whereby skillful hands accurately manipulated plant materials into flawlessly shaped vessels with precise patterning. One stitch at a time. More than 25 stitches per inch.

According to Heard Museum director of research Ann Marshall, PhD, through this exhibition, “we are trying to get across the knowledge needed, the in-depth, detailed knowledge, and the time it takes to make a basket.”

The gallery’s large display cases contain baskets placed according to artist. Wall text provides Yosemite’s history, a timeline, and information about technology in both basketry and Hockney’s art. Within the display cases, the labels present the artists’ names, tribal affiliations, basketry materials, and notes of interest about designs or unusual shapes. Historic photographs depicting many of the weavers are a welcome enhancement, giving faces to the names.

There are 28 baskets in Masters of California Basketry from seven museums and several private collections. These outstanding pieces were made by Mono Lake Paiute weavers Carrie Bethel (1898–1974), Tina Charlie (1869–1962), Maggie Howard (ca. 1870–1947), Mary Poole (n.d.), Lucy Telles (Yosemite Miwok/Mono Lake Paiute, 1885–1955), Leanna Tom (1860–1965), and Nellie Jameson Washington (1903–n.d.). There are also baskets from Unidentified Weavers, artists whose names were not recorded or were lost to time.

Lucy Parker (Yosemite Miwok/ Paiute/Kashaya Pomo/Coast Miwok), great-granddaughter of artist Lucy Telles, spent a week at the Heard teaching a basketry workshop. She tells of entering this exhibition for the first time. “I

above Carrie Bethel (Mono Lake Paiute, 1898–1974), Bowl Basket, 1929, sedge root, dyed bracken fern, redbud shoots, willow shoots, collection of Edward J. and Mimi Nusrala. Photo: Craig Smith. Image courtesy of the Heard Museum, Phoenix.

went in with my daughter Ursula and granddaughter Naomi. We sang a Basket Song. We were in tears, seeing what these women created. There is so much material in a large basket, there is so much trimming to do. Such fine work. It was very emotional for me. The legacy that was left is amazing.”

Lucy’s mother Julia Parker (Kashaya Pomo/Coast Miwok), who spent half a century demonstrating basketry at Yosemite National Park, was not able to attend. However, her words are quoted in some of the exhibition labels. Other than Julia herself, what is missing from the art show is more of the Native voice.

Legacy is also a word Diana Terrazas (Paiute), a relative of artist Tina Charlie and a current board member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, uses to describe the exhibition. She remarks, “The legacy they leave us is a reminder to keep weaving.

Seeing the baskets, our teachers, is a

reminder to continue to build on our connections to the land as they did, and how we always have.”

The land, Yosemite itself, is the theme that unites this innovative mix of basketry, photography, and digital art.

Heard Museum fine arts curator Erin Joyce explains Yosemite “as an intergenerational muse for artists.” As the weavers were inspired by the plants that grew here, the imposing granite cliffs and stunning views inspired acclaimed artist David Hockney. Four of his rarely exhibited Yosemite photographic collages from 1982 are part of this exhibition. Hockney returned to Yosemite in 2010 with an iPad, using his finger to sketch drawings that became The Yosemite Suite. In 2011 he took another Yosemite expedition. This time he used a stylus for his iPad drawings and created five large-scale prints, each about eight feet by five feet.

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digital drawings. Those familiar with Yosemite will recognize the grandeur of El Capitan, Half Dome, waterfalls, and giant Sequoia trees. The Yosemite Suite, 24 drawings from 2010 plus the five from 2011, are here. The lively colors, the movement and texture—like using fingerprints for leaves—make an interesting foil for the crisp, sharp designs on the baskets.

“Hockney was a visitor, his [art] depicted what he saw,” notes Diana Terrazas. “Seeing the baskets in this exhibition adds to the breadth and depth of Yosemite. The baskets come from the land, from the earth. I like that duality.

His trees and the dynamic [aspects] of the baskets, the materials, seeing what came from that area directly.”

The companion exhibition, Beyond Yosemite: California Basketry from the Heard Museum Collection, features a star basket by Ramona Lubo (Cahuilla, ca. 1847–1922), a rattlesnake design by Mary Snyder (Chemehuevi, 1852–1951), beaded bowls by Edna Foster (Mono Lake Paiute, n.d.), a gift basket by Alice Woris (Habematolei Pomo, 1845–1914) and a huge showpiece basket by Mary Benson (Pomo, 1877–1930). A trio of 19th-century Chumash baskets, a Cupeño bowl, a Shasta storage basket, and Panamint and Yokuts bottlenecks are made by Unidentified Weavers.

It’s Your Turn, Yosemite is a delightful education area focused on technology in art. More California baskets, including Achomawi and Karuk, plus panels on basketry materials and construction are displayed here. Activities include a coloring station, storytelling corner, and a table with iPads for channeling one’s inner Yosemite.

Lucy Parker sums it up nicely: “I was born and raised in Yosemite. Our culture, our whole family history is there.

People come and see us there. But this exhibit honors Yosemite in a different way.

In combination with the baskets—that’s where Yosemite art first started—I think David Hockney’s iPad work is a great honor to Yosemite. A different vision.

Then, the ladies made baskets for the tourists, different designs and shapes and sizes to catch their eye. Now he is also making Yosemite art for others.”

—Bryn Barabas Potter

POJOAQUE PUEBLO

Di Wae Powa: They Came Back Poeh Cultural Center

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N 2012, POJOAQUE PUEBLO’S THEN GOVERNOR George Rivera and the tribe’s historic preservation officer, Bruce Bernstein, approached the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) to propose the idea of a long-term loan of historic Tewa-made works in clay, produced between the mid-19th and the early 20th century. The national museum, which holds vast collections of historically significant Indigenous art from throughout the Americas, supports a philosophy of stewardship rather than ownership in caring for the objects and enthusiastically agreed to the loan. It was time for the pots to come home.

Several years later in 2016, representatives from each of the six Tewa pueblos (Nambé, Pojoaque, Tesuque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Ohkay Owingeh, formerly San Juan) traveled to the NMAI Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, to select works for the Poeh exhibition. In 2017 several members of the Tewa communities made the trip to Maryland to advise NMAI staff on how the fragile objects should be handled and displayed.

Soon thereafter in August 2018, the first nine of what would eventually comprise the hundred-piece exhibition arrived at Poeh, a journey just shy of 2,000 miles. These first arrivals would serve as prototypes for determining how the individual pieces of work would be mounted and how the collection in its entirety would be presented. Poeh staff, including executive director Karl Duncan (Arikara/Hidatsa/Mandan/San Carlos Apache), collections manager Lynda Romero (Pojoaque Pueblo), and intern Dmitri Brown (Santa Clara Pueblo), worked with NMAI’s master mount-maker Shelly Uhlir and one of its Native rising stars, Tazbah Gaussoin (Picuris Pueblo/Navajo), in forging mounts for them. The remaining 91 works would soon follow. It is important to note here that each of the unsigned

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creations in the Poeh exhibition, selected from more than 200 pieces of pottery that reside at NMAI, was acquired and donated to the Smithsonian by various collectors; they are not the fruits of excavation, nor were any of them used for ceremonial purposes.

On October 12, 2019, Poeh’s Di Wae Powa: They Came Back opened to the public. Under cloudy skies on that cool but sunlit Saturday, a crowd gathered in front of the Poeh Cultural Center to celebrate the return of these historical works of ancestral art to Tewa Country.

Native prayers were offered to the day and blessings bestowed upon all who were present. Buffalo dancers stepped to the drum in perfect time with one another. The aroma of Pueblo food and Indian tea filled the air; conversations in various languages (English, Italian, Spanish, and, of course, Tewa) echoed through the gathering place. Bright green gourds growing from thick, winding vines cast shadows upon the glistening micaceous plaster of the center’s exterior walls. Tiny brown lizards darted about the gourd beds, hiding behind withering leaves when seen. It was a sensory-filled and joyous occasion.

Being a frequent attendee of art exhibitions, my experience has been that some register primarily on an aesthetic level, with color, form, arrangement, and lighting of objects taking highest consideration. Some lend appeal through their historic value—when, where, and by whom the work was made—and, because of an inherent desire to individuate ourselves, our families, and our tribes within the lineation of time, it is how we find context for that in our own lives.

Some resonate emotionally, evoking a response that seems to rise from the deepest part of the soul. For me, Di Wae Powa is moving on all three of these levels.

Aesthetically, the exhibition is pure splendor. The thoughtful illumination and presentation of the hundred pieces—ranging in size from just a few inches in diameter to more than two feet tall and including bowls, canteens, figurines, models, pitchers, teapots and vases—allows the beauty of each to be appreciated individually. Rather than being grouped together according to dimension, color, or design, they rest

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atop earth-toned bricks of varying height, which creates an effect reminiscent of a classic Pueblo home, where pots for cooking, bowls for making dough, and a few favorite figurines sit on the ascending levels of a kiva fireplace. Under a ceiling of vigas and latillas and surrounded by smooth adobe walls, the homey feeling of the gallery is warm and comforting.

Displayed within several large glass enclosures in a gallery in the Poeh’s east wing, the collection, especially when viewed from certain angles and at particular distances, can appear to be uncontained. The illusion reflects the Poeh’s general curatorial philosophy, which holds to using no or minimal barriers to separate the viewer from the art.

A four-paragraph text panel near the entrance of the exhibition, more of a musing on the reunion of the art with the descendants of its makers than an explanatory or descriptive offering on the contents of the collection, sets the tone for viewing the work: quiet, calm, reflective on the bigger, generational picture. Kunda (thank you) to Tessie Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo) for this.

In historic perspective, Di Wae Powa is one of the most important exhibitions of our time. Rarely has a collection of this significance been returned to its place of origin, much less reunited with the descendants of its creators. In that alone it is a precedent-setting move toward repatriating some of the Indigenous artistic legacy that has been lost to time.

The emergence of personalized styles (scalloped edges, double-tiered water jars, statuettes portraying a favorite animal) is also evident in the exhibition, although, as previously mentioned, none of the works possesses a signature. As the identities of the individual artisans are not known, the collective voice is what resonates from the glass enclosures. This collective high note sang huge innovations into clay work, and new shapes and styles were introduced. Double-spouted canteens, lidded boxes, wedding vases, and figurative work became popular during this period of creative expansion.

Humor and whimsy also prevail, as evidenced in some of the collection’s smaller pieces: a bird-shaped pitcher, a set of rattles, a handled pot decorated with spiky protrusions to resemble a bursting

above Unknown San Ildefonso Pueblo artist, Polychrome Olla, n.d., ceramic jar with pigmented slip, collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian, Suitland, MD. Image courtesy of the Poeh Cultural Center.

Made without the market dictations that exist now, the work in the exhibition conveys Tewa responses to cultural and social changes that took place in pre-statehood New Mexico. milkweed pod tumbling in the breeze or a swirling star in some distant galaxy.

This was also a time of great technological experimentation and advancement, which brought new methods of firing and decorating pottery to the fore. Look for the pieces employing corrugation, Ogapoge Polychrome (a style from 1725 to 1825 characterized by the addition of red clay slip), and the stone-burnished Kapo style (highly polished blackware fired with cow or horse dung, which deoxidizes the clay, turning it black), and relief work, incising, and highly stylized floral and celestial motifs, respectively.

One pot near the exit that feeds into the demonstration room is so highly polished that at first glance it appears to be made of metal, a rare and masterful achievement still today.

Made without the market dictations that exist now, the work in the exhibition conveys Tewa responses to cultural and social changes that took place in pre-statehood New Mexico. For example, with the arrival of the Spanish at the turn of the 17th century, new pottery styles were invented to reinforce Tewa culture.

And when wheat became a staple of Tewa harvests, they developed design concepts to accommodate the plant and the methods of its preparation. They produced large jars to store the grain and wide, shallow bowls for mixing dough. In this respect, Di Wae Powa is an ethnographic record of sorts, a document of Tewa culture revealed in both linear and cyclical time.

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sense of longing for things of the past.

“That looks like one of Sarafina’s,” says my mother, pointing to a large black pot with scalloped edges, a hallmark of her great-grandmother Sarafina Tafoya’s (Santa Clara Pueblo, 1863–1949) clay work. There, near the first enclosure, we stood for a few minutes, holding hands, tears filling our eyes, taking spiritual nourishment from this early vessel. The presence of the immortal ancestral spirit was undeniable.

Moving through the exhibition in a counter-clockwise direction, pausing every few steps to admire a particular piece and returning several times to my favorites (a miniature model of a Pueblo house whose inhabitants are hard at work grinding corn on an ohkay or metaté (grinding stone); a small replica of a kiva with graceful steps leading to the hearth in its center; the pot with the metal-like finish), I see my own Tewaness contained within these works. My sense of design, my preoccupation with the construction of whatever I’m composing, my seemingly innate aptitude for adapting creative approaches in challenging situations, all born of these artists. And I suspect that same perception, that deep sense of connection, has come to register in many of Di Wae Powa’s Tewa visitors.

Reflecting on how long these artworks have been away from home and how far they’ve traveled to come back, I am reminded that Tewa resiliency has been the core of our strength and survival for millennia. Knowing the pots are home now, perhaps not forever but long enough to become fully Tewa again, is a comfort to the soul—a feeling on par with the relief and happiness a parent feels when a beloved child who has been away for too long finally comes home.

Curated by time and preserved through love, the hundred treasures that live and breathe in Di Wae Powa are indeed back where they belong. The stories of the artists who shaped them coil by coil from sacred Tewa clay live on in our memories, our cultural practices, and our hearts. —RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)

SACRAMENTO

When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California Crocker Museum

F

I F T Y PI VOTA L A RT I ST S from more than 35 tribes across California, those with close ties to the state, and others are included in this Crocker Museum exhibition. The third largest state in the nation has a long and complex Indigenous history to tell, and it is a fairly new concept for this art history to be seen and told. The exhibition is dedicated to and co-curated by Frank LaPeña (Nomtipom Wintu, 1937–2019), an artist, writer, traditionalist, curator, poet, and professor. Originally debuting at San Francisco State University in 2016, LaPeña, fellow co-curator Mark Dean Johnson (professor of art at San Francisco State University), and the Fine Arts Gallery at SFSU organized the exhibition.

For the current exhibition, LaPeña, Johnson, and Kristina Perea Gilmore also coedited the accompanying 176-page catalogue with numerous essays by Native and non-Native curators, art historians, scholars, and Indigenous arts community members. Spanning five decades to the present day, some of the artists with work in the exhibition are Dugan Aguilar, Rick Bartow, Robert Benson, George Blake, Gerald Clarke Jr., Denise Davis, Frank Day, Harry Fonseca, l. frank, Jean LaMarr, Frank LaPeña, Linda Lomahaftewa, Judith Lowry, James Luna, Jamie Okuma, Cara Romero, Brian D. Tripp, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Frank Tuttle, and an indelible who’s-who of Indigenous artists connected to California.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, an inference of antagonism and frustration accompanies the telling of a history long overdue. Subject matter like invisibility, Indigenous identity, social inequality, cultural knowledge, and spirituality are those expressed in this exhibition through contemporary painting, video, sculpture, photography, and conceptual/installation art. These works inevitably become the visual history of the silent generations

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that endured genocide, missions, boarding schools, forced removal, and the countless US government interactions inflicted upon California’s Indigenous peoples.

In the photographic installation, Ishi Speaks (2011) by James Luna (Payómkawichum/Ipi, 1950–2018), the grid of four images portray Luna juxtaposing images of himself similar to the historical photos of Ishi (ca.

1861–1916), the last known member of the Yahi people. One image, showing Luna wearing nothing but a long black T-shirt with large bold letters reading F— YOU, displays wit and anger while educating his viewers. The four audacious images represent the intrusive historical photos taken of Ishi. Luna said in one of the original showings of this series, “The point of the work is, if you don’t know about this man, you should. If you want to know more, go look it up. I’m not going to spoon-feed people.” Gerald Clarke Jr. (Cahuilla) appears partially translucent in a color still from his short film, Vanishing (2016), with the landscape behind him. Both Clarke and Luna’s works reveal a parallel of invisibility, a weighty message for the public and an empathetic revelation for Indigenous peoples—no more spoon-feeding here.

In Mercedes Dorame’s (Tongva) photograph, Dark Pools, water is freshly poured on a large rock next to a shallow stream, a perfect hand-sized, round depression near the center of it, a mortar hole once used for grinding acorns and plants. Her piece is both documentation of cultural history and a poignant use of image stating, “We were once here, and we are still here now.”

Indigenous identity and activism are unmistakable in this exhibition, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz Island

by American Indian activists in San Francisco in 1969. Upon entering one of the two galleries of the exhibition, visitors experience Jean LaMarr’s (Northern Paiute/Achomawi) 1991 installation, Seven From Hell (Columbus, The Priest, The Harlot, The Pimp, The Murderer, The Thief and Satan), an etching on three large horizontal paper sheets that portrays the historical undesirables, with shoes they may have walked in displayed beneath the images. Some of the shoes have blood dripping down the sides, portraying the

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and Nisenan: A Cultural Music Project presented by Vox Musica, a Sacramento women’s chorus.

When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California remains on view through January 26, 2020, and will then travel to the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts from August 13, 2020 to January 3, 2021, and the Autry Museum of the American West from September 19, 2021 to February 27, 2022.

—Melissa Melero-Moose (Northern Paiute/Modoc)

WEWOKA, OKLAHOMA

Altars of Reconciliation Seminole Nation Museum

T above Mercedes Dorame (Tongva), Grandmother River Dream—Paxaayt’ Tookor, from the Living Proof series, 2008, archival pigment photographic print, 24 × 24 in., image courtesy of the artist and the Crocker Art Museum.

evil deeds of the malevolent bunch. Mission Life (1998), an acrylic print on paper by l. frank (Tongva/Ajachmem), portrays a cartoon mission church with four grinning white skulls in lieu of windows. Nearby a sign reads “Franciscan Showers” in reverse lettering. The reversal of the text in her comic drawings is a common identifier of l. frank’s work from her ongoing humor and truth section in the News from Native California and later in her book, Acorn Soup (Heyday Books, 1999).

As humor makes these stories more digestible, so does beauty and imagination.

In his innovatively narrative works, Frank Day (Konkow Maidu, 1902–1976) expresses story after story of his Maidu culture, ceremony, and life in his unique way. Viewers, drawn in by his unusual take on the anatomy with giant and distinct hands and feet, look closer at the details of the story being laid out. In one of Day’s most notable works, Ishi and Companion at Iamin Mool (1973), he paints Ishi performing a multipart healing ritual on

a man with a gunshot wound in his belly, a depiction of his encounter at the age of nine with Ishi while walking with his father near Oroville in 1911.

To finally see Frank LaPeña’s iconic Deer Dancer works, Deer Rattle-Deer Dancer (ca. 1981) and the other, gracing the cover of the exhibition catalogue, Untitled (Deer Dancer) (n.d.) in person was exhilarating. I grew up with these images. All of these artists are my true heroes. They have been sharing their work and preserving their cultural images, stories, and art for our world community and our future.

Multiple events conceived of by a regional Indigenous advisory committee were scheduled throughout the course of the exhibition, including Visual Sovereignty, an all-day symposium; We Are Here: Say Ka Si, a Native American marketplace and festival; poetry, film, literary and cultural presentations like the Karuk youth dancers, hoop dancing by Sage Romero (Owens Valley Paiute/Taos),

HE EXHIBITION ALTARS O F R E C O N C I L I AT I O N seeks to dispel the stereotype that Native Americans who practice Christianity are assimilated into mainstream culture. The three artist-curators, Bobby C. Martin (Muscogee Creek), Tony Tiger (Sac & Fox/Seminole/Muscogee Creek), and Erin Shaw (Chickasaw/Choctaw), are all from Southeastern tribes who experienced the trauma of forced removal into Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Their exhibition explores how Christianity influences the lives of their Native American ancestors and what it means to them now.

The exhibition space is reminiscent of a candle-lit sanctuary. Three of the four gallery walls are a deep terracotta color while the fourth wall is stonework and distressed wood.

Im me d i ately t he v i e we r is confronted by Martin’s piece, Herron Ladies and Me at the Camphouse #2 (2019). This and most of his other pieces in the show are a complete departure from his past works. While old family pictures have always served as the primary inspiration for his artwork, the colored black-and-white photographs and sepia tones have been abandoned in favor of portrait drawings with gold leaf backgrounds. He printed the drawings on mulberry paper and adhered them to panels. Through the high contrast of WINTER 2020 | 77

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above Erin Shaw (Chickasaw/Choctaw), The Sea of Stories, 2019, acrylic on wood panels. Image courtesy of the artist.

the colorless portraits against the gold, he transforms portraits of his mother, grandmother, grandfather, and aunt into devotional images.

Tony Tiger’s Transformation Series explodes with color, including Transformation (Black Swallowtail Butterfly) (2017), Metamorphosis (Monarch Butterfly) (2017), and Brevity of Time (Pink Lady Butterfly) (2018). These large-format works are in keeping with Tiger’s abstract style and employ his signature colors symbolic of Sac and Fox ribbonwork appliqué, Seminole patchwork, and even ancient Mississippian iconography. This series uses the life cycle of butterflies as a widely used metaphor for change. Each artwork has three stacked panels, and each panel represents a stage of the life cycle (caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly). The changes could be many—an individual and personal transformation; the change his ancestors were forced into when removed from their homelands; the change one goes through in birth, life, and afterlife (death); or the spiritual change of Salvation in the Christian faith. The butterfly is often used as a metaphor for transformation, and the number three is associated with Christianity’s Trinity of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

Erin Shaw’s complex palette of pinks, purples, teals, and deep blues stands out among the primary colors and jewel tones of Tiger’s work and the devotional portraiture and rusted steel of Martin’s work. Shaw’s website describes her as “a painter of borderlands, the spaces between worlds. Her art faces the dualities we all carry inside of us, synthesizing them into understanding

through narrative.… [She] creates in a state of tension, suspended between two worlds. Humor pervades her art and reveals truths in unanticipated ways. The trickster, a disruptive force who turns us about until we see something new, appears throughout her work.” In this show, she combines surrealism with elements of triptych altarpieces, as in her piece The Sea of Stories (2019). In each of the side panels, symbols are tossed about and carried in the waves, while in the center panel a fish is swallowing a bird. The fish, or Ichthys, endures after 19 centuries as a symbol of Christianity, while for many tribes, birds carry prayers of the people to the Creator, such as the Waterbird, or anhinga, in the Native American Church, which is a syncretic religion drawing upon Huichol, Christian, and Southern Plains Indigenous theologies. “There are little fragments that represent stories that have been important to me,” Shaw explains. “I was thinking about how fluid stories are and how there have been diverse stories that have influenced me and melded together to become new stories.”

Shaw’s standout piece in this show is a deceptively simple sculptural installation, All My Sorrows (2019). Small balls of yarn in the signature palette of teals, pinks, greens, orange-yellows, and purples fill a wooden bowl. Three balls—two seemingly attached and one solitary—sit outside the bowl. In conversation with the museum’s executive director, Richard Ellwanger, he related that to Shaw they reminded her of her grandmother who was a knitter. Before a knitter can use a skein of yarn, it must be wound into a ball to prevent tangling. As Ellwanger

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relayed to me, Shaw felt making this piece and winding the balls of yarn provided time for deep spiritual reflection. It is a motif repeated over and over again in her painted work for this show and is particularly powerful in Protect Us From Ruin (2019). Her only portrait in the exhibition, this triptych of small wooden panels resembles a reredos, or altarpiece, with small mounted portraits at the apex.

Below, text is obscured by the winding of the same type of twine used in All My Sorrows. The ancestral theme of the exhibition as a whole and the preference of the other two artists to use family photographs suggest these are portraits of Shaw’s relatives, perhaps her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother?

The title could refer to God’s laws and love acting as a hedge of protection around us to “protect us from ruin.” Shaw leaves interpretations open; there is no hint of explanation on the wall text.

In the center of the room stands a case with religious ephemera: Bibles, photos, and hymnals, presumably from the artists’ collections. Additionally, an eight-foot-long installation of a low log structure stands at the center end of the room. A collaborative piece by Martin and Tiger, Mekusape Fullvnna (Muscogee Gravehouse) (2015) refers to structures that Muscogee Christians built over the graves of recently departed loved ones.

The Seminole Nation Museum purchased the piece from the traveling exhibition, Return From Exile: Contemporary Southeastern Indian Art (2015–18).

A particularly moving element of the grave house is the use of their ancestors’ names and numbers from the Dawes Rolls, cut into rusted steel panels and inserted into the structure as windows. When illuminated from the inside, the names are backlit and create a powerful reminder of the lives of these people. In another installation, Martin etched his ancestor’s names into steel set behind a mantle holding melted candles, suggestive of a personal altar.

Despite the lack of didactic text or a catalogue (one is forthcoming), the exhibition can still be appreciated for its formal qualities and familial themes. The artwork is personal to the three artists— as intimate as a diary. The exhibition continues traveling in 2020.

—Mariah L. Ashbacher

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BOOK REVIEWS Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract Philip J. Deloria University of Washington Press, 2019

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ARGELY UNKNOWN during her lifetime, Mary Sully (Yankton Dakota, 1896–1963), gains a new chance at artistic immortality through a monograph by Harvard history professor Philip J. Deloria (Dakota descent), Sully’s great-nephew. Deloria highlights her surviving oeuvre of 134 sets of three-panel works on paper. Not prints nor true triptychs, these panels drawings are executed in colored pencil and graphite on mid-grade art paper.

Born Susan Mabel Deloria on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, Mary Sully is the author’s great-aunt. The drawings, stored in a basement, were passed down after Sully’s death in 1963 until the author’s grandfather, Vine Deloria Sr. (Yankton Dakota, 1901–1990), bestowed them upon Phillip’s mother, a librarian, to catalogue. Unfortunately, they languished in storage again until the author rediscovered them in 2006.

Philip Deloria writes that with this book he aims to “make a case for

the aesthetic power and importance of the art and the peculiar genius of its creator, Mary Sully.” Exploring the breadth of her extant work and offering many readings, his main fascination lies with her triadic work, Three Stages of Indian History: Pre-Columbian Freedom, Reservation Fetters, the Bewildering Present (after 1938). This art, Deloria argues, is the keystone of her entire lifework. He attempts to make sense of it from Sully’s personal and cultural perspective, while also examining the historical moment in which it, and in fact all her work, was created.

The Deloria family tree tells the painful truths of the intersecting trajectories of Native Americans and the US government in the 19th century. Mary Sully’s relatives include both the illustrious and the infamous of early America. She is the great-granddaughter of American artist Thomas Sully (1783–1872), known for his portraits of “the great and the good” of early America.1 Thomas Sully’s son (Mary Sully’s grandfather), Lt. Col. Alfred Sully (1821–1879), an artist and soldier, attacked a village of 500 Lakota and Dakota lodges, inflicting enormous casualties. Deloria describes him as “one of the architects of a military policy that treated Indians as insurgents in their own territories.”

After an army assignment with the Dakota, Alfred Sully had a relationship with and then abandoned pregnant Pehánlútawiŋ (Red Crane Woman) in 1857 due to reassignment. He did not return to the Yankton until 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, when he was assigned to confront the chief, Saswe, for harboring “enemies” who were fugitive Santee Dakotas from Minnesota. Saswe was the leader and medicine man of the Half Breed Band.

Here we have an incredible scene—both of Mary Sully’s great-grandfathers facing off on opposite sides. These are the building blocks that created the artist Mary Sully, though she was not the first of her name. Becoming Mary Sully was

a transformation in which Susan Mabel Deloria would take her mother’s English name as her nom de guerre in an homage, perhaps to embody the empowerment of her mother’s Dakota name Akíčitawiŋ, or Soldier Woman. Deloria also posits that taking her mother’s maiden name also marked her career aspirations, by associating herself with her famous great-great-grandfather Thomas Sully.

“Susie,” as she was called by her family, was raised in the mission on the Standing Rock Reservation by her parents along with her older sister, Ella, and her little brother, Vine. Their father, Philip J. Deloria, an Episcopal minister, was also known as Tipi Sapa.

While Ella seemed to excel in studies and blossom socially, Susie faltered. As a child she suffered from pathological social awkwardness, which continued through adolescence into adulthood. Unable to work to support herself, she became dependent on Ella, who was forced to sell land inherited from their mother and depend on financial assistance from the Episcopal church. Ella’s work as an ethnographer, teacher, and anthropologist required a transient lifestyle.

During their time in Kansas, while Ella taught at Haskell Indian Boarding School, Susie attended art classes at the University of Kansas but was never able to complete a degree program. Deloria suggests that in today’s psychological climate Susie might be diagnosed with episodic depression or bipolar disorder.

In order to understand Mary Sully’s art, in a Native art context and the general context of modernism, Deloria attempts to place her work chronologically. Operating during a critical 40-year period in Native American modernism from the 1920s to the founding of the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1962, and beginning her work around 1927, Sully is contemporary with other Indian artists such as the Kiowa Six, Awa Tsireh (San Ildefonso, 1898–1955), photographer Horace Poolaw (Kiowa, 1906–1984), many emerging figures from Bacone College in Oklahoma, and in the Southwest at the Santa Fe Indian School and San Ildefonso Pueblo.

But why isn’t her name as recognizable?

Deloria claims those artists had critical

1. Thomas Sully’s works included his 1845 portrait of Andrew Jackson, which since 1928 has appeared on the American 20-dollar bill. Jackson enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly relocated the numerous tribes from their ancestral homelands.

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above Mary Sully (Yanktonai Dakota, 1896– 1963), Three Stages of Indian History: PreColumbian Freedom, Reservation Fetters, the Bewildering Present, mid-20th century, color pencil on paper.

factors in their favor which Sully did not, namely institutional support, artist peers, and art market patronage. Instead, she lived and operated outside the art world. Sully never made any money from her artwork and had only a few informal exhibitions in the late 1930s, when Ella attempted to help market her sister’s work. Not only was Sully physically located outside any art scene, but her work bears little resemblance to other Native American artists working in Oklahoma, New Mexico, or elsewhere.

According to a list Sully compiled around 1938, her work, mostly undated, consisted of “Personality Prints,” mostly of famous individuals. Deloria identifies a common thread in the Personality Prints, which represent people who, like Sully, had undergone a transformation. Instead of the typical reading 80 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

of each triad of works, Deloria puts forth a more satisfying reading of all the top panels grouped together representing images of abstraction, all the middle panels grouped together comprised of geometric forms, and all the bottom panels grouped together representing Indianness. Sully’s works are portraits of individuals, mostly famous and unknown to her, but not in the conventional sense of creating a recognizable likeness of a person; instead, abstract imagery (in the first panel) represents the subject’s celebrity or person, with the middle panel transitioning into geometric abstraction and repeating patterns (here tied to modernism), and the last is the evolution into Indianness and indeed her Native self. The people who are the namesakes and subject of the top panels never met with her, and no one ever commissioned these portraits. They were known to Sully because of the rise of celebrity in the early 20th century. Most likely she knew of them from pop culture and news articles, because they were figures of stage and screen, sports, politics, and other public arenas. Twenty-nine of her personality prints were inspired by the cover images of Time which weekly featured a portrait from 1923 through 1942.

Deloria begins by inviting us to start with the middle panels, which he calls the “geometric abstract.” The middle panels range from simple and inviting, and as the author suggests, decorative, to the experimental, pushing the aesthetic limits of the idea of “pattern.” They mark part of her identity as a designer, inspired by Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts movement in United States from 1910 to 1925, and Art Deco, as seen in the tile-like work of Fred Astaire.

Top panels, which are difficult to interpret unless you know who Sully has identified as the subject, are the “signifying abstract,” according to the author. All have in common “a desire to communicate some central aspect of a person or idea through a constellation of signifiers.”

Finally, the bottom panels are the “American Indian abstract” and are perhaps the most significant. Sometimes overt with Native American imagery found in other Indigenous art forms (beadwork, pottery, weaving, quillwork, etc.), but more often not explicitly Native but still imagery carrying “a unique and powerful sense of Indianness.”

If one looks at each top panel as being modernist and of Mary Sully’s “now,” then the panels can be read as moving forward and looking toward the future (ending with the Native American panel), “beyond modern abstraction to something else, something new that emerges from the Indigenous cosmopolitanism of the bottom panels.” This outlook squarely places the Native American viewpoint in the future, not the past, as the Indigenous art forms represented within the bottom panels might suggest.

So, ultimately how and where will Mary Sully be placed in the grand scheme of art history—as an artist, a woman, a modernist, and as a Native American? Deloria endeavors to offer many readings toward how the prints work together and “how they mean. Central to that claim is the concept of an American Indian abstract, Sully’s invention of a new aesthetic at once deeply Indigenous and uncompromisingly modernist.” Deloria describes Sully as native to modernism: “a Native person exploring modernism … but also native … to the terrain of modernism itself.” ­—Mariah L. Ashbacher

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Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s Tiffany Midge University of Nebraska Press, 2019

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IFFANY MIDGE (STANDING ROCK SIOUX) is many things.

A poet. A columnist. An essayist. A satirist. Happily, as she noted in a recent Facebook post about the reception of her latest book, Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s, she is “not the self-appointed White Whisperer.” Indeed not. As those of us who have been reading her work for years know, Midge writes about Indigenous life for Indigenous readers. If non-Indigenous people laugh too or get it, good for them, but it’s for us.

At least that’s the way it’s always felt to me.

When she wrote her column for Indian Country Today, I used to race to see what she had to say about whatever obnoxious news or pop culture event had just occurred. Her smart, satirical, and humorous writing kept me from becoming bitter, jaded, or hopeless in the face of all that was happening. I didn’t always agree with her, but I was always glad she was out there, bravely daring to laugh at the most daunting problems and to call out the most subtle aggressions and injustices.

In d i an C ou nt r y h a s s p e nt generations finding ways to laugh at the absurdity that always seems to attend horrific atrocity, including or maybe especially the very creation of “Indian

Country” itself. Before writing, we had storytellers, singers, and of course, just plain old funny people. As Indigenous people learned to write in our own and other languages, several of us transferred the funny to the page, as Geary Hobson outlines in his foreword to this collection.

Despite a history of humor in Indigenous art and writing, a stereotype of the dead-serious Indian persists, and humor continues to be received outside our communities in a patronizing, sentimental manner as the brave response of a dying people to the loss of their culture. (Cue flute music and a slight breeze blowing across the Plains).

This collection of 50 columns, essays, and other writings is organized into eleven parts, all with hilarious names like “Merciless Indian Savages?

Try Merciless Indian Fabulous!” There are pieces in the form of multiple choice tests and Twitter feeds as well as straight, personal essays and satire.

Many of the pieces, originally published columns, are timely and topical, such as the faux news piece “Thousands of Jingle Dress Dancers Magically Appear at Standing Rock Protector Site” and its crushing—and true—follow-up, “Satire Article Goes Viral on Day of 2016 Presidential Election,” in which Midge discusses the possible reasons that even places like the New York Times assumed her mystical jingle dress piece was “true.”

Midge’s satirical essays will likely require footnotes in the future, much like the columns of early 1900s Mvskoke satirist Alexander Posey’s fictional persona Fus Fixico, who commented upon impending Oklahoma statehood among other issues of the day. But also like the Fus Fixico letters, her satire pieces provide an invaluable Standing Rock Sioux/Indigenous perspective on history that will be so important generations from now, when “truth” is in danger of solidifying into the (to be determined) winner’s version.

While all of the pieces in this collection include wit and humor, not all of them are full of one-liners and deadpan satire. Straight, personal essays delve into topics including grief, sexual abuse, and interpersonal relationships with compelling detail. Standouts are

the essays about her parents, like the title piece, “Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s,” about how her mother taught her to grieve as she was dying, and “The Siam Sequences,” about a trip to Thailand to visit her father, with whom she had a complicated relationship.

Perhaps one of the most important things about Midge’s writing, both in her formal books and even in her social media and other appearances, is that she refuses to perform “Indianness” as it is still expected to be performed. In her personal essays she writes, instead, life as it is for her, specifically. In 2019 that shouldn’t be remarkable, but it is, for even now Indigenous writers are often expected to explain themselves and prove their “authenticity” to readers, both Indigenous and non. Midge does not play that game. She writes her truth, passionately, with minute observation, sharp wit, and a poet’s wielding of this English language that history has caused to be her own. And she expects you, gentle reader, to follow along, no matter who you are. “He is my learned father, my genetic sire, fingerprint of all my thoughts, every breath’s spectacle. He is an unabashed imperialist, Caliban’s keeper and Friday’s Crusoe. He is a firm believer in a superior race, and nothing I can ever say or do will save him,” she writes, expecting her reader to get all those literary references just like she expects them to get pop culture references to pumpkin spice lattes and The Exorcist in some pieces and Indigenous humor in others.

This is a funny book, and it’s an easy one to read casually. I read a lot of it, laughing my head off, while floating in my pool on a giant flamingo this summer.

But make no mistake: this is an important book. On its heels, Midge is releasing a book of “subversively comic poems,” Horns, from Scabland Books, and I have no doubt it will be good. But let’s hope this is not her last essay collection, for we need her astute reflections on the state of the world. We need her to entertain us while we’re on vacation. And we need her to keep speaking her eloquent truth so we can remember that it’s possible to do that as Indigenous people in the 21st century.

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Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves, eds.

University of Washington Press and Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2019

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N A RECENT INTERVIEW, Guerrilla Girl artist “Frida Kahlo” said, “Unless all the voices of our culture are in the history of art, it’s not a history of art, it’s a history of power.”1 The statement was in response to grim statistics about New York City’s major art museums that, like most major art museums, privilege white men’s work in their exhibitions.

Cementing this practice, exhibition catalogues contribute to the historical record. In other words, with their roots in colonialism—a practice that aims for political control over others—museums often reinforce the history of power described by Kahlo.

Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists provides an antidote for this history of power. The exhibition planning phase began in 2014, and in 2015 co-curators Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves (Kiowa) gathered a 21-member advisory committee comprised of Native artists,

curators, and scholars and non-Native art historians to begin developing the show.

For the next four years, these women discussed and planned the exhibition. The recently published catalogue for Hearts of Our People maps this process for readers through 342 pages of essays, images, and interviews, and expands beyond the museum walls.

“Why do Native women create?” is the foundational question for the show, which centers the catalogue and breaks away from the conventional approach of art publications. Instead of one scholar writing about art objects, more than 40 intergenerational authors, both artists and academics, contribute from their individual perspectives and writing styles. Divided into three themes—legacy, relationships, and power—Hearts of Our People further breaks from the established practices of chronological, taxonomic, or biographical modes of organization.

A foundational text in art history programs for decades, Basic History of Art by art historian H. W. Janson illustrates the mainstream approach.

Envisioned and created by one white man in the 1960s, the textbook follows a chronological approach starting with “prehistoric art” in Europe and ending with “the postmodern era: art since 1980.”

The National Museum of Women in the Arts states of his book, “Only 27 women (out of 318 artists) are represented in the 9th edition of H. W. Janson’s survey, Basic History of Western Art—up from zero in the 1980s.”2 None of the female artists represented are Native American.

In contrast, Yohe states the main purpose of Hearts of Our People is that it “highlights the artistic vision, ingenuity, and experimentation of Native women artists who have embraced new media to innovate in every period, who have sustained or revived customary practices, and who are frequently overlooked and undervalued in art historical and anthropological discourse.” According to Greeves, “Women not only made the art that helped our people understand

who they were; they were guided by long-standing protocols and norms that made art production by women commonplace.”

This catalogue compellingly documents the most comprehensive anthology on record of work by Native women artists. In addition to 400 color illustrations, including stunning photographs of all 117 objects exhibited at the first installation in Minneapolis, 67 brilliant essays (some with additional imagery) fill the catalogue. These focus on artworks from what is now the United States and Canada and include photography, beadwork, and textiles from the 19th and 20th centuries to the present, and pottery from the 11th century to today.

The strengths of this publication overwhelm any survey of art history in my experience. To begin, it successfully moves outside of colonial methods of museums and opens the field for artists, curators, and scholars. The range of essays from a variety of perspectives provide readers with an in-depth understanding of the art while the extensive catalogue of images creates a visual canon of art by Native women.

The greatest challenge of Hearts of Our People has more to do with the state of the field than with the publication itself. Because the contribution of Native women artists—the first mothers and artists of this land—has been largely left out of the mainstream historical record, this publication scratches the surface of all the works still to be shared. That said, the authors far surpassed their stated intention.

Truly a history of art and not a history of power, this catalogue brings hope with its collaborative and inclusive approach. Please note the cost of the publication rates far lower than standard art history books. Treat yourself to a personal copy and encourage educators everywhere to adopt Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists as a textbook for their classrooms. —Jean Merz-Edwards

1. “Frida Kahlo,” “Guerrilla Girls Talk the History of Art vs. the History of Power,” video, 6:24, The Art Market, January 14, 2016, web.

2. “Get the Facts,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, accessed November 27, 2019, web.

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Ojibway Author, Educator, and Knowledge-Keeper

ELI BAXTER

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

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LI BAXTER WAS BORN IN 1954 on Marten Falls First Nation Reserve, an Ojibway community 500 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario. A member of the Caribou clan, Baxter was raised in the Anishinaabe cultural way on the trapline along the Albany River and learned Ojibway as his first language. He is a survivor of the Pelican Lake and Shingwauk residential schools in Northern Ontario.

After earning a degree and teaching certificate from Lakehead University, he taught elementary grades for seven years in Whitedog, Ontario. He then taught the Ojibway language from junior kindergarten to grade eight for 20 years on the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. Baxter designed, wrote texts for, and taught the Algonquian Language and Culture course for 17 years at Western University in London, Ontario.

The value of original languages and the survival of Indigenous cultural practices and beliefs drive his critical research and pedagogy. Baxter has the vision for First Nations communities to speak the Anishinaabay language as it was spoken before European contact. Using the Anishinaabay worldview, he remains active in local politics and has presented academic papers on Treaty 9, Indigenous law, and language. His Ojibway language teachings appear in a series on YouTube, and he has contributed to Anishinabek News.

In 2018 he translated and voiced colonial poems into Ojibway for Franco-Canadian visual artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s installation, Clearing, at Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant in Brantford, Ontario. That year, Kiwanga won the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s most prestigious recognition of contemporary art.

I reached out to Eli Baxter to discuss his writing and language advocacy.

MRS: Thank you for speaking with me, Eli. Could you discuss your early life in Northern Ontario? What was your experience living on the trapline?

EB: Meegwaych for the interview. My brothers, sisters, cousins, and myself were born along the Albany River in Northern Ontario. We call this our traditional ancestral land as our relations owned the land before the concept of a trapline. We are the last generation of the hunting and gathering society of the Anishinaabayg. The Ojibway language is our first language.

My experience living out on the land was spiritual; we lived with nature.

The spiritual part came from the moment I was born. In late October the ice was forming on the lakes and rivers. The

ducks and birds had already migrated. On the day that I was born some loons landed on Washi Lake. My parents told me later that the loon is my spirit bird as it helped me in my travel from the spirit world to the physical world. They heard my cry, it was awful, and they left. We were told all Anishinaabayg have spirit birds or animals. They show themselves when an Anishinaabay baby is born.

We learned the Ojibway language by listening to our parents, our older siblings, and all our relations. Every night we begged our parents to at-soh-kayn, which means to tell us Anishinaabay stories. The stories were funny, educational, and we all wanted to tell these stories just as good as the best storyteller in our group. It gave us status as storytellers, and it made us want to learn the oral language of our nation. The language has all of our history, our science, our astrology, and all our Anishinaabay curriculum.

We were all taught the language through everyday life experiences. We observed and listened to our parents and to our surroundings in the wilderness. We hunted and fished for our food. We did not have electricity or running water. We experienced the four seasons and we participated in all the activities around our campsites. It was a great way of life.

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the oral history of Anishinaabay. What is your philosophy of language?

EB: The Anishinaabay language is crucial because it explains our existence. The language is used to communicate with our spiritual entities and used in our ceremonies. The Anishinaabay language holds our Pah-git-tin-nih-gay-win-nun, our laws, that tell us how to protect our nations and our lands. The language holds our Constitution.

MRS: The expression of Indigenous languages in words and symbols is crucial to cultural strength. Why is Indigenous writing in particular so important right now?

EB: The word Ojibway is the way the Europeans heard and then wrote it down when they asked what our tribe’s name was. Their Anishinaabay guides said they are named O-zhi-bee-i-gay-ini-ni-wug, which the other Anishinaabay tribes called us. We are referred to as “the people that write.” Other tribes knew we wrote down our history, the present, and the future in our writing system. Our oral language is still used in a few communities in Northern Ontario. Presently we use the phonetic writing system using English letters in the school system. This writing system slows down the oral language. We lose our languages and then we lose our culture.

MRS: You speak about being a residential school survivor.

Did residential school affect your thoughts and beliefs toward Indigenous languages?

EB: The residential school system did not define how I value Indigenous languages. Our parents and all our relations [taught] us how we value our languages. To me, the residential school system does not have the right or reason on how I value Indigenous languages. We were told not to use our languages, and we were punished when we used it. We are strong enough in our languages and that is how we survived.

MRS: You once wrote, “Use your fears as a tool. Know yourself and your traditions. Keen igoh tootun.” It reads almost as a manifesto. Can you elaborate on these words?

above and opposite, top Eli Baxter family photographs from the 1970s. Image courtesy of Eli Baxter. opposite, bottom Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa), Solstice Sunrise, 2018, fumage, block print, cedar smoke, 24-karat gold leaf on Annigoni paper, 26 × 26 in., edition of 15. Image courtesy of the artist.

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EB: I asked my mom once on what I should do with my life. It was kind of strange because I was about 20 years old, and I wasn’t married with kids. She told me, “Keen igoh tootun,” which means, “It’s up to you on what you want to do.” She said it was not up to her to tell me what to do. It was my choice, so I became a teacher.

I feared what my future was going to be, so I used this fear to push me into furthering my education. I got to know my fears and my shortcomings on my own, and I figured out on what to do. The tradition on keen igoh is a protocol that we received through the teachings from our languages.

MRS: You live in London, Ontario, and taught at Western University and in communities such as the nearby Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. I would like to hear your thoughts on the difference between teaching Indigenous language in an

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academic environment (urban) versus a reserve community.

Do you encounter different approaches, different challenges?

EB: Teaching the Ojibway language in both communities is the same in both settings, as it is all academic. All the students in both communities are non-speakers. The Native language teachers teach the language to students, so it’s the same. This type of teaching the Native languages will not work, because the language is not coming from the parents. The parents are not being taught the language, so now the children know the vocabulary of the language but not the conversational part of the language. At one time the parents had the power of the Native languages, and the children looked up to their parents because they wanted to speak like their parents. Now the children teach the parents. The languages need to be taught to the adults and parents in their communities and have the languages operating at the same level as they were used in our communities before European contact.

MRS: Your writing is often a mash-up of different cultural expressions. For this interview, you’ve contributed haiku poems written in Ojibway. What is the significance of experimenting with Anishinaabemowin and how the language can evolve?

EB: I was bored one night, so I decided to write poems using the haiku form. It works well as some words have seven syllables and five syllables. I would see the fluent speakers teach their languages in post-secondary institutions and be paid as full professors. I do not have another fluent speaker to speak with today, so I do different things with the language. The Ojibway language is mostly oral, and when we get together and we only speak in the language, there is so much humor in the way we tell our stories that there is not one dry eye. Humor is used as a medicine. We have always told stories in many different ways to make people laugh, so in that way we experienced the languages.

In order to evolve our languages now we need to form fluent language institutions to bring our remaining fluent speakers together to expand our oral and written languages. It would be neat to have this.

MRS: You may remember the first time we met. It was a cold and snowy day in downtown London, Ontario, and we gathered at Richard Gracious’s recording studio. The three of us sipped coffee as the snow fell. You talked about the creation story before you read a colonial poem in Ojibway.

Kapwani Kiwanga and I were pairing your voice with Robert R. Whale’s romantic landscapes of Southern Ontario for her exhibition at Glenhyrst. The Ojibway language is beautiful, but what resonated was how you spoke it—the care you took to express every word. Can you talk about the relationship between care and language?

EB: The relationship between care and language is the evidence that we were taught by our parents. Our languages came from our parents, and they had so much Anishinaabay knowledge. It

is up to us to keep the language alive and take care of it as we take care of our parents.

MRS: Thank you very much for speaking with me, Eli. EB: Meegwaych, Matthew. Nin-gee-min-wayn-daan chi-tootah-man (I enjoyed doing this). Ka-waa-bah-min (I’ll see you later).

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ANISHINAABAY HAIKU 1. Tah-been-dih-gay-wug.

(They will enter)

Kee-in-naa-goh-nihgay-wug.

(They ordered) Kaa-in-nayn-dah-mung.

(Into our way of thinking) 2. Kaa-waa-bun-dah-min.

(We will see) A-ki a-nih-a-koh-zih.

(Earth getting sick) Kah-manh-zhi-say-min.

(We will be in trouble) 3. A-nih-kih-zhi-tay.

(It is getting hot) Kee-sis kih-chi-poh-tah-way.

(The sun is creating/ making more fire) A-zha-nih-tah-bways.

(I am starting to sweat)

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ART+LIT

4. Nin-gih-zoh-mih-kom.

(The ice is melting) Ki-chi-chee-man o-zhi-toon.

(Make a big boat) Ween-gay-tah-moosh-kaam.

(It will really flood) 5. Ah-nih-paang-gohs-kaa.

(It is getting dry) A-ki ah-nih-zah-kih-tay.

(The earth is on fire) Nih-bah-kaa-bah-gway.

(I am getting thirsty) —Eli Baxter (Anishinaabay Inini)

ABOUT GORDON COONS

B right Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa), Man Transferring into Healer, acrylic on canvas, 40 × 30 in. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, top Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa), Four Ravens, acrylic on canvas, 24 × 22 in. opposite, bottom Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa), Cedar Smoke Spirit Dancer, 2018, cedar smoke on paper, 26 × 26 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

ASED IN MINNEAPOLIS, Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa/Ottawa) is a painter, printmaker, and fumage artist. Largely self-taught, he paints in the Ojibwa Woodland style and creates fumage, smoke art, by burning cedar. He embellishes his fumage pieces with 24-karat gold leaf. He also prints with linoleum blocks and sculpts in stone and wood.

Coons draws inspiration from his Anishinaabeg heritage, and his bright color palette comes from his natural surrounds in the Great Lakes region. “I also enjoy incorporating playfulness in my images, telling stories of relationships between Western and Native cultures, and the connection we have to our shared historical events,” he says in his artist statement.

Gordon Coons exhibits nationally, and his work is in permanent collections across the country. He regularly shows and wins awards at annual art markets such as SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, Native POP Festival in Rapid City, South Dakota; and the Eiteljorg Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Hopkins Center for the Arts in Minnesota hosted a solo exhibition of his work.

More of his artwork can be seen online at gordoncoons.com.

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SPOTLIGHT

MAMA AND PAPA HAVE THE GOING HOME SHIPROCK BLUES

above T. C. Cannon (Kiowa/ Caddo, 1946–1978), Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues, 1966, oil, acrylic on canvas, 84 × 59½ in., collection of the National Collection of Contemporary Native American Art, Honors Collection CD-10, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

T

HE LATE IAIA MUSEUM studies professor Chuck Daily (1935–2019) has stated that “T. C.’s painting Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues was the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of the contemporary Indian art movement. …”1 Cannon entered IAIA in 1964 and painted Shiprock Blues in his third year at the school, during a time that lives on in Native art legend. A dynamic staff championed a radical upheaval of outside

expectations. Instead students were free to make Native art for Native people.

Speculation holds the painting is actually unfinished, and its thin washes with drips; loose, spare brush strokes; and spots left white, make that believable.

Uncharacteristically flat for the region, the horizon is disrupted by the word Dineh, a stand-in for Tsé Bit'a'í or Shiprock, the isolated mountain ridge so often featured in Navajo landscape paintings. Cannon was keenly aware of the visual and conceptual power of text.

The Navajo name for themselves is part of the physical landscape, just as the Navajo people and language are intrinsically tied to their homelands.

Though this work has been championed as a major moment in Native modernism, it presages postmodernism.

Shiprock Blues is not about the act of painting, as modernism demands. It is about Navajo people, from the perspective as a Kiowa/Caddo man from Oklahoma.

The fact that Cannon could convey so many cultural details with so few brushstrokes is extraordinary.

The women’s tsiiyéeł, or customary hair bun, is shaped by a quick black outline.

The couple both wear kélchí. The man’s moccasins are only masses of burnt sienna, yet the white negative space indicates the deer hide sole and button.

The woman’s leg wraps and her wearing blanket are the most substantial moments in the painting, with implied mass and shading. The man’s turquoise and coral jacklas are indicated only by white stripes and red blobs on his ultramarine shirt, yet the graduation of the heishi beads and their weight as they hang down are instantly recognizable and believable.

The multiple images of the figures reflect a fractured, mercurial sense of reality, which was a hallmark of postmodernism. While modernism held truth to be universal, postmodernism acknowledged the many subjective factors that color our perceptions of truth. And since postmodernism demanded the recognition of multiple perspectives and inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives, it makes sense that early postmodernist art would originate in locations far from Paris, London, or New York.

—AM

1. Joan Frederick, T. C. Cannon: He Stood in the Sun (Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing, 1995), 30.

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MEMORIAL

BRUCE KING

JAMES B. KING SR.

November 2, 1954–November 27, 2019

August 8, 1951–October 16, 2019

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ARGER THAN LIFE, Bruce King, a painter, author, actor, and musician, succumbed to a heart attack this winter. He leaves behind his widow Margaret Webster King, son Damien Webster, daughters Elizabeth and Dawn, and innumerable relatives and friends.

He also leaves his mark on theater, visual arts, and music, as well as Haudenosaunee communities in Wisconsin and upstate New York, and the intertribal community of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

King was born in Chicago, to Alberta Della King, whose parents were Sarah Elizabeth Barid and Albert King.

He was a member of the Turtle clan of the Oneida Nation.

He earned his AFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1970 and served in the US Army in Vietnam from 1970 through 1973. Later King studied at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois’ Continuous Casting Consortium, a unique partnership between the university, the National Science Foundation, and the steel industry to “develop comprehensive mathematical models of the continuous casting of steel slabs,” as stated on the consortium’s website.

Ultimately earning a bachelor’s degree in theatrical arts, King wrote and directed numerous plays for the stage and screen. He first published a play, “To Catch a Never Dream” in 1969, and he published a collection, Evening at the Warbonnet and Other Plays, in 2006. That same year, his work was anthologized in Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices. He taught theater classes at IAIA and was part of WarDancer Film Group, a production company, with Wes Studi (Cherokee Nation). Studi played bass and King sang and played guitar for Firecat of Discord, a band King named after a figure from Oneida oral history.

King’s paintings are expressive, painterly, and atmospheric with bold colors. His subjects were often portraits of Plains Indians and group images of warriors on horseback in wooded landscapes; however, he also painted Haudenosaunee subjects and wildlife, particularly buffalo.

A motif he explored was traveling equestrian groups with their abstracted reflections in water, for a timeless, otherworldly quality. King moved confidently from detailed, representational portraits to loose, highly abstracted works, and he exhibited nationally and in Europe. His work is in public collections, such as the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian, the Schoharie County Iroquois Indian Museum, the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the North American Congress on Latin America, and the Six Nations Indians Museum.

The King family has created an online fundraiser at GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses at gofundme.com/f/bruce-king-funeral-expenses. —AM

P

AINTING EXPANSIVE PORTRAITS and genre scenes in oils, James B. King was absolutely dedicated to his art practice, at times even sleeping in his studio. During college, his art teachers actively tried to discourage him from painting realistically as it was the 1970s, and most were painting abstractly. While the teachers didn’t approve of his slice-of-life portrayals of Navajo people, the public enthusiastically embraced King’s work. He won first place in a college art competition, while getting Ds in his art classes.

King stayed true to his vision and inspired others to follow their own dreams. Navajo filmmaker Ramona Emerson captured some of King’s drive and commitment to his community in her award-winning short documentary, Hidden Talents (2014). He had a vivid dream of a young Navajo girl walking through the desert with her sheep and dog, only to stumble across an abandoned piano.

She steps up to the keyboard and plays an exquisite melody. From this dream, King painted a massive oil painting of the girl playing, flanked by her dog and horned Navajo-Churro sheep, with Shiprock looming in the background.

Born and raised in Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation, King's Navajo name was B'ee'dit'lo, which translates to Woolenshirt. As a child, King painted on everything from the outhouse walls to his dog to his grandfather’s car. In 1971, he graduated from Shiprock High School and then attended Salt Lake City Community College in 1973. Having been a high-rise ironworker, soil technician, and truck driver, King finally took the leap to become a full-time artist in 1978.

He sculpted in stone, drew with pastels and pencil, and painted in acrylics and watercolors, but King is best known for his vibrant oil paintings. “I like white clean linen canvases, the smell [of] turpentine, drink[ing] some cold red wine and sleeping at my studio,” he shared on Facebook. While King studied with many Western and Native artists, he cited Jimmie Abeita, a Navajo realist painter from Crownpoint, New Mexico, as an influential mentor.

“I like the fast reckless strokes of colors as I set up my compositions. Sometimes I like the first stage so much I dry them and just stash them away,” he mentioned in his Toh-Atin Gallery profile. King built up his works with loose paint strokes then steadily refined them, and he preferred to paint from live models. “You lose the feeling when you work from a photograph,” he told interviewers Michael and Michelle Turolla. King sought out natural light for his models, and his works are remarkable for their dramatic light and shadows, particularly Shadehouse Politics and The Goat Seller, with the complex, dappled lights falling on figures standing under brush arbors.

James King showed across the nation and won innumerable awards, such as Best of Show in the 2002 Heard Fair for his work 9/11 on the Rez. His works can still be seen in the public collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Albuquerque Museum of Art, Mesa Verde National Park Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts.

Woolenshirt shared his vision of Navajo life and sought to inspire the next generation of young Navajo artists and innovators. —AM WINTER 2020 | 89

COLLECTIONS

COLLECTIONS

NERMAN MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

I

N THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, Kansas City emerged as an arts center with the establishment of an art school (now Kansas City Art Institute) and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which opened in 1933. The growth of a robust gallery scene, including the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (1994), Charlotte Street Foundation (1997), and the Belger Arts Center (2000), expanded opportunities for artists and marked Kansas City as an arts destination.

For those willing to venture 20 minutes southwest, another treasure awaits exploration in a somewhat surprising location: the Johnson County Community College (JCCC) in Overland Park, Kansas, where a forward-thinking college board initiated an annual fund to collect contemporary art in 1980. The works became integral to the campus, displayed in hallways and multipurpose

rooms across numerous buildings, and the board also commissioned outdoor public sculpture. A decade later, Bruce Hartman was hired to oversee a dedicated gallery space and regular acquisitions.

Hartman has been the driving force behind the collection’s growth, from 100 works when he started as gallery director to nearly 1,800 pieces today. He learned about art and collecting from his parents; the family went to the Santa Fe Indian Market every year, and he purchased his first work at age 14.1 Hartman partnered with philanthropists and collectors Marti and Tony Oppenheim, among others, to build the collection through galleries, art fairs, and studio visits. In 2007, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art opened on the JCCC campus: a chic 41,000-square-foot museum with twelve galleries designed by Korean architect Kyu Sung Woo.2 As Hartman states, “We defy

preconceptions of the Midwest, community colleges, and suburbia.”3 Visitors to the Nerman will see artists that are featured at the most prestigious contemporary art museums on the coasts. Hartman has curated solo exhibitions for Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kerry James Marshall, Mary Heilmann, Nari Ward, Barbara Kruger, and Ebony G. Patterson. Importantly, Native artists are featured alongside non-Native contemporaries; the collection is not segregated.

These works rotate with the permanent collection and are integrated into special exhibitions. Hartman commissioned White Earth Ojibwe artist Frank Big Bear Jr.’s collage We Are Still Here (2014), which features dozens of appropriated images layered across 120 small panels, with references to individuals from many nations. Some are well-known: Geronimo, Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Leonard Peltier, Russell Means, while several are candid shots from recent powwows and protests. Works by Brad Kahlhamer and Brian Jungen (Dunne-za) are also part of the permanent collection.

I had visited the Nerman Museum several times before Hartman introduced me to other displays across campus: over 500 works in more than 17 buildings.

The museum is connected to the Regnier Center, dedicated to classrooms, offices, and computer labs, and every hall in the three-story building features a carefully curated arrangement of contemporary art. The second floor has ceramics by Randy Nahohai (Zuni), Yvonne Lucas (Navajo/Laguna), Ida Sahmie (Navajo), Rainy Naha (Hopi-Tewa), Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo), and Shyatesa White Dove (Acoma Pueblo), as well as Mexican ceramicists. Inside Cochiti (2000), a ceramic bowl, Romero painted a landscape divided into thirds: the lower band shows an X-ray view inside the earth to reveal skeletons of humans and dinosaurs, a Southwestern desert landscape including a car and a radio tower inhabit the center, and stylized clouds float overhead. With this composition the artist references past and present inhabitants and narratives.

1. Alice Thorson, “Bruce Hartman: A Life Immersed in Art” in Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College: 10th Anniversary Issue, ed. Alice Thorson (Overland Park, KS: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2017): n.p.

2. The museum is named for its primary donors, Jerry and Margaret Nerman and their son Lewis.

3. David Cateforis, ed., Oppenheimer Collection (Overland Park, KS: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012): 17.

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COLLECTIONS opposite Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. All photos: Andrea L. Ferber. right, top Diego Romero (Cochiti P ueblo), Cochiti, 2000, clay, collection of the Sprint Nextel Corporation Art Collection, 2017.32. r i g h t, b o t t o m Linda H a u ka a s ( S i c a n g u L a ko t a ) , Commodification of Indian Art, 2009, graphite on paper bag, collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.53.

Nearby are two exquisite figures

by Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo) and Marilou Schultz’s (Navajo) woven Untitled (2008), which was loaned for documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany.4 In the same hall is Linda Haukaas’s (Sicangu Lakota) Commodification of Indian Art (2009), an intricate drawing of three Lakota women underneath umbrellas with a bar code pattern. Ledger art depicting confrontation between settler-colonial and Indigenous men adorns their dresses.

Haukaas drew on a white paper shopping bag, underscoring cultural exchange within capitalist economies.

The accessibility of this collection is truly remarkable. Thousands of people who would otherwise never enter an art gallery are viewing original museum-quality art every day. (While the national average for community college populations stands at about 7,000 students, JCCC enrolls nearly 20,000.)

Allison Smith chairs the art history program, which offers a wide selection of courses. Of course, faculty from numerous disciplines also utilize the collection in their teaching. Students learn by close looking and object-based research, and many of the labels are written by students.

Says Smith, “We are extremely fortunate to have a common campus tool that’s been proven to develop students’ critical thinking skills, enhance cross-cultural awareness, stimulate dialogue, improve visual observation skills, and expand abilities in written reflection and interpretation.”5 4. See Andrea L. Ferber, “Indigeneity at documenta 14,” First American Art Magazine 17 (Winter 2017/18): 28–35.

5. Allison Smith, “Serving a College Campus,” in Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, n.p.

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COLLECTIONS

Everything in the Nerman’s collection was made after 1950....

above, left Rhonda Holy Bear (Standing Rock Lakota), Lakota Sioux Doll, wood, hide, hair, beads, quill, textile, shell, collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. above, right Teri Greeves ( K i owa ) , S p i d e r Wo m a n / Emerging Woman, 2015, Czech cut beads, sterling silver, seed pearls, faceted jade, faceted garnet, rose quartz, Swarovski crystals, and heeled shoes, collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015.47. below, left B r i a n J u n g e n (Dunne-za), Variant #4, 2016, Nike Air Jordans, collection of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. opposite Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota), Memories So Thick You Have To Brush Them Away and detail shot, 2012, vintage ledger paper, pigments, collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012.23.

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COLLECTIONS

Another concentration of Native American art adorns a hall on the ground floor of the General Education Building.

Here one will find a figurine by Rhonda Holy Bear (Standing Rock Lakota), resplendent in historically accurate regalia. She has donned a buckskin dress with long fringe, beaded moccasins, a necklace, earrings resembling dentalium jewelry, and even includes a tiny feathered fan. Her expression exudes confidence and peace. Teri Greeves’s (Kiowa) beaded stiletto sneakers Spider Woman/Emerging Woman (2015) stand out. On the left sides of each shoe, the artist depicted a pregnant woman and butterflies, symbolizing the regeneration of life. On the right sides are representations of Spider Woman, who survived the Great Flood by transforming herself into a spider and floating on a leaf.

Memories So Thick You Have to Brush Them Away (2012) by Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota) is one of the artist’s signature top hats made from paper. This iteration includes a matching hat box. The hat is covered with vintage handwritten notes (one is dated 1925), and Wilcox painted small black birds on the exterior and interior. A walletsized black-and-white photograph of two women is stuck inside the hat, with “Friends always” and “Remember” written across the double portrait.

Everything in the Nerman’s collection was made after 1950, which Harman notes complements historical works at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. The Nerman is especially strong in representation of ethnic minorities and women—very important on a campus with a student body that identifies as predominantly white. Art critic and editor Alice Thorson writes, “As a museum that is part of a larger educational institution, the Nerman seeks to expose students to the way artists deal with some of the thorniest issues of our times, including racism, gender identity, immigration and environmental destruction.”6 At a time when reactionary and regressive politics seems overwhelming, the Nerman’s commitment to diversity and dialogue is exemplary.

6. Alice Thorson, “The Hits Just Keep on Coming,” in Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, n.p.

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CALENDAR

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CALENDAR January 10–May 31: Tucson, AZ Art Is the Seed: Contemporary Native Female Art at the Tucson Desert Art Museum, 7000 E. Tanque Verde Road. Panel discussion: Friday, January 10, 7:00 pm | (520) 202-3888 | tucsondart.org January 10–May 31: Tucson, AZ The REDress Project at the Tucson Desert Art Museum, 7000 E. Tanque Verde Road. Reception: Saturday, January 11, 1:00–4:00 pm (520) 202-3888 | tucsondart.org January 15–March 29: Hanover, NH CIPX Dartmouth with Kali Spitzer and Will Wilson at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 6 E. Wheelock Street, curated by Jami C. Powell, PhD (Osage) and Morgan E. Freeman (Nipmuc) (603) 646-2808 | hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu January 17, 2020: Cincinnati, OH Modern and Contemporary Native American Art Auction at Cowan's, 6270 Este Avenue. Preview: Thursday, January 16, 12:00–5:00 pm, Friday, January 17, 8:00–10:00 am | (513) 871-1670 x215 | cowanauctions.com

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January 17–19: Denver, CO 39th annual Colorado Indian Market and Southwest Art Fest at Denver Mart, 451 E. 58th Avenue. Friday–Saturday: 10:00 am–7:00 pm, Sunday: 10:00 am–5:00 pm. More than 200 artists, Native and non-Native (505) 273-7363 | dashevents.com/productions/colorado-indian-market January 18–July 26: Indianapolis, IN Please Touch! The Sculptures of Michael Naranjo at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 W. Washington Street (317) 636-9378 | eiteljorg.org January 24–26: Cave Creek, AZ Cave Creek Indian Market at Stagecoach Village, 7100 E. Cave Creek Road, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, hosted by Vermillion Promotions (623) 734-6526 | stagecoachvillagecc.com January 24–26: Fountain Hills, AZ Fountain Hills Indian Market at Fountain Park, 12925 N. Saguaro Boulevard, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, hosted by Magic Bird Festivals (480) 488-2014 | carefreeazfestivals.com January 24–April 26: St Louis, MO Sky Hopinka at the Saint Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive, video, part of the New Media Series | (314) 721-0072 | slam.org/exhibitions January 28–March 16: Kenosha, WI Frida Kahlo’s Garden at the Kenosha Public Museum, 5500 First Avenue (262) 653-4140 | museums.kenosha.org January 30–February 1: Elko, NV 16th annual Great Basin Native Market at the Historic Girl Scout's House, 561 14th Street | Lois Whitney at (775) 340-9897 or Dona Ortiz at (775) 340-8379 | whiteknifeshoshone.com February 1–15: Pendleton, OR 2020 ArtWORKz Junior Art Show & Competition at the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, 47106 Wildhorse Boulevard | (541) 429-7700 | tamastslikt.org February 1–March 8: Shawnee, OK Bandits & Heroes, Poets & Saints: Popular Art of the Northeast of Brazil at the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, 1900 MacArthur Street (405) 878-5300 | mgmoa.org

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February 1–August 30: Wichita, KS Preston Singletary and the Box of Daylight at the Wichita Art Museum, 1400 West Museum Boulevard | (316) 268-4921 | wichitaartmuseum.org February 5: Philadelphia, PA Living Legacies: Artifacts Through Native Perspective at the Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, guided tour and talk, $5–$10 | (215) 898-4000 | penn.museum

CALENDAR

February 6–9: Winnipeg, MB Beading Symposium: Winnipeg 2020 at the Manitoba Museum, 190 Rupert Avenue, organized by the Manitoba Craft Council +1 (204) 956-2830 | c2centreforcraft.ca

JOE FEDDERSEN ECHO

February 7–May 17: Santa Fe, NM Charlene Teters: Way of Sorrows at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place | (505) 983-8900 | iaia.edu/museum February 8–May 10: Tulsa, OK I-Witness Culture: Frank Buffalo Hyde at the Gilcrease Museum, 1400 N. Gilcrease Museum Road | (918) 596-2700 | gilcrease.utulsa.edu February 8, 2020–January 31, 2021: Dragoon, AZ Siki Yoka: The Art of Gabriel Ayala (Yoeme) at the Amerind Museum, 2100 N. Amerind Road. Gallery talk: Tuesday, February 11, 11:00 am–12:00 pm (520) 586-3666 | amerind.org February 13–July 26: Santa Fe, NM Indigenous Futurisms: Transcending Past/Present/Future at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place. Curated by Suzanne Newman Fricke, PhD, Anna Strankman, and Chelsea Herr (Choctaw) (505) 983-8900 | iaia.edu/museum February 14, 2020–January 10, 2021: Brooklyn, NY Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway | (718) 638-5000 | brooklynmuseum.org February 15: Saskatoon, SK Kôna: Wanuskewin Winter Festival at the Wanuskewin Heritage Park, RR#4 Penner Road | +1 (306) 931-6767 | wanuskewin.com February 18–June 19: Davis, CA The Art of Marwin Begaye at the C. N. Gorman Museum, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue #1316 | (530) 752-6567 | gormanmuseum.ucdavis.edu February 21–23: San Francisco, CA 36th annual American Indian Art Show | San Francisco and San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show at the Fort Mason Center, Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina Boulevard, organized by Object of Art Shows. Friday, early preview: 2:00–8:00 pm, Saturday: 11:00 am–7:00 pm, Sunday: 11:00 am–6:00 pm (949) 280-6551 | marinshow.com February 21–May 17: Washington, DC Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves (Kiowa) (202) 633-7970 | americanart.si.edu

Omak Lake 2 , 2019, monoprint with spray paint, 19.5 x 15˝ photo: R. Johnson

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February 22: Victor, NY Native American Winter Games at the Seneca Art & Cultural Center, 7000 County Road 41 | (585) 398-6151 | ganondagan.org C M February 22–24: Panama City, Panama 8th annual Festival de Arte Dule with art exhibits, concerts, dance, forum, workshops,Y and film festival at various locations CM artistasgunas@gmail.com | Facebook/FestivalArteDule MY

February 22–May 17: Memphis, TN CY Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Avenue CMY (901) 544-6200 | brooksmuseum.org K

February 22–May 24: Vancouver, BC Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds at the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street | +1 (604) 662-4700 | vanartgallery.bc.ca February 27: Brooklyn, NY Native Americans in New York: Representations Past and Present at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, 9:00 am–3:00 pm, tour and talk, $20 (718) 638-5000 | brooklynmuseum.org February 29–March 1: Dragoon, AZ Seri Art and Culture Weekend at Amerind Museum, 2100 N. Amerind Road. Art and culture of the Comcáac (Seri) people of Sonora, Mexico (520) 586-3666 | amerind.org

Cheryl Beyuka, Blue Bird

since 1981 jewelry fetishes pottery since 1981 fetishes pottery jewelry 227 Don Gaspar Santa Fe, NM 505.989.8728 www.keshi.com WINTER 2020 | 95

CALENDAR

March 1–May 9: Brantford, ON The road would be flat without the Hill… at the Woodland Cultural Centre, 184 Mohawk Street | +1 (519) 759-2650 | woodland-centre.on.ca March 4–8: Anchorage, AK Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market at the Dimond Center, 800 E. Dimond Boulevard, featuring more than 150 Alaska Native artists. Wednesday–Saturday: 10:00 am–6:00 pm, Sunday: 12:00–5:00 pm | furrondy.net March 6–8: Phoenix, AZ 62nd annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market at the Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Avenue. Best of Show reception: Friday, March 6, evening.

Market: Saturday, March 7, and Sunday, March 8 (602) 252-8840 | heardguild.org March 7–April 11: Montreal, QC The Art of Sonny Assu at Art Mûr, 5826 Rue St-Hubert +1 (514) 933-0711 | artmur.com March 7–May 31: Kleinberg, ON Brenda Draney: Closer at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 10365 Islington Avenue | +1 (905) 893-1121 | mcmichael.com

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

March 13–15: El Prado, NM 8th annual Taos Pueblo Art Winter Show at the Millicent Rogers Museum, 1504 Millicent Rogers Road | (575) 758-2462 | millicentrogers.org March 13–23: Online, Los Angeles, CA Online Native American Art Auction, hosted by Bonhams, 7601 W. Sunset Boulevard | (323) 850-7500 | bonhams.com March 16, 2020: Los Angeles, CA Traditional/Individual: Modern Native American Art Auction at Bonhams, 7601 W. Sunset Boulevard | (323) 850-7500 | bonhams.com March 21–July 26: San Francisco, CA Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving at the de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive | (415) 750-3600 | deyoung.famsf.org April 4–30: Muskogee, OK Art Under the Oaks: Competitive Show at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, 1101 Honor Heights Drive | (918) 683-1701 | fivetribes.org April 4–May 2: Park Hill, OK 49th annual Trail of Tears Art Show at the Cherokee Heritage Center, 21192 S. Keeler Drive, intertribal juried art exhibition. Reception: Friday, April 3, 6:00 pm (918) 456-6007 x6153 | cherokeeheritage.org April 17–19: Collinsville, IL Cahokia Mounds Spring Indian Market Days at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, 30 Ramey Street. Juried art market featuring 30 artists (618) 346-5160 | cahokiamounds.org April 25–June 21: Montreal, QC La Biennale d'art contemporain autochtone (BACA) / Contemporary Native Art Biennial, 5th edition, at Art Mûr, 5826 Rue St-Hubert, La Guilde, Stewart Art Gallery, and McCord Museum, curated by David Garneau (Métis) +1 (514) 933-0711 | artmur.com May 16: Bar Harbor, ME 3rd annual Abbe Museum Indian Market on the Village Green in downtown Bar Harbor, hosted by the Abbe Museum | (207) 288-3519 | abbemuseum.org May 22 & 23: Sulphur, OK 7th annual Artesian Arts Festival, sponsored by the Chickasaw Nation, in Artesian Plaza, 100 West Muskogee Avenue | (580) 272-5520 | chickasaw.net May 22–24: 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 (505) 216-0683 | nativetreasures.org For more events, visit our online calendar at

FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM/ CALENDAR 96 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM

MahotaTextiles.com

Ryan Singer (Navajo) Galactic Combo #2, 2018

Wheelwright Museum ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 2020

704 CAMINO LEJO, SANTA FE, NM 87505 (505) 982-4636 • wheelwright.org