First American Art Magazine No. 42, Spring 2024

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

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

NO. 42, SPRING 2024 Life, the Universe & Everything

DISPLAY UNTIL JUNE 30, 2024

NATURAL DYES | NAGPRA

DENILSON BANIWA

PETER J. CLAIR’S SCULPTURES

ROBERT DAVIDSON

CELEBRATING SEAL IN ART

RUTHE BLALOCK JONES

ALABAMA-COUSHATTA BASKETS

ROXANNE SWENTZELL

Enjoy an enriching, shared experience exploring centuries of Chickasaw history and traditions. The vibrant, vivid, living expression of Chickasaw culture unfolds through a 1700s tribal village, dance demonstrations, traditional gardens and engaging exhibits.

OPEN TUE–SAT 10 AM to 5 P M

L IVE STOM P DANCE DEMONSTRATIONS 11 AM and 2 P M

S u l p h u r, O k l a h o m a | 5 8 0 - 6 2 2-7 1 3 0 | C h i c k a s a w C u l t u r a l C e n t e r. c o m

Inaugural

Ohi:yo’ Art Market May 11, 2024 $7,000 Best of Show

Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino 777 Seneca Allegany Blvd.

Salamanca, NY 14779 info@senecamuseum.org senecamuseum.org

“New Beginnings” by Kiera Pyke (Saint Regis Mohawk), quillwork, Miyuki beads, Swarovski crystals, Hudson Bay trade beads, trade cloth, brass sequins, brain-tanned hide, 12 × 5 in.

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AP R 6 – M AY 11 THE GALLERY AT CHEROKEE SPRINGS PLAZA | TAHLEQUAH Experience one of the country’s most prestigious Native art shows, and support Native artists in the heart of Cherokee Nation.

Best of Show, 52nd Annual Trail of Tears Art Show “ᏚᏙᎠ ᏥᏍᏚ ᎤᏂᎩᏍᏗ (Her Name is Wild Rose)” Roy Boney Jr., Cherokee Nation

Visit our exhibits of historic and contemporary Native art.

View 700 works of Navajo and Pueblo jewelry in our permanent gallery.

PATHFINDER

40 Years of Marcus Amerman Through January 11, 2025

Shop at the Case Trading Post.

MASTERGLASS

The Collaborative Spirit of Tony Jojola Through June 9, 2024

Marcus Amerman, b. 1959 (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) Iron Horse Jacket (with Brooke Shields), 1982 Collection of James Fendenheim, (Mestiza/Tohono O’odham descent) Photography by Addison Doty

WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM

Tony Jojola, 1958 – 2022 (Isleta Pueblo) Blown glass vessel and bears Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian Photography by Addison

Museum Hill 704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe, NM 87505 Tue−Sat, 10 am − 5 pm 505-982-4636 • wheelwright.org

issue no. 42, spring 2024

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

Recent Developments

By Staci Golar and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

9

Nature Provides: Subtle Palettes from the Earth

By Ruthanne Johnson

22

Seven Directions

By Pablo Barrera (Wixárika)

16

Celebrating Seal in Alaska Native Art

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

34

Messages in Baskets: Peter J. Clair

By Lucy R. Lippard

40

NAGPRA Updates: Closing Loopholes Exploited

by Institutions

By Staci Golar

46

From River Cane to Pine Needles: The Journey and Adaptation of Alabama and Koasati Baskets

By Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation)

50

Art+Lit 98 Brian Thomas Isaac: Syilx Novelist

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD Opinion Colorizing Historical Photographs: Ethical Dilemmas of a New Digital Technique

By Alicia J.M. Colson, PhD, and George “Choch” Kenny (Lac Seul Ojibwe)

102

Calendar

110

REVIEWS Exhibition Reviews

82

Report

90

Book Reviews

92

Television Review

56

62

ARTIST PROFILES

96

70

Denilson Baniwa: Baniwa Interdisciplinary Artist

By Mariana Brazão

56

Robert Davidson: Haida/Tlingit Sculptor, Printmaker, Painter, and Jeweler

By Paul Niemi

62

Ruthe Blalock Jones: 70 Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria Painter, Educator, and Printmaker

By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke) Roxanne Swentzell: Santa Clara Pueblo Ceramic and Bronze Sculptor

By RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo) cover Denilson Baniwa (Baniwa), Love, 2023, arumã basket, natural dye. Photo: Filipe Berndt.

Image courtesy of the artist.

76

76

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 5

issue no. 42, spring 2024 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Digital) Publishing Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Literary Editor: Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD (Euro-Canadian) Contributing Editor: Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke) Advertising Representatives: Barbara Harjo and Deborah Fritts (Cherokee Nation) Copy Editors: Rosa Cays (Chicana) and Peter Letzelter-Smith Proofreaders: Staci Golar, Heather Gross, and Angela C. Villa (Chicana) Layout and Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) and Corey Yazzie (Navajo) Social Media: Staci Golar, America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), and Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Intern: Abby Mikalauskas

Regional Representatives

EXPERIENCE the

Great Basin: Melissa Melero-Moose (Northern Paiute/Modoc) Great Plains: Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Northeast: Kelly Church (Gun Lake Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe) Northwest: Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) Southeast: Michole Eldred (Catawba/Eastern Cherokee descent) Southwest: Holly Coonsis (Zuni) and RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)

Advisory Council

®

Miranda Belarde-Lewis, PhD (Zuni/Tlingit) Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation) Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Linda Lomahaftewa, Hon. DHum (Hopi/Choctaw) Leah Mata Fragua (Coastal Chumash) Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/Tohono O'odham descent) Denise Neil, PhD (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation) Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa) Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole Nation) India Rael Young, PhD

DISCOVER ENGAGE CONNECT

Advertising Representatives

West: Barbara Harjo, barbara@firstamericanartmagazine.com East: Deborah Fritts (Cherokee Nation)

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EDITOR’S GREETING

I

N THIS SPRING ISSUE, Ruthanne Johnson takes a deep dive into natural dyes. Intimate scientific knowledge, developed over countless generations of close observation, unlocks colors and medicines from the flora, fauna, and fungi surrounding us. We have such much to learn from the living beings who surround us. Ruthanne conducted 20 interviews to complete her feature, which feels like a lively visit with some of the master artists active today.

Nadia Jackinsky (Alutiiq) takes us to Alaska to better appreciate seals and the artwork they make possible. After seals, whales, walruses, and other mammals were threatened by commercial hunters, the U.S. passed the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Understanding that Indigenous peoples have lived with and sustainably hunted these beings for millennia, the law provides exemptions for Indigenous peoples to harvest seals and other animals for subsistence purposes and for making artwork. In either case, the edible portions must be made available to Native communities to eat. It’s a cliché that Native peoples use every part of the animals they hunt; however, this cliché is based on truth. As Nadia wrote about in FAAM No. 39, Summer 2023, even seal intestines are highly regarded as water-resistant material for parkas. Alaska Native organizations partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to conserve marine mammal populations. The heating of the Arctic and melting of sea ice is a threat to ice seals, so representatives from five Alaska Native regional corporations founded the Ice Seal Committee in 2004 to study, protect, and educate the public about bearded, ribbon, ringed, and spotted seals in partnership with the NOAA. One of my personal heroes, internationally renowned art writer Lucy R. Lippard explores black ash (Fraxinus nigra) in this issue. This tree species is uniquely suited for basketmaking since its porous growth rings readily split apart into workable splints.

We’ve covered this tree from Michigan to Maine, and now Lucy takes us to Nova Scotia to study the experimental sculpture of Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq). She reflects back on how the artist and novelist has addressed salient, sociopolitical issues of the day through the medium of black ash. That tree is under threat of the emerald ash borer, an invasive wood-boring pest, and FAAM’s own Kelly Church (Gun Lake Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe) has been sounding the alarm for years. She’s also been teaching the public, including children, how to collect and save seeds, and she’s documented the entire process of harvesting, processing, and weaving black ash. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada listed Fraxinus nigra as threatened in 2018, and biocontrols have been released in Ontario and Quebec to stem the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer.

Another kind of safeguarding comes from the December 2023 final rule of the 1990 Native American Graves and Protection Act (NAGPRA). Staci Golar deftly breaks down key points of this complex legal situation so those of us lacking a legal background can understand why major museums in the United States are covering their Native exhibitions or

above America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Pollinate!, 2007, gouache on paper, 14 × 11 in., private collection. Image courtesy of the artist.

closing them to the public entirely. Those institutions are the ones that haven’t been properly consulting with the tribes. This new rule will hopefully convince museums to finally comply with the spirit and the letter of the 34-year-old law and work with tribes to determine what the tribes want to see happen to Native human remains and cultural patrimony housed in museum collections.

Some antiquities dealers have tried to scare the public by saying the new NAGPRA law will quell collecting and exhibiting Native art, but what is completely safe to collect and exhibit are all the works made as art. There’s no shortage of works made for viewing by the general public. Creating artwork for outside audiences has long provided economic survival for many rural Native communities. One such example is the pine needle baskets from Texas and Louisiana. Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation), a basket maker herself, explores the history of the Alabama and Coushatta peoples and their relations to their homelands and to the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris). The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas partnered with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Texas Forest Service to address pine reforestation, which helps all the native species in the ecosystem.

So much Native art depends upon plants and animals for its creation. Respect and reciprocity require us to work to replenish and safeguard their habitats through whatever means we can. To appreciate the artwork is one step in the long journey toward honoring and conserving the lands that nourish and give us life.

—America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 7

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS FIRST AMERICANS MUSEUM (FAM) in Oklahoma City hired J. Blake Wade as its interim executive director and CEO after James Pepper Henry (Kaw/Muscogee) stepped down from his position as executive director. Henry has served since 2017, oversaw the opening of the museum in 2021, and will serve as its director emeritus. Wade, a former executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, served as chief executive officer of the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority that developed First Americans Museum.

FAM also hired Michelle Chouteau Merriman (Southern Cheyenne/Kaw) as its collections manager/registrar and Anna Smist (Sac & Fox/Seminole) as its curatorial assistant. Merriman directed the Watonga Public Library. Smist previously worked as an admissions officer and Native recruitment coordinator at Yale University.

The NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART in Kansas City, Missouri, hired Tahnee Ahtone (Kiowa/Seminole/ Mvskoki) as its curator of Native American art. Previously Ahtone served as director and curator of the Kiowa Tribal Museum; tribal liaison and curator of

above Tahnee Ahtone (Kiowa/Seminole/ Mvskoki). Photo: Jason S. Ordaz.

textiles and American Indian collections for the Oklahoma Historical Society; and curator at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. She is a doctoral candidate at Swansea University.

The GORMAN MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN ART at the University of California–Davis hired Polly Nordstrand (Hopi) as its new curator. She previously served as the director at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe and the first curator of Native American art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Nordstrand earned her master’s degree in museum studies at California State University–Fullerton and studied art history at Cornell University.

The MICHAEL C. CARLOS MUSEUM at Emory University in Atlanta hired Miranda Kyle as its curator of Indigenous art of the Americas. Previously, she served as the culture program manager and chief curator at the Atlanta BeltLine.

Kyle earned her MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MA from the Edinburgh College of Arts.

Specializing in Hopi Silver Jewelry

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ART FAIRS Arissana Pataxó (Pataxó), Denilson Baniwa (Baniwa), and Gustavo Caboco (Wapichana) will co-curate the Brazilian pavilion in the 60th edition of the VENICE BIENNALE. In a joint statement, the curators said, “The show brings together the Tupinambá Community and artists coming from the coastal peoples—the first to be transformed into foreigners in their own Hãhãw (ancestral territory)—in order to express a different perspective on the vast territory where more than 300 Indigenous peoples live (Hãhãwpuá).”

The Venice Biennale also released its list of the 332 artists participating in this year’s main exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Pedrosa is purposefully including Indigenous, queer, and from the Global South, noting that “Indigenous artists are often treated like foreigners in their own countries.” The list includes Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo), Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation), and others.

ART SHOWS The 81st edition of the Whitney Museum of Art announced the artists participating in the 2024 WHITNEY BIENNIAL: EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING. Indigenous artists Siku Allooloo (Inuk), Seba Calfuqueo (Mapuche), Demian DinéYazhi' (Zuni/Navajo), Kite (Oglala Lakota), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota), Sydney Frances Pascal (Lil'wat St'at'imc), and Rose Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo) are among the selected artists.

ART MARKETS Hollis Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Laguna/Isleta Pueblos) won Best of Show at the 66th Annual HEARD MUSEUM GUILD INDIAN FAIR AND MARKET. Classification winners were Maria Samora (Taos), jewelry and lapidary; Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo), pottery; Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), two-dimensional; Mark Taho (Hopi/Navajo), Pueblo carvings; Cliff Fragua (Jemez), sculpture; Tyrrell Tapaha (Navajo), weavings and textiles; Hollis Chitto, diverse art forms; and Carol Emarthle Douglas (Northern Arapaho/ Seminole), baskets. Tyrrell Tapaha (Navajo) won the Conrad House Innovation Award, Leon Misak Kinneeveauk (Inupiaq) won the Indian Arts and Crafts Association Commemorative Award, and Patricia Belgarde-Cornelius (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) won the Idyllwild Arts Imagination Award.

Darius Charley (Navajo) won the Grand Award at the 38th Annual RED EARTH FESTIVAL in Oklahoma City. Candace Shanholtzer (Choctaw Nation) won the President’s Award, Adrian Redbird (Kiowa/Cheyenne/Muscogee) won the Kathleen Everett Upshaw Award, and Debra S. Keazer (Cherokee Nation) won the Emerging Artist Award. Brent Greenwood (Chickasaw/Ponca) was the Honored One. Classification winners were Alberta Henderson (Navajo), clothing, textiles, and weaving; Debra Keazer (Cherokee Nation), cultural items, utilitarian; Dan Worcester (Chickasaw), diversified art 10 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024

above Darius Charley (Navajo) with his Grand Award–winning cradleboard at the 38th Annual Red Earth Festival in Oklahoma City. right Hollis Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Laguna/Isleta Pueblos) with his Best of Show–winning bandolier bag at the 66th Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix.

forms; Dylan Cavin (Choctaw Nation), drawings, graphics, and photography; Nelson Garcia (Santo Domingo Pueblo), jewelry, traditional; Abraham Begay (Navajo), jewelry, contemporary; Peterson Yazzie (Navajo), painting, oils/acrylic; Jane Semple Umsted (Choctaw Nation), painting, water-based; Jennifer Benally (Oneida Nation), pottery; and Grant Morris (Cherokee Nation), sculpture.

SCHOOLS The UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Department of American Indian Studies and the Department of Art created the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts to honor the late Grand Portage Ojibwe artist’s legacy and to serve as an interdisciplinary study center with art studio and exhibition space.

ORGANIZATIONS The NATIVE ARTS AND CULTURES FOUNDATION (NACF) based in Portland, Oregon, hired Shyla M. Spicer, PMP (Yakama/Wanapum), as its new president and CEO. Previously she was the director of the Indigenous Collective and executive director of the Suquamish Tribe. NACF also hired Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo) as its vice president of programs. She previously served as chief curator at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.

FIRST PEOPLES FUND in Rapid City, South Dakota, hired Justin Kii Huenemann (Navajo) as its new president and CEO. Huenemann was executive vice president and acting then

interim president and CEO of the philanthropic nonprofit.

Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota), who served as president and CEO of First Peoples Fund for 25 years, stepped down to become the founder and fellow, a newly defined position to guide the organization.

AWARDS & HONORS NDN COLLECTIVE named its ten 2023–25 RADICAL IMAGINATION ARTIST AND STORYTELLER grantees. They are Dana Warrington (Menominee/Prairie Band Potawatomi), Jeneda Benally (Navajo), Ursula Hudson, Kadusné (Tlingit), April Stone (Bad River Ojibwe), Tiara Ribeaux (Native Hawaiian), Anahí Haizel de la Cruz Martín (Yucatec Maya), Samantha Harrison Ataataruaq (Kotzebue Inupiaq), Darrah Blackwater (Navajo), RYAN! Feddersen (Colville Okanogan/ Arrow Lakes), and Emilio Wawatie (Barrière Lake/Kitigan Zibi Algonquin). Each receives a grant of $100,000 over two years.

The AMERICAN CRAFT COUNCIL named ceramic artist Diego Romero (Cochiti) to their 2024 COLLEGE OF FELLOWS. Since 1975, the American Craft Council has recognized people who have “made an outstanding contribution to the crafts in America by awarding the distinction of Fellow of the Council” since 1975.

The ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS announced its Fall 2023 grant recipients for program support spanning two years. These include Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton, Oregon, and the Native American Community Development Institute (All My Relations Arts) in FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 11

Minneapolis. The foundation’s Fall 2023 Grants will support future exhibitions including Woven Being: Indigenous Art Histories of Chicagoland at the Block Museum at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

UNITED STATES ARTISTS selected its 2024 USA FELLOWS, which include Kelly Church (Match-e-be-nashshe-wish Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe), Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), Salina Martinez (Pascua Yaqui/Xicana), Muriel Miguel (Guna descent), New Red Order (Sault Ste. Marie Ojibway and Tlingit), Jerod Impichaachaaha' Tate (Chickasaw), and Sqwaayaans TJ Young (Haida), among 50 total artists. The annual fellowship includes a $50,000 unrestricted award.

The FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS presented its 2024 Grants to Artists Awards with a $45,000 stipend to 23 artists. Indigenous awardees include Athena LaTocha (Hunkpapa Lakota/Ojibwe descent) and Nathan Young (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation/Kiowa/Pawnee), who received the John Cage Award.

The NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS named their 2024 HERITAGE FELLOWS including Trimble Gilbert, Gwich'in fiddler; Susan Hudson, Navajo quilter, and the Zuni Olla Maidens, Zuni dance troupe.

Several Native artists received CREATIVE CAPITAL’s 2024 WILD FUTURES: ART, CULTURE, IMPACT AWARDS IN VISUAL ARTS AND FILM/MOVING IMAGE including Brigit Johnson (Northern Cheyenne), Jordan Ann Craig (Northern Cheyenne), Erica Lord (Athabascan/Inupiaq), Elisa Harkins (Cherokee Nation/Muscogee), Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe descent), Chris Eyre (Southern Cheyenne/Arapaho), Nani Chacon (Navajo/Xicana), Chas John (Winnebago/Mississippi Choctaw) and Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota).

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crowsshadow.org Dreaming, 2022, lithograph, 30 ¼” x 30”, edition of 20 Collaborating Master Printer, Judith Baumann 12 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024

FIRST PEOPLES FUND awarded its 2024 JENNIFER EASTON COMMUNITY SPIRIT AWARDS, which include $25,000 stipends. The recipients are Sam Kaha'ienaulio Ka'ai (Native Hawaiian), Mikelene J. Moquino (Tesuque), Golga Oscar (Kasigluk Yup'ik), and Sheila Ransom (Akwesasne Mohawk). First Peoples Fund also announced their 2024 ARTIST IN BUSINESS LEADERSHIP award winners: Tiffany Adams (Chemehuevi/Konkow/Nisenan), George Alexander (Muscogee), Steven Arrowtopknot (Blackfeet), Alfreda Beartrack-Algeo (Lower Brule Lakota), Terrance Clifford (Oglala Lakota), Nicole Emmons (Citizen Potawatomi), Dan Friday (Lummi), Nena Howell (Tlingit), Tony Louie (Colville), Leah Mata Fragua (Northern Chumash), Sabrina Saleha (Navajo), Chenoa Williams (Pyramid Lake Paiute), Juliette Morris Williams (Choctaw Nation), Robert Yellowhawk (Cheyenne River Sioux), Richard York (Cherokee Nation), and Ashley Young (Tlingit). They announced their 2024 CULTURAL CAPITAL FELLOWS Sarah Agaton Howes (Fond du Lac Ojibwe/Muscogee), Mariah Claw (Navajo), Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo), Kamali'ikupono Hanohano (Native Hawaiian), Lee Moquino (Zia), Tessie Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), Carrie Paton (Yup'ik), Jessie Rencounter (Standing

ART

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32ND ANNUAL

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JUNE 22 & 23

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FAMILY FUN Rock Sioux), Savannah Rilatos (Confederated Siletz Tribes/Molalla/Yamhill) and Loren Waters (Kiowa/Cherokee Nation).

Shuvinai Ashoona (Inuk) and Greg Staats (Tuscarora) were among the eight artists and curators who received CANADA’S GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD this year. The award includes a Can$25,000 stipend.

Ruth Hallows (Tsimshian) has been named one of six 2024 CENTER FOR CRAFT FELLOWS. The NUNATSIAVUT GOVERNMENT presented Maria Merkuratsuk (Inuk) with its CULTURAL PRESERVATION AWARD and language teacher Nicholas Flowers (Inuk) with the INUTTITUT AWARD.

FILM & MEDIA Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nez Perce direct descent) is the first woman of Native American descent to win BEST

Downtown Indianapolis

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA at the GOLDEN GLOBES. She’s also the first woman of Native American descent and second Indigenous woman of the Americas nominated for an OSCAR for Best Actress. Yalitza Aparicio (Mixtec/Triqui) was the first Indigenous woman of the Americas to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress in 2018. Singer Scott George (Osage) is the first Native American nominated for an ACADEMY AWARD for an original song. He composed “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Marvel’s ECHO premiered on the Disney channel on January 9, 2024.

The main character Maya Lopez, a Choctaw, is played by actor Alaqua Cox (Menominee). Directed by Sydney Freeland (Navajo) and Catriona McKenzie (Gunai/Kurnai), Indigenous actors Tantoo Cardinal (Cree/Métis), Graham Greene (Oneida), and many others hold lead roles. Indigenous writers include Bobby Wilson (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota), Kaitlyn Jeffers

(Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota), Stephen Paul Judd (Kiowa/Choctaw), and Jason Gavin (Blackfeet). The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma partnered with the production team on the making of the series.

Ho-Chunk filmmakers Casey Brown and Rob Reider won a MIDWEST REGIONAL EMMY AWARD for Exploring the Artistic Process of Truman Lowe: A Journey Through Native American Art & Education (2023). They produced this documentary short in collaboration with Discover Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation.

LITERATURE MINNEAPOLIS selected Heid E. Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) as its inaugural POET LAUREATE. Erdrich is the author of several poetry collections including the National Poetry Series winner Little Big Bully.

PUBLICATIONS First American Art Magazine received

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 13

Native American jewelry and arts marketplace 207 423-8473

shop online: www.homeandaway.gallery open by appointment in Farmington, Maine

Origami Vessels

Rain Scott, Acoma Pueblo

Sculpture | Prints | Jewelry |Beadwork |Baskets Sculpture | Prints | Jewelry |Beadwork |Baskets a general operating support grant from CRITICAL MINDED. A Detroit-based fiscally sponsored project of Allied Media Projects, Critical Minded supports cultural critics and critics of color in the United States with an explicit focus on building the resources and visibility of cultural criticism through direct support to publications and individuals, research, advocacy, and convening.

AUCTIONS

Rain Scott, Acoma Pueblo

Origami Vessels

above LIDAR map of Kunguints site in the Ecuadorian Amazon, showing house platforms and plazas along roads. Photo: Antoine Dorison, Stéphen Rostain, and the Ecuadorian National Institute for Cultural Heritage (CC BY 4.0).

PRECONTACT ART & HISTORIC SITES Laser-sensor technology mapping has revealed a cluster of lost cities in Ecuador. These sites were part of a dense network of settlements in the UPANO VALLEY that thrived for 1,000 years.

The network of roadways connecting the cities indicate they all existed at the same time, and archaeologists noted they are 2,500 years old, a millennium older than other complex Amazonian societies, including a recently discovered ancient urban system in Bolivia, Llanos de Moxos.

SOTHEBY’S sold a ledger book, drawn

by Etahdleuh Doanmoe (Kiowa, 1856– ledger art makes it harder for tribes or 1888) when he was a prisoner of war relatives to recover their ancestor’s work. at Fort Marion, for a record-breaking $825,000. Donamoe’s is one of the few Jerry Jondreau Bay Ojibwe) ERRATAMaine open by (Keweenaw appointment in Farmington, remaining intact books since dealers raised more than $5,000 to purchase four disassemble them to resell individual shop online: www.homeandaway.gallery In FAAM No. 41, Winter 2024, SelfOJIBWE BIRCHBARK SCROLLS (ca. drawings. In 2022 the Kiowa Tribe urged Portrait by Boderra Joe (Navajo) on page 207 423-8473 1900) from a New York auction house, Bonhams auction house to halt the sale 86 was incorrectly labeled as being in Native American jewelry arts marketplace but the final purchase price was $7,500.and of different ledger books by Doanmoe, Twin Lakes, Arizona; Twin Lakes is in When the bids exceeded the funds Nokkoist (Southern Cheyenne, ca.

New Mexico. raised, Whitney Gravelle (Bay Mills 1851–1882), and Ohettoint (Kiowa, Reader Ellen Moore pointed out Ojibwe), president of the Bay Mills 1855–1934), which they believed that page 9 of that same issue should Indian Community in Michigan, took were illegally acquired. The increasing read that the Arizona State University demand by non-Natives for historic over and won the auction.

Art Museum is in Tempe, not Tucson.

14 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024

HEAR THEIR VOICES For 90 years, the Stewart Indian School operated as a federal boarding school for Native children. Today, the Stewart story is told through the belongings, artwork, and voices of its former students. Explore exhibits, changing galleries, the research library, reflection room, and educational spaces.

10am–5pm | Monday–Friday Closed Weekends, State and Federal Holidays 1 Jacobsen Way, Carson City, Nevada

(775) 687-7608 StewartIndianSchool.com FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 15

Seven Directions

PABLO BARRERA A Wixárika curator shares his top seven list

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ABLO N. BARRERA is a member of the Wixáritari community based in the ancestral homelands surrounding Xapawiyemeta at Scorpion Island, Lake Chapala in Mexico. He joined Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center as the inaugural curatorial fellow before being promoted to associate curator. Recently he stepped down from his previous role and was named adjunct curator and appointed to the upcoming retrospective, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds: Honor Song, scheduled to open in spring of 2025. Barrera collaborates with local art communities to produce exhibitions and explore innovative strategies to support the formal and informal learning of art. He is committed to raising public awareness of Indigenous artistic practices through generating gallery experiences. He has independently curated shows in London, Seoul, and New York.

Barrera’s achievements include being among the first cohort of curators at NXTHVN Art Space (Connecticut); he also served as graduate advisor for Yale University Art Gallery’s first student-led, Native American art exhibition. He has written on the artistic representation of cultures that experienced colonization, including a coauthored chapter on Korean vernacular architectural heritage (Springer International) and a paper on Native American art production as part of the Columbian Exchange between Colonial Spain and East Asia (National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute). Barrera holds master’s degrees from Yale University (history of art) and Harvard University (regional studies: East Asia) and a bachelor of arts from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Paul and Daisy Soros fellow (2012) and a Fulbright scholar (2011).

above Pablo Barrera (Wixárika), 2023. Photo: Jordan Ann Craig (Northern Cheyenne). All images, unless otherwise specified, courtesy of the author. left Installation view of Natalie Ball: bilwi naats Ga’niipci at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz. opposite Robert Houle, Red Is Beautiful, 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 18 × 24 in., collection of the Canadian Museum of History, V-F-174, IMG2017-01120003-Dm. © Robert Houle.

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WEST. NATALIE BALL (Klamath/Modoc) has been blazing paths in and out of the art scene. Her Klamath Tribal Council duties included the Un-Dam the Klamath movement, which successfully called for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to remove four dams along the Klamath River, bringing hope of renewal for the salmon population back into the Klamath Basin just in time for this year’s salmon run in May. Meanwhile, her solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Natalie Ball: bilwi naats Ga’niipci (We Smell Like the Outside) opened November 17, 2023. Her show remains on view until February 19, 2024, in the lobby gallery, the only free gallery at the Whitney, which grants democratic access at one of the most expensive museums in the world. Organized by Jennie Goldstein, the Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator of the Collection, alongside the artist, this exhibition of Ball’s sculptural interventions explore space-making. Audiences are encouraged to move and sit in the folding chairs throughout the gallery. Each quotidian element contributes to the intersection of internal and external worlds, a gesture toward acceptance and belonging of her Black and Indigenous heritage, connecting at each installation by how they contribute to the layered semiotics behind her visual language.

NORTH. ROBERT HOULE: RED IS BEAUTIFUL organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and curated by Wanda Nanibush (Beausoleil Ojibway) with David Penney as the host curator, is on view at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, through June 2, 2024. This long-overdue retrospective of colorist Robert Houle (Sandy Bay Saulteaux) features five decades of work. Through large installations, paintings, videos, mixed-media sculptures, and drawings created between 1970 and 2021, Houle’s “transcultural” work brings together his Indigenous cultural perspective with European-derived ways of artmaking. Houle’s figurative works liberally interject Indigenous elements into historic events, while his abstract, geometric works fuse modernist painting and ancestral design into expressionist compositions. Houle’s painting assemblages are most powerful when they convey FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 17

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the sharpest intersection of Indigenous and Western spheres, namely his childhood memories of the trauma he experienced while at Sandy Bay residential school. The exhibition invites audiences to explore Houle’s Indigenous perspectives on the protection of tribal sovereignty and the spiritual legacy of the Anishinaabe people.

EAST. New Terrains: Contemporary Native American Art (January 5–23, 2024) at Phillips in New York emphasized to the commercial art world what we already knew: that Indigenous artwork is not only commercially viable but also a vital part of the greater context of modern, postwar, Pop, and contemporary art. Co-curated by Tony Abeyta (Diné), Bruce Hartman, and James Trotta-Bono, the survey exhibition traces the evolution of contemporary Native art from the mid-to-late 20th century to the present. Featuring 121 artworks by more than 50 artists, the 70-plus years of work reflect the sociopolitical and artistic climates in which Native American art has evolved. Established, emerging, and under-recognized artists share their unique visions on how Indigenous art is part of a continuum of embracing new ideas, expressions, and media.

above Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Dakota, 1915–1983), Double Woman (Winyan Nupa), 1962, casein on paper, 25 × 21⅜ in. Image courtesy of Phillips Auctioneers, LLC.

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SOUTH. Textiles are once again rising as a powerful medium for sociopolitical commentary and subversion in contemporary art. This shift is evident in the exhibition DESDE OTRA MIRADA (FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE) that featured

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the works of Porfirio Gutiérrez (Zapotec) at the Edificio para Artistas (PARA A) in Mexico City during Zona Maco 2024 art fair through March 17, 2024. Known for reinterpreting historical Zapotec motifs through a modern lens, Gutiérrez’s framed textiles feature graphic blocks of color composed of natural dyes in red, brown, blue, and yellow tones derived from cochineal insects, black walnut, indigo, and marigold, respectively. These works contain the same meditative quality and restraint as the original heritage forms upon which they are based, reminding the viewer that it would not exist without the lessons of nature that Gutiérrez's family has been weaving with for generations. The exhibition was his homecoming to Mexico, aligning his centuries-informed works with Bauhaus

artists Anni and Josef Albers, who spent time in the same apartment at PARA A. Gutiérrez’s artworks highlight a facet of the influence of Indigenous culture across the Americas on modern art. By centering the maker, Desde Otra Mirada tells the story of how modernists of European descent in Mexico were influenced

by Gutiérrez’s ancestors.

CENTER. My museum’s neighbor, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, is showing PRESTON SINGLETARY: RAVEN AND THE BOX OF DAYLIGHT through April 28, 2024. Curated by

Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit), the exhibition is organized by the artist with the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, and presented by the Chickasaw Nation. The multisensory exhibition combines glass, video, textiles, and audio to tell the story of Raven, a foundational figure in Northwest Coast Native American cosmologies. Singletary’s glass pieces of Pacific Northwest Indigenous designs, created via customary glassblowing techniques, honor his Tlingit heritage. Showcased alongside audio and video featuring coastal Pacific Northwest soundscapes and storytelling paired with original music, Singletary draws upon a

above, top Installation view of works by Porfirio Gutiérrez (Zapotec) in Desde Otra Mirada (From Another Perspective) at the Edificio para Artistas, March 2024. Photo: Sergio López Jimenez. Image courtesy of PARA A, Mexico City. above, bottom Preston Singletary, Gagaan Awutáawu Yéil (Raven Steals the Sun), 2008, blown, hot-sculpted, and sandcarved glass; 9½ × 26 × 9½ in., collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, gift of the artist. Photo: Russell Johnson.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 19

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rich cultural history of pairing objects with foundational stories of Indigenous families to highlight ancestral visual storytelling methods. It is fitting that the exhibition is hosted by an institution that prides itself on its collection of Dale Chihuly glassworks, given Chihuly’s role in bringing Native artists to the medium of glass.

BELOW. BENJAMIN HARJO JR. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole, 1945– 2023), painter, printmaker, draftsperson, and U.S. veteran, has left behind his oeuvre that will continue to impact Oklahoma’s Indigenous artistic landscape. The Patterns of Knowing exhibition I curated at Oklahoma Contemporary (May 18– October 23, 2023) became Harjo’s last

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exhibition before he passed on. Patterns of Knowing considered how Indigenous forms or designs embody intergenerational ideas and provide tangible links to ancestral thought. Benjamin Harjo Jr., alongside artists Jordan Ann Craig (Northern Cheyenne) and Jeri Redcorn (Caddo/Citizen Potawatomi), contributed works using shapes, colors, and symbols that anchor their inventive compositions to the living culture of their respective communities. Their artworks simultaneously preserve Indigenous visual language while adding to its evolution as a contemporary art form. Through ceramics, paintings, drawings, and prints, the artists’ works transform conventional narratives of American art and culture, encouraging more inclusion and celebration of creative expressions from communities whose voices and artistic practices have long been marginalized.

Patterns of Knowing invited viewers to learn more about the lineage of artistic practices tapped by Craig, Harjo, and Redcorn, and the ways that contemporary Native art engages Indigenous patterns and artistic principles.

The exhibition aimed to emphasize how each artist’s process is in step with intergenerational elaboration, experimentation, and innovation of Indigenous visual language, illustrating a constantly evolving, present experience. The experience of working with Benjamin shaped the exhibition’s thesis, and our interactions completed the exhibition’s aims, presentation, and most importantly, the artist talk that Benjamin was not able to be a part of. Benjamin Harjo Jr.’s influence has touched the lives and careers of multiple generations of artists in the region for decades, and Patterns of Knowing celebrated how the philosophies embodied in his practice bolstered our artistic community. Benjamin was among the the first artists I met in Oklahoma, and for the past five years I would run into him and his wife, Barbara, at markets, award ceremonies, and community gatherings. He had inimitable humor, and his enthusiasm when he encountered a familiar face was as vibrant as his art. The immensity of loss can only be rivaled by the depth of gratitude that I felt for the chance to

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celebrate him and his gifts at the opening of his exhibition, just days before his passing. While we face his absence at future exhibitions, celebrations, and gatherings with sadness, it is both humbling and an honor to be able to continue looking to Ben’s innovative and expansive artistic reach for the collective of communities mindful of the living cultural path we endeavor to forge. Pamparios ka tetakaxeiya, nemahu (Thank you, and until we meet again, friend).

ABOVE. THE FUTURE IS INDIGENOUS. Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee) will represent the USA at the Venice Biennale, and Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation) will be featured at the Central Pavilion.

Congratulations to the Creative Capital 2024 awardees, particularly Jordan Ann Craig and Brigit Johnson (both Northern Cheyenne), Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe descent), Nani Chacon (Diné/Chicana), Elisa Harkins (Cherokee Nation/Muscogee), and Dyani White Hawk (Sičangu Lakota). Congratulations to the inaugural Ruth Foundation for the Arts awardees, especially Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Kite (Oglala Lakota).

In Los Angeles this September, many Indigenous artists will be featured in the landmark, regional artistic experience that will be Pacific Standard Time 2024, a Getty Foundation–funded endeavor poised to explore the intersections of art and science in a global dimension. Indigenous knowledge is on full display across 50-plus exhibitions, notably Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific, Fulcrum Arts; From Fire We Are Born, Fowler Museum; Life on Earth: Ecofeminist Art since 1979, LAXART; Sangre de Nopal, Fowler Museum; and We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I look forward to new works by artists like Neal Ambrose-Smith (Salish-Kootenai direct descent), Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti), Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke), Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), and others in Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology, Autry Museum of the American West; Kite (Oglala

Lakota) in All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, REDCAT; and Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/ Lakota) in Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, Hammer Museum, to name a few.

At Oklahoma Contemporary, I am co-organizing a workshop initiative with local, national, and international curators and printmakers who engage Indigenous artistic communities. This November participants will work with artist Edgar Heap of Birds (Southern Cheyenne), known internationally for his colorful monotype prints, paintings, public works, and etchings that address Indigenous rights, sovereignty, and land stewardship. Supported by the Getty Foundation through the Paper Project, the workshop will invite participants to consider how printmaking reflects the types of values sought

by Indigenous artists—knowledge sharing, support, and collective space—that together make a creative community distinctive, resilient, and culturally generous.

above Detail of Edgar Heap of Birds (Southern Cheyenne), Was Told 27 Times, 2022 at artist’s studio. Photo: Pablo Barrera (Wixárika). opposite, top Installation view of Patterns of Knowing exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Oklahoma City, with works by Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole, 1945–2023) and Jordan Ann Craig (Northern Cheyenne).

Photo: Ann Sherman. opposite, bottom Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/ Seminole, 1945–2023), Four Phases, 2007, acrylic, gouache, ink, and graphic on Arches watercolor paper. Image courtesy of the Estate of Benjamin Harjo Jr.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 21

NATURE PROVIDES Subtle Palettes from the Earth

By Ruthanne Johnson

T

HE WHITE, BLACK, yellow ocher, and rust-colored pottery is only about ten inches wide and six inches tall. The moths and butterflies on its shoulder are geometric in design yet have a surprisingly delicate flair, an endearing lure for pollinator lovers. The price tag edges toward $4,000, perhaps too much some might think, for a small piece of pottery. Little do they know the time and effort invested in this work of art.

The story behind this delicate jar goes well beyond its shape and decoration and delves deep into a living history that

embodies hundreds if not thousands of years of culture, family, nature, science, and a profound endurance that will carry its underlying cultural practices well into the future.

Consider for a moment stepping outside of your house and knowing enough to harvest wild-growing plants for food and medicine and to create necessary things like baskets and pots, and even to color the things you’ve made. The great outdoors would be your local market. The plants and earth would be your sustenance and art supplies.

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This scenario isn’t far from the truth for some Indigenous artists here in the United States. Whether they work with wool for weaving, plant fibers for basketry, or clay for pottery, many of these artists know not only what materials to collect but the technical processes to realize each piece, even down to the creation of plant- and earth-based colors.

The use of color from natural resources is a practice anchored in longstanding cultural knowledge, intensive processes that begin with knowing what the plant looks like, what colors it

produces, where it grows, when to harvest, and how to attain the desired hues.

With mineral-based colors, it’s knowing where clay veins or certain types of mud are located and what the final color will be after firing. Some materials additionally require a mordant, which creates a chemical reaction that affixes the color to the pot, basket, or wool fibers.

THE POTTERS POTTER RAINY NAHA (Hopi-Tewa), maker of the moth and butterfly jar, lives near the Hopi First Mesa in northeast Arizona. The terrain is arid, yet there’s enough water from underground aquifers, natural springs, snow, and rain to fill wells and grow crops like corn, beans, and squash. Clay pits speckle the mesas and provide Naha with the materials she needs for her pottery. It’s always been that way for her people, she says.

With her family, Naha digs clay from a location where the light-colored earth comes out a buff color when fired.

This becomes the base structure for her pots. She adds water until the clay is pliable, then coils and blends the clay into shape and later burnishes the pot smooth. When the pot is dry and sanded to perfection, she paints on several coats of locally gathered white sandstone clay slip. She again burnishes the pot until it shines. Then it’s time for the colors.

Naha collects clay for her colors while hiking around her home and from friends who are always on the lookout.

She tests each sample to see what color it fires before painting her pot and stores the pigments away for future projects.

Colors include deep red from an adobe clay, softer reds from clay collected at San Ildefonso Pueblo, mauve and orange shades found near her home, and yellow clay from somewhere she doesn’t recall.

She uses that one sparingly.

The black color in her designs comes from wild spinach, also known as Rocky Mountain bee plant (Cleome serrulata).

It’s a native plant that grows on the reservation. Naha collects it in the early fall, cleans and boils it until it becomes like tar, and then folds it into corn husks until she’s ready to paint. She breaks off a small portion of the hardened material and massages it with hematite stone until it’s just

the right consistency. The hematite, also found on the reservation, makes the black slip permanent. “We use very, very little,” she explains, “so I only need to make black paint every couple of years.” She wets the black and clay slips with homemade yucca-leaf paintbrushes, dabbing the moist areas to lift the color for painting.

Naha is a cultural preservationist.

Many of her designs are inspired by pottery styles from her reservation. “Me and my grandkids used to go sherd picking around some of the ruins we have around here,” she says. “The designs are indelible.

[The ancestors] used the same procedure we do, with the hematite and wild spinach.” In the fall, she fires her pots in a covered fire pit surrounded by cinder blocks and uses sheep dung for fuel. “I don’t think anybody out here owns a kiln,” she says with a laugh. “I look out from my house and see puffs of smoke, and I know somebody is firing. It smells wonderful, kind of earthy. It’s a feeling of well-being, that smell.”

Naha collects clay for her colors while hiking around her home and from friends who are always on the lookout.

above Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti), Jar, wild spinach black paint on clay. Image courtesy of Virgil Ortiz Creations Made In Native America.®

opposite Rainy Naha (HopiTewa ) , H u m m i n g b i rd a n d Butterfly Maiden Jar, Awatovi Star Jar, and Solstice Jar, natural clay, earth pgiments, wild spinach slip. Photo: King Galleries.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 23

“It’s awesome to know you are taking the same footsteps as your ancestors and knowing the connections are still there.”

above, top Wild spinach or Rocky Mountain beeweed (Cleome serrulata) in Kane County, Utah. Photo: USDI Bureau of Land Management (CC0). above, bottom Wild spinach paint on cornhusks. Image courtesy of Virgil Ortiz Creations Made In Native America.® opposite Wild spinach leaves boiling in the dye pot. Image courtesy of Virgil Ortiz Creations Made In Native America.®

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Artist Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti) lives in Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico, where the legacy of clay pottery also dates back centuries. He is from a family of potters who use methods passed down from their elders. “The colors of the Cochiti Pueblo are white, red, and black,” he says.

Even before sitting down to mold pots and figurines, there’s an entire year’s worth of preliminary work—from digging the clay to harvesting wild spinach and boiling it down for the distinct black paint that he and other family members use for their pieces.

“We dig the clay from areas of Cochiti where it has always been harvested,” says Ortiz. The clay pit is about a 40-minute hike up the mountain. Four family members typically make the trip: two to dig clay and two to haul it down in five-gallon buckets. “The clay looks like dark chocolate. It’s so damp and really pure, so we don’t have to clean it.” It’s an all-day undertaking that provides enough material for a year’s worth of work for all the potters in his family.

The dense clay rests for a year until it’s bone dry, Ortiz says. Otherwise, he’ll end up with separate bits of clay within the larger clay body that won’t blend when the temper is added. “You won’t even know it until you are firing or in the drying stage, and it will cause cracks in the clay or it will blow up in the fire.”

With the newly collected clay in the barn, the previous year’s clay is brought out and placed layer by layer into a bucket with water. It’s broken up with a steel rod and left to soak for a week. White pumice stone from another mountain near Cochiti is crushed, sifted, and mixed into the clay. The ground residue is the natural temper, added to prevent the clay from shrinking and cracking.

For the black on his traditional pots, Ortiz harvests wild spinach alongside his sisters, nieces, and nephews. “We wait till the purple flowers bloom,” he says. “It’s like an alarm to go and harvest. “We were taught to take only the leaves. No stems … and [we] usually fill about eight 33-gallon garbage bags at a time.” Some years the wild spinach grows in healthy patches.

The next year, it could be gone. “We just have to know where to go to harvest— and it makes you think that hundreds

Our gallery specializes in fine Pueblo pottery by the American modernist Nampeyo and her family. Seen here, two unique masterpieces featuring hallmarks of Nampeyo’s Sikyatki Revival style. The earlier piece c. 1900 features an abstracted Eagle Tail on a white slip. The later piece, made with her daughter Fannie Nampeyo, c. 1935, features the fine-line Migration pattern. Both are exceptional examples of Nampeyo’s work.

Our gallery also features oil paintings by Steve Elmore.

and thousands of years ago, the people had to know where to go to gather these materials and how to make the pots and dye. So they had to be scientists.”

The wild spinach leaves are boiled in water for about five days. “That’s when the older nieces and nephews come into play,” Ortiz says. “They can stay up all night and talk or whatever because it has to be a continuous boil … and they are learning.” When the plants disintegrate, he strains the debris from the liquid with a cotton rag. “That’s when I take over. It’s been about a week by this time, and I bring it into the house and bring it to a slow boil.” As it bubbles less and less, the texture becomes like molasses.

He removes it from the burner, spoons it onto dried corn husks, and stores it for later use. “It becomes crystal hard, like a Jolly Rancher—and once it reaches the year mark, you break off pieces, crush it up, and rehydrate it to paint your pottery.”

He first brushes a white clay slip, layer by layer, onto the hand-formed clay.

The slip allows the black from the wild

Steve Elmore Indian Art 839 Paseo de Peralta, Ste. M, Santa Fe, NM (505) 995-9677 | elmoreindianart.com

spinach to adhere to the pottery, Ortiz explains. The red color that’s painted on is also clay. “It’s everything that comes from the earth.”

For Ortiz, using Indigenous methods and materials brings back memories of parents, grandparents, and other relatives. “It’s awesome to know you are taking the same footsteps as your ancestors and knowing the connections are still there,” he says. “I learned since I was a kid that I am just a bead in a necklace.

It’s not about me, it’s about continuing the tradition, and it its way bigger than I am.”

THE BASKET MAKERS “MY PEOPLE are feather basket makers,” says Meyo Marrufo (Robinson Pomo) with the Pomo Weavers Society in Northern California. “The Pomo are known for our basketry—the world’s greatest basket weavers,” she says. “I don’t say that lightly. That’s something we used to be known for.”

Fellow weaver Silver Galletto (Cloverdale Pomo) founded the Pomo Weavers Society just before the pandemic hit to highlight basketmaking within the Pomo community and inspire a new generation of weavers. The group is now 17 instructors strong and hosts workshops on plant knowledge, gathering, dyeing, and weaving in the various Pomo styles.

Pomo baskets are typically only two colors, Marrufo says. “So [we use] redbud, red osier dogwood, spruce root, willow, sedge, which are the natural fiber

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above, top Pomo artist once known, Burden Basket, 1880, redbud, sedge, with diagonal twine, 18¾ in. diameter, collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1917.504 (CC0). above, bottom Black dye from walnut hulls. Image courtesy of Meyo Marrufo (Robinson Pomo). opposite, top Stephanie Craig (Kalapuya/Chinook), Basket, cedar and natural fibers. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, bottom Mary Aitson (Cherokee Nation), Honeysuckle + Walnuts = Beauty, double-wall honeysuckle runner basket with walnut hull dye. Photo: Mary Aitson.

colors, or bulrush root, which we dye black because it accepts color better than other fibers.”

The year before the basket is made, around October or November, basket makers collect black walnuts. When the walnuts fall to the ground and dry out, their hulls turn from green to a biker’s black. The hulls are gathered and placed into plastic buckets of rainwater along with rusty nails and handfuls of oak ash.

The walnut hulls dissolve, and the ash acts as an antibacterial agent. Iron oxide in the rusty nails chemically affixes the color to the plant fibers.

The soupy mixture steeps for six or so months, through the rainy season, readying for the addition of split and trimmed bulrush roots harvested from nearby wetlands in spring. The bulrush fibers are soaked in the dye bath until they darken to the desired black. Then the dyed roots are dried and trimmed in preparation for weaving. When weaving begins, each piece is dampened for ease of coiling around a frame of willow that has been dried for five months to a year.

“The dyed bulrush contrasts nicely with the creamy tan of the sedge,” Marrufo says. “It makes the designs pop.”

Ambitious weavers also use the blackened bulrush roots for negative design baskets, where it becomes the dominant background color, and the non-dyed fibers become the design. “Those baskets are

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worth quite a bit because it’s an incredible amount of work.”

Stephanie Craig (Kalapuya/Chinook) of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon takes a different approach when dyeing fibers for her Western Oregon–style baskets. The plants she uses include rushes, sedge, cedar bark, hazel sticks, willow sticks, wolf moss, alder bark, and various roots.

Craig didn’t grow up weaving but rather learned about the skills of her great-great-grandmother through family stories and seeing and using her baskets around the house. Craig took a basketmaking class with her mom in high school and learned more from historic collections while she worked on her anthropology degree at the University of Oregon. “I took photos and studied these old baskets made by my ancestors, looking at patterns and re-creating them.”

She worked with elders from her tribe and others, and read and listened to recordings of ethnographic accounts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which helped fill in the gaps. “Really good weavers can look at a basket and tell you if the weaver is right or lefthanded, if it’s a man or woman, what tribe or region, and maybe even what village that basket came from,” she says. “The weaver’s life story is woven into that basket—by how tight she wove it, the weaving style, designs, and even the fibers used because some plants only grow in certain regions.”

For the dark color in her baskets, Craig gathers hazel sticks from a nearby iron-rich sulfur spring, then she peels and buries them in mud for anywhere from two weeks to six months depending on how dark she wants the sticks. The gathering and dyeing can take a year. “Every material comes in a different season: nettle in the fall for cordage, basketry, and rope; cedar in the spring; and sedge and rushes in mid to late summer and early fall,” she says. “So you are constantly gathering, sorting, trimming, and prepping.”

Her two young children are always with her and learn about the plants, help to harvest, and watch her peel, trim, and weave.

Gathering the plants comes with challenges. “If the plants are on federal, state, or private land, you have to get permission,” Craig says. “There’s also the

issue of chemicals and pollution, which can be hazardous for basket weavers because they often use their mouth to manipulate plant fibers like a third hand.”

Craig works with nature and wetland conservancies, private landowners, and state and federal agencies for permission and to prevent undue risks.

Basket maker Mary Aitson (Cherokee Nation) fell into weaving as a way to connect to her roots after 38 years of teaching sixth grade. At first she wove with commercial palm reed colored with synthetic dyes. But after reading books about Cherokee baskets and connecting with other Indigenous weavers at markets where she sold her baskets, she switched to locally harvested fibers and natural dyes used historically by her ancestors, like honeysuckle and buckbrush dyed with black walnut, bloodroot, and elderberries. “With the honeysuckle, I never used commercial dyes,” says Aitson. “I feel like it deserves the natural dye.”

Aitson now harvests honeysuckle, which grows naturally along hillsides near her home, and gets black walnuts from a friend’s tree. After stripping the bark from the honeysuckle runners, she places them into a ceramic pot and adds water, black walnuts, and canning salt as a mordant. “I boil it for a little while and then let it sit overnight,” she says. She hangs the honeysuckle on a fence to dry. “Honeysuckle is a light tan after peeling the bark, and it dyes a beautiful dark brown, cocoa brown.” She uses an alum mordant for the elderberry dye, which gives her basket fibers a regal purple hue.

The bloodroot grows wild in Eastern Oklahoma and looks like a shriveled carrot when pulled from the ground. “I keep those in the deep freezer until I am ready to dye.” She boils the bloodroot with honeysuckle or buckbrush, turning the fibers orange or reddish orange. “That pairs well with the cocoa brown of the black walnut.”

Now 92 years old, Aitson still weaves and wins awards. The Cherokee Nation recently acquired two of her baskets for display in two new buildings on its tribal complex in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She keeps detailed notes of her work for her daughter to preserve basketmaking knowledge for her family.

THE TEXTILE WEAVERS CHARLENE LAUGHING (Diné) usually has three rugs going at a time: “My main piece, I weave in the bedroom; one in my living room when I’m watching TV in the evening; and another for demonstrating at art shows, my traveling one,” says Laughing. Weaving more than one textile at a time is common for the other weavers in her family too. “My mom usually has two rugs going at the same time.”

Across the Diné reservation in west-central New Mexico, there are approximately 15 different regional styles of weaving. “Ours are the Crystal rugs because that’s where we are from,” Laughing says. Crystal textiles are known for their distinct geometric designs free of borders and an array of colors from naturally dyed wool.

Laughing hand-dyes wool sheared from their sheep with materials like coffee, Lipton tea, red wine, onion skins, purple cabbage, black walnuts, and wild carrots.

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above, top Processing Navajo tea (Thelesperma spp.) to make yellow dye, and dyeing wool warn. Both photos: Ethan Laughing (Diné). above, bottom Charlene Laughing (Diné), Four Seasons, 2023, wool weaving with vegetal dyes, 28 × 25 in. © Laughing Weavers. Image courtesy of the artist.

She gets boxes of black walnuts from an art collector whom she met at SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. “I boil those for two, three days—until they disintegrate, and the liquid becomes like coffee,” she says. She adds her wool and boils the mixture for about an hour, stirring constantly

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to prevent streaking. The walnut dye bath turns the cream-colored wool brown. For a different hue, she transfers the remaining liquid to a tin pot and adds another batch of wool. Folgers and Sumatra coffee produce different shades of brown. Onion skins produce a dark yellow.

For orange hues, she uses wild carrot (Daucus pusillus) roots that grow near her home. “We find them predominantly in the San Juan Basin, the river basin out by Chaco Canyon,” she says.

“The roots look like little potatoes, and we slice and boil them for hours on end until they disintegrate.”

Sometimes she uses Tabasco sauce.

“I came on this by accident a few years back after dropping Tabasco sauce on a new pair of white running shoes. I was all upset at first, and my husband said well at least you have an idea for one of your new colors,” she says with a chuckle.

Natural dye plants that grow wild around her home include Navajo tea (Thelesperma spp.) and a tumbleweed shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia chlorochroa), which blows around in the wind because it isn’t fixed to a substrate. “The ground lichen grows crazy around here, and we just pick them up by the bag full.” One year she and her mother harvested rubber rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) blossoms.

“We soaked them for two nights, boiled them, and then added our wool,” she remembers. “It came out a different yellow than the onion skins and Lipton tea.”

Something as simple as using rainwater versus well or tap water can affect the dye color. The type of boiling pan

can even make a difference. “If we use a copper pan to boil sage, for example, the wool comes out a really light green rather than bright, like an evergreen color.”

After dyeing, she hangs the wool to dry in a hogan. “We don’t hang it outside because the sun will oxidize the wool and cause streaking.”

Laughing says she learned about weaving and dyes from her grandmother—and from experimenting. “My grandma and I would go out and harvest the ground lichen. I was just a kid and could reach down to the ground a lot easier than she could. So it’s a connection, something we did as a family.”

Of her twelve nieces and nephews, three are weavers. “My niece is really into the vegetal dyes. She’s picking it up so fast.” While looking in the forest for their cattle this winter, her niece pointed out some lichen and pinpointed it on her phone. “She said to me, ‘Now I can tell grandma where to find ground lichen in the forest.’ It would never have occurred to me that someone that young—she is

above Two shawls woven from natural dyed yarn by Margaret Roach Wheeler (Chickasaw/ Choctaw), with skeins of dyed and undyed yarn. Image courtesy of the artist.

a sophomore at Arizona State University—would think about grandma’s dyes for next spring.” Even though the lichen shifts in the wind, it tends to stay in the same general location.

Weaver and designer Margaret Roach Wheeler (Chickasaw/Choctaw) discovered textiles and natural dyes years ago while taking classes under the tutelage of American artist Marjorie Schick.

She was 33 years old at the time. “I loved it from the first moment. I felt the connection to my mother and grandmother, who crocheted and knitted,” she remembers.

Wheeler had come from a background in painting and sculpture. Her creativity blended nicely with handwoven fashions and fiber art. A New York journalist once lauded her artistic ability to “paint” in yarns and “sculpt” in fabric.

In 2018 she founded Mahota Textiles, the first textile company owned by a North American tribe.

Since college, she has experimented with natural dyes. For five years she hosted artist-led workshops where she lives in south-central Oklahoma, including natural dye workshops twice a year. “We would harvest plants in the morning and have them boiling on the fire by noon,” she says. The workshops inspired her to learn more. “I was always buying books. I’ve got a book on dye plants from the Rocky Mountains and the books Wild Color and The Weaver’s Garden. Those are good.”

Commercial dyes are concentrated and tend to be really bright, she says. “But the ones you get from nature and that you pick are subtle.” Typically, the more plant matter that goes into the pot, the more color. “It just depends on what you are looking for.” There are also differences from year to year with the same plants.

“Some years are wet, and you’ll have more blossoms to create more intense colors.”

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It’s his favorite work from the exhibition.

“The vegetal colors helped me capture the contours of human skin,” he explains, “to achieve the contrast and colors I needed.

They really make the aniline colors pop.”

Katoney discovered vegetal dyes earlier in his career while shopping for wool skeins at R.B. Burnham and Company trading post in Sanders, Arizona. “I loved the smell and look of the wool. I bought a bunch and kept going back.” The last time he visited, he bought enough for a few years’ worth of projects.

Before weaving, Katoney draws out his design. Then he chooses the colors, which takes days. “I lay [the colors] beside each other. I have to study and see how the colors move and match up against each other. Because it will change, always.”

He then respins the wool and submerges it in hot water, which he says gives the wool height, and makes it tighter.

Considering the color palette in Katoney’s weavings, which hearken back to his days as an oil painter, dyeing his own wool would be overwhelming. The pre-dyed vegetal wools provide the means for the elaborate color gradations he creates in his pictorial textiles. “I have never done a piece that is totally aniline. I feel all color is important,” he says. Buying from the wool stores allows him to focus on the weaving.

MORE THAN A PRICE above Marlowe Katoney (Diné), Axis Radius #5: Pareidolia Overture, 2023, wool, vegetal and aniline dyes, private collection. Image courtesy of the artist.

These days Wheeler loves to experiment. She’s currently working with mushrooms, walnut husk, lichen, and elm bark for several handwoven silk scarves.

The mushroom dye bath was tan until she added more mushrooms. “Now it’s the most beautiful grey,” she says. The elm bark produced a pale pink melon color, and the walnut husk a dark brown.

“I think those will be pretty with the grey.”

Nearly two years ago, Wheeler suffered a stroke. Her doctor advised her to slow down. Being in nature kept her grounded. “I have found such joy being in nature and collecting these things, the process of it all with no deadlines,” she says. “I don’t know if my ancestors got

that kind of enjoyment out of it. But I do.”

For artist Marlowe Katoney (Diné), the subtlety of vegetal dyes was essential alongside the brighter aniline-dye wool for Axis Radius #5: Pareidolia Overture, a stunning pictorial textile recently shown in Pulse: Weavings and Paintings

by Marlowe Katoney, an exhibition at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. A breakdancer called Bad Boy was Katoney’s inspiration.

Other figures in the weaving include birds, a monarch butterfly, clouds, and geometric designs that give the piece depth and a sense of motion.

WHEN INVESTING in Indigenous art such as pottery, baskets, and textiles, take time to ask about the artists and their processes in making the artwork.

Connecting with the piece is important, but so is knowing something of the culture and work imbued in each creation.

It gives the piece a more profound beauty and value. It gives it story.

“I have had people say, ‘Wow, this price is really high for a traditional piece of work,’” says potter Virgil Ortiz. “If they understood the work, longstanding teachings, thought, and time that even one piece takes, they would probably ask to pay a higher price.” Collectors can also take pride in being cultural preservationists of sorts. Ortiz says, “They are helping us carry on our traditions.”

Ruthanne Johnson is an award-winning journalist based in southern Colorado.

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Natural dyes in Peru. Photo: Ken Bosma (CC BY 2.0).

RESOURCES

D

YE SUPPLIES from nature are relatively easy to find, whether it’s native flora growing wild, everyday plants in the garden, or minerals gleaned from the earth. Even so-called weeds and throwaways such as onion skins or tree clippings can provide color for the dye pot. But dyeing with nature’s bounty isn’t as simple as picking a bunch of plants and boiling them in a pot. It takes plant and mineral knowledge, planning, and understanding the nuances of the different dye processes. The aftercare of dyed items is also important to prevent color changes and fading.

“For the most part with natural dyes, there are four things you’ll want to remember,” says Mary Walker, owner of Weaving in Beauty in Gallup, New Mexico. “The first is that edible plants aren’t typically good for dyeing.” One example is juniper berries. “You have to soak them for days and days and maybe add tannin for a color that’s not bad—but you can get the same gold much easier from other things.”

For more than two decades Walker has sold weaving supplies and hosted workshops on Diné weaving and natural dyes in her store. Working with some of the top Diné weavers and participating in dye workshops has cultivated her knowledge. The second thing to remember, she says, is to use what’s accessible. “People couldn’t always drive to get supplies or order them from Amazon. They had to figure out what was around their house to get the colors they wanted.” Many of

BOOKS • Navajo Native Dyes: Their Preparation and Use

by Nonabah G. Bryan (Diné) • Tending the Wild

by M. Kat Anderson • Cherokee Plants: Their Uses, A 400 Year History

by Paul B. Hamel and Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey (Eastern Band Cherokee) • Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes

by Jenny Dean

WEB • Native American Ethnobotany Database naeb.brit.org

the store’s yarns are dyed with plants harvested nearby. Sometimes, entrepreneurs stop by to sell armloads of plants, like Navajo tea (Thelesperma spp.), which is edible and a good dye plant. “There are always exceptions to the rules,” she says. The plant can be used to make beverages, such as tea, and medicinally to treat a variety of ailments. Dye colors range from reddish brown to orange and orange-yellow.

The third principle is to add the dye matter and water into a pot and boil the mixture. But there’s more to it than that.

Basketry plant fibers, for example, can be boiled or soaked, depending on the fiber.

They also tend to take more time to dye because the harder plant fibers don’t soak

up dye colors as easily as, say, wool or cotton. Adding mordants such as alum or tannin in the dye pot helps affix the color and can impact color, brightness, and hue.

Even seasonal nuances, water sources, and different plant parts can affect color, hues, and intensity. “The drought that we’ve had for the last five years has made it difficult to harvest plants,” Walker says.

“The colors aren’t normal because the plants are so stressed.”

Whether you want to learn to dye with natural elements or learn more about the dye process in Indigenous art, abundant educational resources are available in books, YouTube videos, online articles, and in-person workshops, like those held at Weaving in Beauty and similar businesses.

In the mid-20th century, Diné weaving teacher Nonabah G. Bryan participated in a study to document the use of natural dyes within her community.

The resulting publication, Navajo Native Dyes: Their Preparation and Use, includes information on how to prepare wool for weaving and more than 40 recipes formulated by Bryan using plants found on the Diné reservation.

To learn more about native plants and their uses by specific tribes, the Native American Ethnobotany Database is a superb resource. “It’s a compilation of ethnobotanist records,” says archaeologist Elizabeth T. Horton. “It is a lifetime of gathering information from journals, scientific papers, and studies from all over the U.S.” Native tribes are now developing their own scholarship to further develop the database. For more information, visit naeb.brit.org.

—Ruthanne Johnson

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 31

THREADS TO THE PAST

D

ESPITE CHALLENGES tracking down evidence of natural dyes used historically among Native peoples, recent studies have begun to piece together the past.

“There’s a whole series of plants that get domesticated by about 5,000 years ago in the U.S.,” says archaeologist and paleobotanist Elizabeth T. Horton, “absolutely for food and likely, at a minimum, intensely maintaining plants used for textiles and other resources.” Archaeological sites in Mammoth Caves in Kentucky suggest Native peoples of the Eastern Woodlands were dyeing textiles red, yellow, black, and green 1,000 to 2,000 years ago.

Horton studied textiles excavated from the Spiro Mounds in central-eastern Oklahoma. “It’s a collection of materials dating to the early to mid-1400s, so shortly before Europeans appear and begin to impact the landscape and people,” she says. The assemblage of twined textiles contains native plants like Indian hemp (dogbane, Apocynum cannabinum) and nettle (Urtica spp.). More than half a millennium later, the warm and cool reds are still visible. “So these [are] orange-brick, ocher, and cool reds, like magenta, which are not easy to get from plant sources.”

Unlike potsherds, ancient baskets and textiles can be tricky to date because

they biodegrade over time. An exception to the rule is when the fibers touch copper, which occurs in certain sites in the Southeast, Horton says. It turns out copper preserves organic materials. But even so, the chemical analysis it requires to date fiber artifacts can be destructive.

In the 1990s, a chemical study of textiles dating from 1200 to 1300 CE from the Etowah Indian Mounds in northwest Georgia found evidence of dyed plants in the fibers. Horton says, “The information gleaned was the possible use of things like sumac and a funny little plant called sticky willow.” Colors produced from the two plants in later dye experiments include orange and reddish orange.

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Accounts from Spanish explorers in the early 16th century refer to Native peoples in the Southeast donning colorful textiles. “Brilliantly dyed feather robes, using the colors red, yellow, and black,” Horton says, “and the Spanish were quite impressed … enough so that they steal the textiles.”

While research has helped uncover some of the past, gaps remain in the timeline. That’s where today’s Indigenous artists—like Southwestern potters—come in.

Their techniques, methods, and colors are links to the past.

Another example is the river cane baskets in Southeastern Woodlands cultures. Some of the oldest known baskets date close to 1,000 years ago and show clear evidence of two different-colored elements: “Golden hues and darker peels, indicating dyed material,” Horton says.

Researchers and contemporary weavers alike believe the ancient baskets were likely dyed using the same plants and methods used today, techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation. “Modern Cherokee [Muscogee, Choctaw, and Chitimacha] weavers are famous for their river cane baskets. The persistence of these baskets is so remarkable that you can see baskets woven today with the same patterns and

images.” Dye plants often used include black walnut (Juglans spp.), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima), pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), and butternut (Juglans cinerea).

COCHINEAL & INDIGO THE VIBRANT RED of cochineal can be found in masterpieces by such greats as Caravaggio, El Greco, and Van Gogh.

The pigment comes from the tiny, grey cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus), which live and feed in clusters on prickly pear cacti. Female cochineal and their eggs produce a red chemical, carminic acid— the key ingredient for red cochineal dye.

The pigment dates back to as early as 200 BCE. Its red has been used to color manuscripts and murals, to dye cloth and feathers, and in ceremonies by Maya and Nahua peoples, who traded it throughout Central and South America. The harvesting and dye processes still used today reflect its longstanding history.

Cochineals and their host cacti are cultivated on farms called nopalries.

Small baskets containing fertile females are hung from the cactus pads for about 90 days, then harvested by hand brushing or individually picking off the insects and their eggs. The insects are boiled in water, sun-dried, and ground to a fine powder.

Red dye is made by boiling the powder in water and soaking the fiber. Different chemicals can be added to the mixture for an array of red hues.

Cochineal became a global commodity after the Spanish invasion of the Americas. It was brighter and more saturated than any other red dye in Europe.

There it became the color of power, as seen in the red coats of English soldiers and Catholic clergy’s capes.

Communities in Peru, Chile, Mexico, and the Canary Islands continue to produce cochineal as an export. These days, it is sometimes preferred over synthetic dyes by Native American artists in fiber art. In 2018, fashion designer Orlando Dugi (Diné) created the breathtaking signature dress for the traveling cochineal exhibition, The Red That Colored the World, organized by the Museum of International Folk Art. Indigo is a blue dye extracted from the leaves of plants in the Indigofera

above Diagram and photograph of Huaca Prieta cotton fragment, the oldest known textile with colorfast indigo blue dye in the world, ca. 4250–4050 BCE. Graphic: Jeffrey C. Splitstoser, Tom D. Dillehay, Jan Wouters, and Ana Claro. Image courtesy of Science Advances (CC BY 4.0). below "Indian Collecting Cochineal with a Deer Tail" from Memoria sobre la naturaleza, cultivo, y beneficio de la grana (1777), by José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (CC0). opposite, top Two metates used for grinding indigo and cochineal dyes at the studio of the Porfirio Gutiérrez family (Zapotec) in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Photo: Leigh Thelmadatter (CC BY-SA 4.0). opposite, bottom Chitimacha artist once known, Tray, ca. 1980s, rivercane, vegetal dyes, 21/8 × 9 × 9 in., private collection. Photo: FAAM.

genus, which includes more than 750 flowering species. Indigo plants flourish naturally in tropical areas throughout India, South America, and Africa. For thousands of years, the plants have been used to create lasting blues and purple hues for a variety of textiles.

Indigo dye is believed to date back about 6,200 years before present. Archaeologists discovered scraps of indigo-dyed fabric at the Huaca Prieta site in northern Peru. Previously, the oldest indigo-dyed fabric was thought to be from Egypt dating some 4,400 years before present.

Until the Peruvian discovery, the earliest known examples of indigo in the Americas had been dated around 2,500 years before present. Little is known about the possible use of indigo by Indigenous peoples in early North America, but several species are native to the Southeastern U.S., such as Indigofera caroliniana, Indigofera suffruticosa, and Baptisia australis, all of which can be used for dye.

In 18th-century indigo manufacturing, freshly harvested plant leaves were thrown into a steeping vat and covered with fresh water. The leaves were mashed with a heavy wooden tool and left to ferment for 8 to 20 hours. When the water became purplish blue, it was strained

from plant debris into another vat. The mixture was churned until the dye particles congealed and formed sediment on the bottom. The liquid was drained, and the sediment was left to dry before being taken to a drying shed. As soon as the indigo began to harden, it was cut into square pieces and carefully turned three or four times daily to dry, and then exported.

—Ruthanne Johnson

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 33

CELEBRATING SEAL IN ALASKA NATIVE ART

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

T

HE JANUARY TEMPERATURE in Alaska plunged to −14 degrees Fahrenheit, but— wearing my sealskin mittens and sealskin hat—I felt warm walking along our frozen beach. I have always loved sealskin, especially in the winter when the natural fibers of the fur provide a layer of insulation that beats anything synthetic.

When I wake up in the morning, the first things I put on are my sealskin slippers.

They warm me up immediately. Along with sealskin mittens, hats, and slippers, it is common today to see people wearing

sealskin jewelry, parkas, and boots, and there are a growing number of sealskin prom dresses, wedding dresses, corsets, and high heels.

Seals are found throughout Alaska, including harp seal, harbor seal, fur seal, and ice seal (bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon). Iliamna Lake is home to a rare freshwater seal. In Kachemak Bay, which is near my home, harbor seals are commonly seen swimming along the shoreline and in the harbor.

For many Alaska Native communities, seals are an important subsistence

resource providing a nutrient-rich source of omega-3 fatty acids and iron. Families throughout coastal parts of the state include seal oil and seal meat as a staple part of their diet, eating the meat stewed, fried, roasted, and raw. In urban settings, people fill their freezers with seal and seal oil harvested from the coast. Thanks to donations of subsistence foods from the community, seal meat is even offered to patients at the Alaska Native Medical Center.1 Beyond serving as a food source, seal is a cultural connector. Harvesting,

1. Julia O’Malley, “At the Alaska Native Medical Center, Healing Comes in a Bowl of Seal Soup,” Anchorage Daily News, February 11, 2019, web.

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processing, and wearing seal creates cultural links between people, place, and family. As shared by Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone (Iñupiaq/Kiowa), an artist and the director of the Katirvik Cultural Center in Nome, “Our seal is basically a center of our lives … We’ve made songs for them.

We’ve made prayers around these animals that give us clothing, that give us nourishment, that give us heat, that give us light.”2 For the past few months, I have been following the work of a sealskin designer cohort including Bobby Brower (Barrow Inupiaq, Utqiaġvik), Joni Kitmiiq Spiess (Iñupiaq, originally from Nome), and Dana Hank (Iñupiaq, Point Hope).

Through an Institute of the North grant, the group formed to celebrate and pass on material cultural practices associated with seal. Since last September, the cohort has been holding a virtual sealskin sewing circle where they meet to share tips and techniques around sealskin sewing, processing, and design work. The products that they created have been shared in fashion shows including one at the Ivalu Gala in February 2024 and another at the Arctic Winter Games in March 2024. In July, the cohort’s work will be highlighted in the exhibition Subsistence at the Bunnell Street Arts Center in Homer. They also have plans to lead community sealskin sewing workshops in Anchorage, including classes on making sealskin mittens and bowties.

Bobby Brower told me how the sealskin designer cohort has been a wonderful opportunity to learn and explore with other experienced artists. “Knowing how to work with seal is a long process,” she explains. “It takes experimenting with the skins. It’s a lot of time and work and dedication. You learn over time what is the right thing to do.” Bobby explains that hunters sometimes offer her sealskins because they know that she will put them to good use. She also gets seals from family connections and has salvaged seals that wash up on the shore near her home community of Utqiagvik. She has 2. Lisa Demer, “An ‘Elder in Training’ Teaches an Attentive Crowd at the Elders and Youth Conference How to Butcher a Seal,” Anchorage Daily News, October 18, 2016, web.

above Bobby Brower (Inupiaq), Siima, formal sealskin gown. Photo: Aloha World Now Photography. Image courtesy of the artist.

“I created this dress titled Siima—the Inupiaq word meaning ‘to be strong’—in honor of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirits to bring more awareness to an issue affecting all Indigenous communities, and me. In 2002, my 15-year-old sister was murdered. This dress represents her and all our stolen sisters, girls, and two-spirits taken from us. The spotted sealskin symbolizes uniqueness, as no sealskin hide is the same—just like every human being is unique. Red signifies life, just as this seal gifted its life for this piece. We stand strong in solidarity to battle this issue and protect the sacred. We are still here.” —Bobby Brower (Inupiaq) opposite A group working for the Aleut Community Tribal Government herds a pack of northern fur seals to free one who became entangled by marine debris. As of the summer of 2023, the team has successfully disentangled 45 fur seals. Photo: ©Brian Adams (Inupiaq).

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 35

“The harvesting of seals is part of my culture, lifestyle, and year-round subsistence.” experimented with tanning skins on her own at home, but without knowing the correct tanning methods, a hide can easily be ruined in the process. One cannot learn this knowledge by reading a book; rather, it takes hands-on learning and practice.

Dana Hank says many nuances about sealskin processing are learned through experience. The work includes many hours of hide processing: first washing the blood and oil from the hide, then scraping and drying it. Years of experience help a maker understand the best time of year to harvest for optimal skins, what temperature to work at, and techniques used in processing. This information gets passed on generationally. “The harvesting of seals is part of my culture, lifestyle, and year-round subsistence,” says Hank. “We hunt seal for food and oil, and I dry the skins for use. It’s a continuous cycle of life and work.”

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Reflecting on the importance of the cultural practices associated with working with seal, Joni Speiss said, “It is so important for our communities not only to use the products from a seal but to participate in harvesting, processing the animal for human consumption, and working on the hides for use in sealskin clothing.” When I asked Joni what she sees as the biggest challenges in working with sealskin, she explained that the most important is unquestionably access to the material: “As a person who is currently living in an urban environment, I have had to hunt in Kenai and Homer for marine mammals that I would normally be getting at home.”

She explains that many individuals do not have the opportunity to learn the process anymore. To counter this, she makes an effort to pass on what she knows. “When I was an educator in Nome, I took efforts to teach this process to the youth in my tribe, as it is apparent to me that the youth who have access to customary activities have a better sense of self. I continue this practice by holding sewing circles in my home and teaching others.”

Seal harvesting and processing are taught at some community culture camps.

I attended one in Akhiok, Alaska, several years ago where children learned how to harvest a seal, cut the meat, and sew sealskin trapper hats. In an urban environment, at the Alaska Native Heritage

opposite, top Iñupiaq seal hunter from Barrow, Alaska, in 2013. Photo: ©Brian Adams (Inupiaq). opposite, bottom Northern fur seals on the coast of St. Paul, Alaska, in the Bering Sea, 2023.

Photo: ©Brian Adams (Inupiaq).

above Sealskins hanging to dry in Point Hope, Alaska, 2023. Image courtesy of Dana Hank. below Josephine Shangin (Unangax̂) after braiding seal intestines for a culture class that she teaches in Akutan, Alaska, 2022.

Photo: ©Brian Adams (Inupiaq).

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above Bobby Brower (Inupiaq) and Dana Hank (Iñupiaq) studying sealskin items at the Anchorage Museum, 2023. Image courtesy of Bobby Brower. below Lena Snow Amason (Alutiiq), Seal Helmet, 2019, acrylic, oils, carved wood, 12 × 12 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

Center, seal processing demonstrations are sometimes held to pass knowledge to youth who may not have been exposed to this practice growing up.

Seals are celebrated in many other ways throughout Alaska Native culture.

In the Native Youth Olympics, athletes

compete in the seal hop, a sport that trains hunters to disguise their human form by mimicking the movement of a seal on ice. Dancers from Sugpiaq, Iñupiaq, and Yup'ik communities have many dances that reference seal hunting and sometimes include an iconic seal call as part of the song.3 Artists sometimes carve miniature ivories resembling seal and their semblance appears on masks, helmets, paintings, tools, and petroglyphs.

One of my favorite historical art forms highlighting seal are decoy hats worn by hunters in kayaks in Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island. They were sculpted to look like a seal’s head in the water. When wearing such a hat, a hunter would not only look like a seal but metaphorically transform into one.

These hats were brilliantly designed to act as a visor, while the shape of the hat also aided hunters by amplifying sounds on the water. Some contemporary artists, such as Lena Snow Amason (Alutiiq), use this design to connect with these historical art forms and an animal that remains relevant within our communities. Lena explains: “I have seen pictures of hats like this in books and was drawn to them. I often see seals on my beach walks in Old Harbor and walking the bridge in Port Lions. They are curious enough to follow me the entire length of the beach.”

Celebrating seal through fashion, food, and artistic representations are ways to recognize a human connection with this wild relative that has been sustained across generations. Keep an eye out for the upcoming exhibition Subsistence, opening in July 2024 at the Bunnell Street Arts Center, which will highlight seal in material culture.

Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq), is an art historian and museum consultant based in Homer, Alaska. Dedicated to supporting Alaska Native arts and artists, her research interests include Alaska Native art, cultural revival, and Indigenous curation. She is a current Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient.

3. For an example, listen to the “Seal Boy” song performed by the Yup'ik musical group Pamyua online at youtu.be/qDEZ6jr_oDg.

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UNITING GENER ATIONS THROUGH CULTURE .

The Choctaw Cultural Center is more than a museum.

It’s an adventure. Become an intrepid explorer on a scavenger hunt that takes you through our immersive exhibits, learn how to prepare traditional Choctaw foods and craf ts through our hands-on workshops, or just take a quiet moment to listen to our stor y tellers in the Luksi Activity Center. Whether you’re young or young at hear t , the possibilities for fun and learning are endless!

Visit choctawculturalcenter.com to plan your visit.

WHERE WILL YOUR CURIOSIT Y WILL TAKE YOU?

Hours of Operation

SCAN FOR MORE INFO

Tuesday–Saturday | 10am to 5pm Closed Sunday & Monday

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 39

MESSAGES IN BASKETS Peter J. Clair

By Lucy R. Lippard Everything that’s new is old with us.

—Alma Hill (Tuscarora, 1924–2004)1 In Indian Country, art is used to rise above despair, not to provoke it.

—James Lavadour (Walla Walla)2

P

ETER J. CLAIR (Mi'kmaq) has taken the classic container form of the Mi'kmaq oisgôg (black or brown ash, Fraxinus nigra) splint basket and invented new functions for it, which honors its past and simultaneously opens up its future. His basket-like art is sometimes deceptively traditional, especially for those who perceive “Indian baskets” as a single, generic category.

On closer scrutiny, modern strategies and incongruities are revealed: a basket deconstructed, a cross of red mousetraps, a raft of sticks lashed to the side, closure where there should be an aperture, a curious protrusion or unraveled weave.

While all of Clair’s works are inherently containers, these contain content, not just contents.

The artist was born in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, in 1950 and is based in Tobique, although he has lived in Perth and Vancouver. His parents made baskets, and by “watching without thinking,” as he says, he learned his art. He first sold it at fairs. “I had to make baskets that

would sell, but I was exploring new ideas at the same time.” This experimentation led to his first art show in Monkton, New Brunswick, in the early 1980s. Conceding no influences but the “old masters,” he calls his art “sculptural weave.”

The Mi'kmaq are the easternmost Algonquian speakers based in Maine, New Brunswick, and other Maritime provinces.3 As it is for other nations in the Wabanaki Confederacy, the tough, fibrous brown and black ash is a sacred wood. Ash is the legendary emergence point where Gluscap (mediator between the environment and the spirit world) created his people by shooting an arrow

1. Alma Hill Tuscarora, quoted in Ralph T. Coe, Lost and Found Tradition, 1965–1985 (New York: American Federation of Arts with University of Washington Press, 1986), 79.

2. James Lavadour quoted in Sims Peterson, Crossed Cultures: Five Contemporary Native Northwest Artists (Seattle: Seattle Arts Museum, 1989).

3. Will Oxford, The Algonquian Inverse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 9.

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into an ash tree and calling them out.

The splints used are from the one year’s growth ring pounded out of an ash log, hard work made increasingly difficult by the trees’ decline due in part to the invasive emerald ash borer and logging skidders that run right over them. As Passamaquoddy basket maker Sylvia Gabriel (1929–2003) said, the loggers “don’t know their ash from their elbow.”

Today there is a revival of basketry in the Northeast. A Mi'kmaq basket cooperative on Gesgapegiag Reserve in Quebec has become known for its work in ash splints and sweetgrass, as has the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA) in the United States. Other Abenaki artists have also been reinventing basket forms. For instance, a Mi'kmaq basket-of-roses style from Truro, Nova Scotia, has its roots in the splint flowers invented in 1937 by Madeline Knockwood (Mi'kmaw, 1899–1974). Other Native artists have miniaturized fancy baskets, cradles, or hampers (historically several feet tall) made by the Atlantic Maritime tribes to contain clothing and goose down.

Clair also plays with scale and makes monumental forms from both small and oversized basketry. But he has taken another direction, that of innovation within the customary frame. He has identified himself as a Minimalist but seems closer to a Conceptualist or a Process artist, given his interest in revealing the origins: the materials and the making of a basket. Or Clair might be called a Surrealist. Everything is not what it seems to be. His baskets are collages that juxtapose old and new forms and go off in unexpected directions when found objects are added to emphasize a political point about the difficulties of being Native in a contemporary world. “You go through a growing stage,” he says, “and it reflects in your work.”

Queen Isabella I and In God We Trust, for instance, were triggered by Om niiak Native Arts Group’s Decelebration show in Ottawa in 1989, a precursor to the burdensome anniversary to come in 1992 with its spate of attention to Indian

art, and equally pointed exhibitions like Salish-Kootenai/Métis/Shoshone artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s Submuloc show (Columbus, backward). “As we proceeded to do our ‘tourist thing,’” said Clair, “it became noticeable that everything was C.C. this and C.C. that.

I didn’t want to support anything that, as someone said of C.C. history, was 500 years of murder!”

Queen Isabella I, an abstract tower on a two-tiered pedestal, might be seen as a headless female torso, a headdress, or a caped and/or crowned figure—haughty and overbearing in any case—brought down to earth in this woven incarnation.

In God We Trust is a cross formed of two red mousetraps hung from the center of a “trap-like shape made of ash.” Two similar but smaller forms back a red cap and a

Smali means “touch me,” emphasizing the texture and tactility of both technique and materials.

above Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Queen Isabella I, 1989, black ash, 42 × 27½ × 27½ in. Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik). opp osite Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Smali, 1995, black ash, willow, 17¾ × 33 × 33 in. Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik).

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…he is also encouraging us to look at the basket’s primal forms and functions. above Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Sing to the Four Directions: From the West Came Many a Dead Song, 1998, black ash (oisgôg), 19¾ × 26¼ × 26¼ in. Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik). opposite Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq).

Photo by his daughter Ramona Clair (Mi'kmaq). ©Ramona Clair, used with permission.

string of rosary beads. The text reads: “To one and all a red cap and beads.” With this and later works, Clair confronts the way religion has been used as bait to undermine Indigenous cultures. Aapapi is a more recent work with political content.

The “weavers” (horizontal bands), loosely wrapped around the cage-like “standards” (verticals), are yellow police lines calling attention to something First Nations have in common across national boundaries: all-too-frequent dealings with the police in the nations that surround theirs.

Lee-Ann Martin (Mohawk) and Gerald McMaster (Siksika Plains Cree) have suggested that Clair bends “gender-directed use of basketry forms,”4 although among the Mi'kmaq, both men

and women made potato baskets and fancy baskets; Clair calls it a “joint venture.” At the same time that he encourages the viewer to “discard previously held preconceptions about the basket,” he is also encouraging us to look at the basket’s primal forms and functions. Change, as an element in a series of creative revivals, is part of the process. Kwakwaka'wakw artist Marianne Nicolson says: Blankets weren’t used five hundred years ago. They were something that the traders brought. Our people took them and created something entirely new, and that was completely acceptable. Now when you create something totally different, people aren’t sure how to take it. I’d like our people to

4. Gerald McMaster and Lee-Ann Martin, ed., Indigena: Contemporary Native Perspectives (Vancouver: Douglas and Mclntyre, 1992).

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get back to where we can look at new materials and ideas and incorporate them into our own identity.5 In a major, earlier work titled Sing to the Four Directions—From the West Came Many a Death Song, Clair evokes four figures (perhaps the deities or spirit people of the four directions) leaning in toward the circular center, as though mourning over a burial or leaning in awe over a newborn—or both. While much Native art about the four directions would be symmetrical, differentiated by color rather than scale and gesture, this artist anthropomorphizes them by making each woven pillar a different height.

The result is moving and understated.

This is my reading of the piece: Clair was thinking more formally, displaying the part of the basket’s structure that is seldom seen—the bottom. He did not turn it upside-down but made something new of the previously invisible.

In Smali (1995), a black ash splint and willow basket that made the cover of Clair’s Epogan catalogue for the exhibition at Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 1997, Clair uses asymmetry to make the basket form as a vehicle for content. The small, straight willow branches protrude regularly and aggressively from the simple basket in an ascending line from base to top. Smali means “touch me,” emphasizing the texture and tactility of both technique and materials. Clair often adapts a local Indigenous technique known as the “periwinkle style,” named after a gracefully pointed little sea snail, which incorporates a subtle swirl that is heightened or exaggerated in his modernist woven works. Osagpigon, for instance, means “teardrop.” Clair says he made “layers and layers until it looked like a teardrop, interpreting the old masters’ design but not covering the whole piece, just hints here and there. The swirl kept growing and growing.”

Faces from past and present often emerge mysteriously. In Oogsisgo (Face, 1995) one eye is open, one eye is closed, as though looking inward and outward at once. “I was experimenting with the

outside surface,” he recalls, “and I saw a face in there—whimsical, like someone winking at you, flirting with the basket.”

In Glôgooetj (1995), an anthropomorphic “star person” is perceptible in the basket’s fabric. And the face of Clair’s daughter is carved into the major work called Otjipesg (Root, which is her “original name.”). This is a mat (or raft) of reddish pin cherry sticks lashed to the body of the basket like a cradleboard carried close by a mother,

or a cultural practice carried close by a respectful contemporary artist. Other baskets remain relatively conventional but are painted, as in Aoogoetjit (Spider), with four stenciled spiders placed at different angles in the bowl of a shallow basket, clearly an homage to the origins of weaving. There is no Spider Woman figure in Mi'kmaq religion, but Clair points out that the dreamcatcher pattern also derives from the spider’s web.

5. Marianne Nicolson, “Marianne Nicolson Speaks …” in Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art, ed. Gerald McMaster (Seattle: University of Washington Press and Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1998), 101.

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The Mi'kmaq believe that “life is everywhere—visible and invisible, beneath the ground and under the sea. Various forms of life can change into one another.

Some kinds of animals and people are not what they seem to be.”6 In an indirect sense, this is what Clair is doing. Baskets, like pots, come from the land. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Earth Press, Clair’s deconstructed basket, a cross-like mat centered on a red mouse trap. It was left outdoors and weighted into the earth so that it absorbed organic material, including molds and fungi. When this weaving was resurrected to be exhibited, its near-death experience (or perhaps near-life) became part of its power. The red mousetrap refers again to the entrapment of Native peoples within the dominant culture and also to the red ochre found in the burials of the so-called Red Paint People, who inhabited the Northeast thousands of years ago.

Art itself can be seen as a trap to catch nature, to catch the eye and the mind’s eye.

And there are traps that both Native people and non-Indian tourists fall into when interacting through art, to which the mousetrap might also ironically refer.

I asked Clair if his basketworks were ever to be “used.” “No, I guess not,” he replied. “I guess they’re art. It’s an area where you can do a lot of things. Once you start exploring, you just keep on going.” Like the periwinkle technique inherited from the Mi'kmaq masters, Clair’s artwork seems to flow on in an inevitable curve. Epogan, the title of his Thunder Bay exhibition, refers to the “little stick you carry with you on a journey; it helps spread the weight of your pack onto the opposite shoulder,” stated Clair. “So it’s a little stick to help you carry your load.”

Lucy R. Lippard is an internationally known art historian, curator, writer, and activist born in New York City and now based in New Mexico. A champion of Conceptual and Feminist art, Lippard has published more than 20 books and curated more than 50 exhibitions and has received nine honorary doctoral degrees in fine arts.

6. Philip K. Bock, “Micmac,” in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15: Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 117.

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Art itself can be seen as a trap to catch nature, to catch the eye and the mind’s eye.

above Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), t h re e d i f f e re n t v i ews o f Glôgooetj, 1995, black ash and red osier, 17¾ × 29½ × 29½ in. Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik). right Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Otjipesg, 1995, black ash, pin cherry, 49½ × 43½ in.

Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik). opposite, top Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Aapapi, 1996, black ash splints, police tape, 34 × 34 in. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, bottom Peter J. Clair (Mi'kmaq), Earth Press, 1996, black ash, painted mouse trap, 41 × 36 in. Photo: Holly Brown Bear (Wolastoqiyik).

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NAGPRA UPDATES Closing Loopholes Exploited by Institutions

By Staci Golar

O

N JANUARY 12, 2024, the final rule for implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) went into effect after the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced it in December 2023. The revision was made in an effort to speed up the repatriation of ancestral Native American remains and cultural items to tribes.

In a press release about the final rule, U.S. DOI Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna/Jemez Pueblos) said, “The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is an essential tool for the safe return of sacred objects to the communities from which they were stolen. Among the updates we are implementing are critical steps to strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process.

Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.”1 The updates in the final rule include: • Strengthening the authority and role of Tribes and NHOs [Native Hawaiian Organizations] in the repatriation process by requiring deference to the Indigenous Knowledge of lineal descendants, Tribes, and NHOs. • Requiring museums and federal agencies to obtain free, prior,

and informed consent from lineal descendants, Tribes, or NHOs before allowing any exhibition of, access to, or research on human remains or cultural items.

• Eliminating the category ‘culturally unidentifiable human remains’ and resetting the requirements for cultural affiliation to better align the regulations with congressional intent.

• Increasing transparency and reporting of holdings or collections and shedding light on collections currently unreported under the existing regulation.

• Requiring museums and federal agencies to consult and update inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects within five years of this final rule.2 above NAGPRA notice in display of Ancestral Caddoan ceramics at the Sam Noble Museum, Norman, Oklahoma. Photo: FAAM. opposite A Saginaw Chippewa Tribal delegation carried an ancestor for reburial at the Nibokaan Cemetery on the Isabella Reservation, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, in 2012. The Nibokaan Cemetery was created in 1995 for reburial of Native American ancestral remains and funerary objects. Photo: Marcella Hadden (Saginaw Chippewa), Niibing Giizis Studio. Image courtesy of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and Ziibiwing Center for Anishnabe Culture and Lifeways.

Although Congress passed NAGPRA in 1990 as a way to prevent further looting of Native peoples’ graves and to push institutions to return human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony back to tribes, ProPublica’s extensive reporting on NAGPRA revealed that many institutions have exploited loopholes in the law to avoid complying with it. According to federal data, these institutions “continue to store about half of the 200,000 ancestral remains they reported holding following passage of the 1990 law.”3

1. “Interior Department Announces Final Rule for Implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” U.S. Department of the Interior, December 6, 2023, web.

2. “Interior Department Announces Final Rule,” web.

3. Mary Hudetz, “New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items,” ProPublica: The Repatriation Project, December 8, 2023, web.

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In ProPublica’s The Repatriation Project, they noted that thus far institutions—not tribes—have had the final say on whether their collections are culturally related to the tribes seeking repatriation and only ten institutions hold about half of all the remains that have not been returned to tribes. While the original law required institutions to publicly report holdings and consult with federally recognized tribes to determine where human remains and objects should be repatriated to, many instead chose to interpret the definition of “cultural affiliation” so narrowly that they have been able to “dismiss tribes’ connections to ancestors and keep remains and funerary objects.” ProPublica also revealed that “throughout the 1990s, institutions including the Ohio History Connection and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, thwarted the repatriation process by categorizing everything in their collections that might be subject to the law as ‘culturally unidentifiable.’” Other museums like the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) hadn’t returned some human remains to the Southwest claiming they are too old to accurately determine their tribal affiliation.4 Less than $60,000 in civil penalties have been collected from 20 museums since the law was enacted in 1990.5 And it should be noted that the civil provision

does not apply to Federal agencies, as they are “subject to other remedies under Federal law.”6 It wasn’t until 2022—31 years into the act’s history—that a full-time investigator was assigned to NAGPRA. Having no real teeth to enforce NAGPRA has been an enormous obstacle to implementing it.

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/ Hodulgee Muscogee), a long-time Native rights advocate who helped develop the original NAGPRA legislation, believes this to be an ongoing, egregious oversight with the recent updates. She writes: Once again, the NAGPRA office has overwritten and underwritten the law. In these new regs, the NAGPRA office lets off the hook the NPS [National Park Service] and all those federal agencies that were and are out of compliance with the law, as well as all those educational institutions and other holding repositories that have avoided repatriations and accountability for decades. At the same time, the regs do nothing to address the areas that need the most attention: strengthening the law enforcement and related investigative and adjudicating mechanisms to actually punish offending entities and individuals, deterring would-be

offenders, and stemming the rising tide of underground trafficking, both off books nationally and in Europe, Asia, and Africa.⁷ While no sweeping changes to strengthen enforcement seem to have been made in the final rule, the recent changes that require institutions to obtain consent from lineal descendants before human remains or cultural items can be exhibited, accessed, or researched, as well as the update that eliminates the category of “culturally unidentifiable human remains,” have caused an immediate public response by several institutions.

Chicago’s Field Museum issued a press release on January 10, 2024, to alert visitors that they had covered several displays in the Robert R. McCormick Halls of the Ancient Americas and the Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples. The museum said that this was in direct response to the new rule.

Only a few days later, the Cleveland Museum of Art followed suit with News 5 Cleveland reporting that the institution had covered three out of the six display cases in their Native North American Art gallery and was “currently reviewing archival records to determine if consent consistent with the regulations has been obtained and, in instances where there

4. Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz, Ash Ngu, and Graham Lee Brewer, “America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains,” ProPublica: The Repatriation Project, January 11, 2023, web.

5. Gabriella Angeleti, “US museums cover Native American displays as revised federal regulations take effect,” The Art Newspaper, January 29, 2024, web.

6. “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Enforcement,” National Park Service, January 12, 2024, web.

7. Suzan Shown Harjo, email message to author, February 23, 2024.

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cultures. The Halls we are closing are vestiges of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives, and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples. Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others. In closing these Halls and covering other exhibits, we are guided by the same interest in addressing the history of our Museum, and natural history museums in general, that led us to announce a new approach to the stewardship of our human remains collection in October, and, as I mentioned then, these actions are part of a beginning, not an end point. We embrace the new NAGPRA regulations’ potential to improve the processes by which museums work with tribes and communities, and we will use this opportunity to continue our own learning and advance our commitment to working in new ways.10

ABOVE NAGPRA and Ethical Repatriation banner at the Museum of the Cherokee People, North Carolina. Photo: Sarah Stierch (CC BY-SA 2.0).

is no record of consent, determine which parties need to be consulted. The 30-day period between the time the new requirements were issued and when they went [into] effect did not provide adequate time to secure consent.”⁸ After another week or so had passed, The New York Times reported that the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) closed its Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains Halls; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University would be removing all funerary objects from exhibition; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art had already removed about 20 items from its musical instrument galleries.⁹ Other museums around the country have since removed or covered items as well.

Sean Decatur, the president of the American Museum of Natural History, wrote a a letter to staff on January 16, 2024, explaining the closures at AMNH: While the actions we are taking this week may seem sudden, they reflect a growing urgency among all museums to change their relationships to, and representation of, Indigenous

Native America Calling hosted a radio show in response to all of the news about these somewhat dramatic exhibition closures. Guest Kate Compton-Gore, the NAGPRA specialist for the Museum of Northern Arizona, said, “The closing or covering of exhibits indicates that museums don’t know what they have, and they haven’t been accurately talking and having conversations with their tribal communities and doing proper consultation over the years.... If you have a good record of consultation [with tribes] then you know all the information about the items you have on display, and whether or not they are sensitive or could potentially be sensitive.”11 Compton-Gore also said that when consultation with local tribal communities is ongoing, repatriation doesn’t become an unexpected time or budget challenge for a museum. Instead, it’s already part of what an institution has prioritized. Indeed, places like the Museum of Us in San Diego and a network of public museums called History Colorado were unphased by the news. “We’re not scrambling,” Kara Vetter, the Museum of Us’s senior director of cultural resources told ProPublica. “It doesn’t really change anything for us.”12 On the Native America Calling program, William Hughes, president of the Authentic Tribal Art Dealers Association (ATADA), said, “The new regulation, particularly 10.1d, the prior consent requirement, … is certainly a win for activists. It’s going to break the repatriation log jam and provide them with a very coercive tool to force repatriation of items from museums.

However, it is going to be a disaster and cause a lot of disruption and confusion and probably loss of collections, of course, at museums.” Hughes also felt that museums were shocked to see a difference between the proposed and final regulations because the prior proposal only outlined prior consent on the appropriate treatment, care, and handling of items but did not indicate prior consent for the actual display of items. Later, when the host pressed and asked Hughes who he thought would be the museums to lose their collections, Hughes said: “Well, they’ll be

8. Nadeen Abusada, “Cleveland Museum of Art conceals Native American pieces on display due to updated federal law,” News 5 Cleveland, January 18, 2024, web.

9. Julia Jacobs and Zachary Small, “Leading Museums Remove Native Displays Amid New Federal Rules,” The New York Times, January 26, 2024, web.

10. Sean Decatur, “Statement on New NAGPRA Regulations,” American Museum of Natural History, January 26, 2024, web.

11. Shawn Spruce, host, “Why are museums taking down Native exhibitions?,” produced by Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, Native America Calling, February 5, 2024, radio, 55:38, web.

12. Mary Hudetz and Logan Jaffe, “Some Museums Scrambled to Remove Native American Items From Display. These Museums Didn’t Need to,” ProPublica: The Repatriation Project, February 21, 2024, web.

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HOUSE OF WELCOME CULTURAL ARTS CENTER AT THE EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE

SUPPORTING INDIGENOUS ARTS MASTERY Supporting Indigenous Arts Mastery Program (SIAM) grants of $30,000 to $50,000 to 2- and 4-year colleges and universities to develop or continue work with local Tribe(s) to support Tribal cultural arts. Rolling deadline Eligibility: 2- to 4-year colleges in the Upper Midwest, Pacific Northwest, Southwest, Alaska & British Columbia Additional support available for non-Tribal colleges

repatriated. They won’t be lost; they will be repatriated.”13 On the other side of the NAGPRA updates sit the tribal communities now tasked with helping to solve a problem they didn’t create and never wanted to be a part of. Individuals who have already taken on the unpaid cultural and emotional labor (and historical trauma) of the work are now tasked with learning the new language of the updated law and responding appropriately to its requirements. While there is a resounding “it’s about time” feeling about the attempt to close the loopholes that have been exploited by institutions for so long, the updates create a new set of procedures, and therefore work, with the potential to overwhelm tribal offices without equal access to resources.

As just one example, consultation requests from museums will likely

More info: longhouse@evergreen.edu (360) 867-6718 www.evergreen.edu/longhouse

increase as institutions have until July 12, 2024, to send documentation of any remains or cultural items that were removed from federal or tribal lands and whose disposition is not complete.

Raphael Wahwassuck (Prairie Band Potawatomi) said his tribe has been “inundated with an increased volume of calls and emails from organizations inquiring about consultations,” and that “keeping up with these requests might be an obstacle for a lot of tribes and tribal nations, who might only have a few members dedicated to working on NAGPRA-related issues.”14 In 2019 artist Nicholas Galanin (Tlingít/Unangax̂) created an installation piece called Fair Warning: A Sacred

Place. In it, photos that depict empty display cases from the Northwest Coast Hall at the American Museum of Natural History hang on the wall as place holders for real displays. An audio recording of auctioneers selling Indigenous art and objects issues the fair warning before a bid closes at the drop of the hammer.

Galanin wonders, “Will the museum still be invested in the community when the objects are gone?”15 According to ProPublica, the remains of more than 97,000 Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native ancestors are still held by 623 museums, universities, and federal agencies.16 Will the final NAGPRA rule help to get these ancestors home? Only time will tell.

Staci Golar is a nonprofit arts and communications consultant and arts and culture writer based in Boise, Idaho. She loves sharing the stories of people who bring important and beautiful things to the world.

13. Spruce, “Why are museums taking down Native exhibitions?,” Native America Calling.

14. Eunice Alpasan, “As Field Museum Covers Native Cultural Items Following New Federal Rules, Some Native Tribes Say Changes Are Long Overdue,” WTTW News, February 8, 2024, web.

15. Karen K. Ho, “What the New Federal Regulations for Native American Ancestors and Sacred Objects Mean for Museums,” ARTnews, February 21, 2024, web.

16. Logan Jaffe et al., “America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains,” ProPublica; Ash Ngu and Andrea Suozzo, “Does Your Local Museum or University Still Have Native American Remains?,” ProPublica: The Repatriation Project, January 11, 2023, web.

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FROM RIVER CANE TO PINE NEEDLES The Journey & Adaptation of Alabama & Koasati Baskets

By Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation)

L

ONGLEAF PINES (Pinus palustris) have stood as sentries over the homelands of the Alabama and Koasati people for millennia. Tall and straight in posture, sometimes reaching a height of 110 feet, these evergreen trees exhibit strength, endurance, and stability. They have watched the history of these two distinct people through the ages and could tell their stories. And perhaps they do, through the beautiful baskets that skilled hands shape from the tree’s pine needles and cones, based on a basketmaking heritage that has also utilized other materials over the course of time.

Generations have contributed to the cultural knowledge of basketry, one which young people continue to learn today in an act of both cultural and resource adaptation. Humans and trees live together; they are neighbors. Together, they form a community providing shelter, protection, and other resources crucial for

conifer. These are gathered and dried by artists before being crafted into baskets with imported raffia and sewing needles.

In fact, the art of Koasati pine needle basketmaking is not called weaving, but rather, sewing.1

each other’s survival. Throughout history, trees have provided wood for housing and even the raw material for medicines. The Alabama and Koasati peoples and the longleaf pine represent symbiosis.

With needle-like leaves in clusters of three that grow up to 18 inches in length, the longleaf pine boasts the longest leaves of any North American

THE KOASATI AND ALABAMA are closely related tribes within the Muscogee Confederacy. In 1540, an expedition led

by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto encountered both tribes, the Koasati in western Tennessee and the Alabama in northeastern Mississippi and Alabama.2 As explained by the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas’s Historic Preservation Officer Bryant Celestine (AlabamaCoushatta, 1974–2023), this encounter was in many ways not a desirable event but it is acknowledged that the Spaniard’s written chronicles not only provided information for today’s tribal citizens but also documentation required for federal recognition of these tribes.3

1. Denise Bates and Linda Langley, interview by Bruce R. Magee and Stephen Payne, “Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers,” Louisiana Anthology Podcast, YouTube video, July 9, 2021, 1:53:03, web.

2. Blue Clark, Indian Tribes of Oklahoma: A Guide (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 24–25.

3. Bryant J. Celestine, “Alabama-Coushatta Indians,” City of Allen, YouTube video, October 20, 2016, 1:35:08, web. Also see Denise E. Bates, Basket Diplomacy: Leadership, Alliance-Building, and Resilience among the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, 1884–1984 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2020).

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After de Soto, late 17th-century colonists documented that the Alabama had migrated eastward, near the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, tributaries of the Alabama River. Joining them were the Koasati, who established villages north of present-day Montgomery, Alabama, and southward for at least 40 miles on each side of the Alabama River. Both the Alabama and the Koasati peoples were members of the Upper Creek Confederacy, an organization of tribal towns built around the dominant Muscogee tribe.

The two tribes have always been culturally and linguistically similar, with intermarriage common. Some members eventually settled in the same area of Southeast Texas. The Republic of Texas recognized the tribes’ claim to lands, but it was not until 1987 that the U.S. Congress passed the Restoration Act that firmly established federal recognition to the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.

Another community of about 300 Koasati permanently settled along the Louisiana Bayou Blue, located in what is now Allen Parish, Louisiana. After much effort, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana received state recognition in 1972 and federal recognition the following year.

A third group, the AlabamaQuassarte Tribal Town, maintained a close alliance with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and migrated to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), settling between Weleetka and Wetumka near the junction of the Canadian and North Canadian rivers.

They gained independent federal recognition under the 1936 Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act. Through all these changes, the Alabama and Koasati people retained their tribal cultural practices, particularly basketmaking using white oak, sedge grass, wire grass, and particularly river cane to make baskets used for harvesting, storage, and even currency in trade networks.

JUST AS THE ALABAMA AND KOASATI people’s homelands were reduced through the years, so too was the habitat of the plants they had historically used in basketmaking. In the early 20th century, the longleaf pine came to predominate as other materials became more and more

difficult to obtain. But this resource is now also under increasing pressure.

An extremely strong pine, it is fire-dependent and does best when managed fires are regularly initiated, something Native Americans did for hundreds of years. Today, some stands have suffered through more than a century of fire suppression. Similarly, Coushatta basket makers in Louisiana face an increasing shortage of longleaf pine needles due to deforestation from logging. As a remedy, makers have been using slash pine (Pinus elliottii), a much faster growing—and thus more sustainable—variety of pine. This tree and the loblolly pine are

above, top Alabama-Coushatta pine needle baskets, Texas. Photo: Beverly Moseley, USDANRCS. Image courtesy of NRCS and the National Agroforestry Center (CC BY-ND 2.0). above, bottom Bryant Celestine (AlabamaCoushatta), tribal historic preservation officer, at right, speaking about baskets, 2016 (CC0). opposite, top Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) in Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. Photo: Chris M. Morris (CC BY 2.0). opposite, bottom Elsie John (Coushatta, 1913– 1987), Duck Basket, 1978, pine needles, raffia, dye, 5⅛ × 3½ × 2¼ in., Louisiana, collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 25/8688. Image courtesy of NMAI Photo Services.

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the most commercially important in the southern United States. Its needles are much shorter than those of the longleaf; some artists choose to purchase longleaf pine needles from other regions.

The longleaf pine is the state tree of Alabama. It once inhabited up to 90 million acres but currently covers a mere 3 percent of its original area.4 The trees that remain, smaller in number, continue to live together and support each other.

But their reduced numbers put at risk the baskets, medicines, and other uses of the longleaf that are entwined with Alabama and Koasati cultures. And it’s not just the people who depend on longleaf pine.

More than 30 endangered and threatened species, including eastern indigo snakes, are dependent upon this massive conifer.

The tribes have successfully negotiated harvesting agreements with several branches of the federal government.

The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas secured an agreement from Fort Moore (a U.S. Army base near Columbus, Georgia) to harvest longleaf pine needles. Tribal Elder Walter Celestine (Alabama-Coushatta) is involved in this initiative and always begins the harvest in a respectful way by thanking the land and the pines

in the Koasati language. His tribe also signed a contract with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Texas Forest Service to enroll 400 acres into the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. This not only serves the purposes of longleaf pine reforestation but also encourages wildlife to live among them, thus recreating a healthy ecosystem.5 Six sites within the reservation have been chosen for this project.

NRCS provides guidance and technical assistance that is expected to lead to as many as 700 seedlings planted per acre. As part of the management strategy, prescribed fire is an important part of reforestation efforts. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas and The Nature Conservancy are working together to restore species and have partnered with the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network to partially fund the tribe’s Wildland Fire Management team to provide equipment and training.6 BASKETS ARE AMONG the most common and prized gifts of tribal citizens, given at prominent celebrations such as birthdays, weddings, and the like. Koasati baskets are also diplomatic

gifts presented by tribal leaders to politicians and other dignitaries at important meetings. Almost all Koasati have a story about a favorite basket or some other significant memory connected to basketry, including pine needle harvests.

Baskets serve as vehicles for cultural transmission that weave together elders and youth, different genders, and Native and non-Native people. They can be more than gifts or utilitarian items and have been a staple cottage industry for tribal members and a vehicle of artistic expression. Basketry as art has evolved over time and basket sewers showcase creativity and innovative adaptations.

In the recent past, basketmaking was predominantly associated with women, but when it comes to many skills Alabama and Koasati cultures make no distinction between women’s and men’s work. In fact, the Koasati language has no gender markers. Ethnographers and other documentarians noted over several centuries that there seemed to be no gender preference when it came to basketmaking.

However, as industry and job opportunities changed, women found fewer opportunities to work outside the home, so many turned to basketmaking for extra income for their families. Women have historically been caregivers of children, particularly because the Alabama and Koasati are matrilineal.

In earlier years, river cane (Arundinaria Gigantea) was a mainstay for the production of utilitarian items in the Koasati culture, including sleeping and burial mats, blowguns, ceremonial instruments, and flutes, as well as baskets. The material was expertly used by tribal makers and the products were often sold as necessities to settlers. Basket maker Joyce Abbey Poncho (Louisiana Coushatta) retells a story of river cane harvests her grandmother took part in: “Back then, they used to go to Bayou Nezpique to look for cane. They used to hunt for cane all of the time. They would harvest a lot of cane, bring it home, dry it, split it, get together and weave baskets. It used to be said, ‘Cane baskets are what the Indians use to fight against poverty.’”7

7. Linda P. Langley and Denise E. Bates, Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers: Traditional Knowledge, Resourcefulness, and Artistry as a Means of Survival (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2021), 28.

4. “Longleaf Pine,” National Wildlife Federation, web.

5. “Ensuring a Legacy of Longleaf,” The Nature Conservancy, web.

6. Beverly Moseley, “Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas Begins Longleaf Pine Restoration Efforts,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, August 3, 2011, web.

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As the Koasati were relocated, they began using pine needles to weave baskets in the 1930s. Minnie Williams (Alabama-Coushatta, 1882–1963) is believed to be the first tribal basket maker documented in a photo creating work with pine needles.8 Basket maker Elliot Rain Abbey (Louisiana Coushatta) has related how his aunts dispatched him into East Texas to harvest pinecones and needles for weaving materials.9 Such work is not for the weak. It can take 500 to 700 needles for a basket measuring only four inches across. His aunts taught Abbey to tightly wrap the bundles of pine needles with raffia when forming a basket. According to ancestral protocols handed down to him, there is more to the art than just harvesting the materials and the utilitarian making of a basket. Energy is woven into the object that will influence whoever ultimately receives it. “My aunts always taught me to make baskets with good feeling,” Abbey says. “Never try to make baskets when you have a bad day or aren’t in the right mind frame to make them.”10 Since the 1950s, Koasati baskets have evolved beyond utilitarian necessities into true works of art, with tribal influence instrumental in elevating the status of this transition. Today’s baskets, often adorned with pinecone scales and flower petals, have splashes of color from raffia—some dyed with plants harvested in the old ways, though commercial dyes are also prominently used. The baskets have also taken on forms that are not meant to simply act as containers, including animal shapes that create the feeling of effigies. Weaving classes have become routine, not only to revitalize the art but to continue Coushatta basketmaking for other than economic reasons.

At one time, basket makers adapted designs to fulfill the needs of non-Native neighbors who wanted baskets for utilitarian uses. It was not uncommon for Koasati basket makers to start learning skills by age 8 and selling their first piece by age 10. More recently, it is more common to see makers begin learning the craft in adolescence, although most are well exposed to the discipline during

preschool. When asked why they chose to pursue basketry, basket makers under the age of 20 explained their desire to embrace a form of Coushatta identity and pride—and even a sense of obligation to do so.11 Fourth-generation basket makers plan to teach their children basketry as a form of passing down cultural values within the contemporary world.

8. Langley and Bates, Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers, 35.

9. Julia Jones, “Woven Through Time,” Texas Highways, September 2022.

10. Jones, “Woven Through Time.”

11. Bates and Langley, Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers, 78.

above, top Doris Celestine (Coushatta), Floral Basket with Lid, 1964, pine needles, raffia, dye, 11 × 8½ × 5¾ in., Texas, collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/122.

Image courtesy of NMAI Photo Services. above, bottom Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna/Jemez Pueblos) visits a Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana basketry workshop in January 2024. Photo: U.S. Department of the Interior (CC0). opposite Turkey basket from Texas, purse from Louisiana, and pinecone basket from Texas, by Alabama and Coushatta artists once known, private collection. Photo: FAAM.

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ABOVE Maggie Poncho (Alabama-Coushatta, 1888–1979), Alligator Basket with Cover and Tray, 1964, pine needles, pinecone scales, raffia, dye, Texas, collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/841. Image courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

Basketmaking is demanding.

Makers must first harvest thousands of needles and dry them in a specific way, turning and rotating them so they do not turn brown and brittle. And while natural dye foraging and processing is not as prevalent as it once was, it is a daunting process that many artists choose to pursue. Most often the raffia is dyed, although some makers also dye the pine needles, a long and laborious procedure even with commercial dyes—though less so than in the early days of using commercial dyes, when colors were leached from previously dyed materials. Marjorie Abbey Battise (Louisiana Coushatta) explains: “We color the raffia with a dye.

Back in the ’30s, they would have crepe paper … but nowadays they use [synthetic] Rit to dye their raffia, to make colorful flowers, and use these to design the baskets.”12 Louisiana Coushatta makers, like many others, come together to prepare materials and create their wares in a community or social environment, sometimes in family homes and other times in events

organized by the tribe. The opportunity for different generations to join in this activity allows skills and stories that might otherwise be lost to pass to the next generation. The social aspect is also important to younger basket makers; they not only gain skills but receive encouraging approval or critiques from older makers.

Basketmaking is a teaching opportunity as much as it is a social and community-building one. Myrna Abbey Wilson (Louisiana Coushatta) describes the intimacy between the maker and the basket as well. “Every basket that we make, you’re making a memory of it. Like a vase basket, you make it and then you enjoy making it, and that’s a symbol of you.”13 Bark, leather, white oak, and other items are used for adornments, though pinecones are the most frequently used material. Makers have their own methods involving personal sewing boxes replete with tools such as needles, thimbles, pliers, small knives, and other necessary

items. The contents of each box are personal to the maker. The entire procedure of basketmaking is laborious, with one young maker stating that he probably made just 5 cents per hour all told.14 Families have distinct styles, and while baskets are not signed, they have identifiable designs, techniques, and adornment. Koasati makers never abandoned cane baskets, though pine needleworks are far more common now.

Leonard Battise (Louisiana Coushatta), a prominent river cane weaver, has been teaching a new generation of weavers since 2012, having learned the craft from his father Solomon. While the elbows— the portion of the river cane between the joints used for basketry—are much shorter today, perhaps this ecological development will drive opportunities for adaptation and new variations of Alabama and Koasati basketmaking in the future—just as incorporating longleaf pine needles did a century ago.

Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation) is a basket maker, textile artist, musician, mobiographer, and writer who owns 785 Arts in Topeka, Kansas.

12. Dayna Bowker Lee, “Every Basket Tells a Story: Five Native American Basketry Traditions in Louisiana,” in Core Memory: Louisiana Native American Basketry, exhibition curated by Dana Bowker Lee and Teresa Parker Farris (Tulane: Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, February 2022), 19.

13. Lee, “Every Basket Tells a Story,” 19.

14. Bates and Langley, “Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers.”

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KarmaHenry.com Toiyabi Kwana’a (Far Away Mountain) 2023, acrylic on canvas, 36 × 36 inches

PROFILE

Baniwa Interdisciplinary Artist

DENILSON BANIWA

By Mariana Brazão

L

AUNCHED INTO THE SPOTLIGHT with his Chief-Jaguar Hacking (Pajé-Onça Hackeando) performance at the 33rd São Paulo Biennial in 2018, Denilson Baniwa (Baniwa) is an artist, leader, and activist who has helped shape the Brazilian Indigenous contemporary art movement. Since 2020, Denilson has shifted his artistic practice to center collaboration. Selected to co-curate the Brazilian pavilion in the 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale alongside Arissana Pataxó (Pataxó) and Gustavo Caboco (Wapichana), Denilson hopes to dedicate his time to research and curatorial positions. He aims to establish a framework for Indigenous art in Brazil and build on the groundwork laid by himself and fellow Indigenous artists.

You were born in the 1980s during a critical moment for Indigenous rights in Brazil. The 1988 constitution was drafted, which introduced a shift in how Brazil recognized Indigenous peoples. How did this period influence your upbringing and eventually come to influence your work?

I was still too young to understand the changing times in the eighties, but it completely transformed relationships in Rio Negro, the region where I was born. It was when the first Indigenous associations of Rio Negro began to form. Notably, the first was an organization of Indigenous women from the Alto Rio region called the Association of Indigenous Women of the Upper Rio Negro [Associação das Mulheres Indígenas do Alto Rio Negro

1. Interview translated from Portuguese by the author.

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(AMARN)], which I find remarkable, and then others followed.1 When I was about 14 or 15 years old, my uncle took me to one of the assemblies of Indigenous organizations in the region. It was the first time I witnessed a meeting of major leaders from various Indigenous peoples discussing matters that made complete sense to me.

At the time, I didn’t even know I was Indigenous. I had never stopped to think about what that meant and what the significance of belonging to an Indigenous people was.

It was very impactful for me, so much so that I asked to stay a little longer at the organization’s headquarters to better understand this world. In 1998 or 1999, I went to the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro [Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro (FOIRN)] to participate in a type of residency in communication and multimedia. From that point on, I never stopped participating in the activities of the Indigenous movement.

I became part of the youth group, then I joined the Association of Indigenous Students of Amazonas. Later I worked in a larger organization, the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon [Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (COIAB)], from which the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil [Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB)] emerged.

I worked in communication, then environmental issues, then education, policies, and so on. My desire was to become like those people who defended their community and understood their rights to create conditions so that we can live safely in the Amazon. My formation, let’s say, as a person, as a human, and a

DENILSON BANIWA

above Brasil Terra Indígena (Brazil Indigenous Land), 2019, paint, collaged paper on lambe-lambe and plywood. opposite Denilson Baniwa and his work Hilo: Nada que é dourado permanece (Hilo: Nothing that is golden remains) at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (State Gallery of São Paulo). Photo: Levi Fanan.

political being, comes from the Indigenous movement, and this is reflected in my role as an artist, as a political person in the world of art as well.

You’ve lived and worked in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, for several years now.

What guided your decision to leave Rio Negro?

I went to Manaus to work for COIAB in 2004 where I had the opportunity to go to university. I took the entrance exam at the University of Amazonas and chose to study computing. It was a choice very much aligned with the field of communication. It was the beginning of what I saw as today’s digital communication medium, and the Indigenous leaders also thought so.

At that time, I was dating a girl from Niterói, and it was when the demarcation processes of the Indigenous Raposa Serra do Sol Land began. COIAB, along with the Indigenous Council of Roraima

[Conselho Indígena de Roraima (CIR)], were at the forefront of this struggle.

There were many problems with violence.

Everyone at COIAB was scared to stay in Manaus and planned to leave.

I had received a scholarship to study environmental law in Switzerland, but I decided to move to Niterói, and it ended up extending over time. I went back and forth to Amazonas because of my work with the Indigenous movement until I ended up settling here. I went to university in Rio to study communication and distanced myself from the Indigenous movement because of the physical distance. Then I got a “common” job, so to speak, until finding this path that is a path in the arts.

How did your path in the arts start?

In 2015 I was separating from my partner, and my job was not bringing me joy. I had decided to return to the village as life in the city was no longer satisfying for

me. It was around this time that another Indigenous artist found me on the street and told me she mentioned me to the Rio Museum of Art for an upcoming exhibit [Dja Guata Porã: Indigenous Rio de Janeiro (2017–2018)], and they were interested in learning more about the Indigenous cause. I thought to myself, I want to leave here; this big city doesn’t make sense to me.

I ended up talking to the curators, Pablo Lafuente and Clarissa Diniz, as well as Sandra Benites (Guaraní Ñandewa), who was curating for the first time. I ultimately joined the organizing team along with the architect and helped think about the exhibition design, the visual identity, the communication of the exhibition.

Clarissa and Pablo were already respected curators in Brazil and they brought with them many experiences that intrigued me to learn more about what an art exhibition is and its power of communication.

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PROFILE

From a young age, I liked to paint and draw. Clarissa saw my work at the time and encouraged me to dedicate myself to it. When I came to Niterói, I took a course in an atelier where I studied with an artist. So, I already had a notion of painting. I went back to studying drawing, painting in 2015/2016 until now even. The exhibition of Dja Guata Porã introduced me to this world and gave me the opportunity to understand it.

Very present in your work is your Baniwa culture. Could you tell us more about the Baniwa culture and how it shapes who you are as an artist?

When I understood that an artist is a communicator, I began to reflect on the role of the Indigenous artist in the world.

Having been shaped by the Indigenous movement, I had an interest in sharing a bit of the Indigenous world, so that people might begin to understand and respect it. The Baniwa people, like others, are connected to visuality and have interest in recording their history. There are petroglyphs that tell the story from the creation of the universe to the arrival of humans.

For Indigenous culture, everything is very much intertwined. It’s not separated. For example, our body painting is connected to Baniwa history, to the history of the Baniwa worlds that exist, but also to the knowledge of natural pigments, plants, the magic of stories, and family relations. This resonates a lot for me when I work. The Baniwa people don’t separate art and education. Every moment of life is a moment of learning.

In fact, there’s no separation between life and art. It’s all hyperconnected like that.

Ailton Krenak (Krenak) once said that a shaman, when he travels to a world, say the world of jaguars, he goes as a human. He has to mimic the ways of the jaguars, the culture of jaguars. He has to learn the language, the gestures, the way they behave, what they eat, a bit of how they think. When the shaman returns, he passes this new repertoire on to the community.

The Indigenous artist, in the same way, shares this repertoire through his work. It’s kind of like a shaman artist. I try to find in the worlds that I traverse a

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way to create these connections. I practice this a lot in my exhibitions and titles. It’s a Baniwa way of being. One of the Baniwa teachings that one learns when transitioning from child to adult life is to dedicate your life to understanding the world and other cultures so that you can understand who you are in this world. This is a bit of the exercise that I do as an artist too.

One of your most recognized works is your Chief-Jaguar Hacking (Pajé-Onça Hackeando) performance at the 33rd São Paulo Biennial. What was your experience with this activation?

At the time, Jaider Esbell [Macuxi, 1979– 2021] and I were in São Paulo, and we were trying to talk to curators and art institutions, hoping they would listen to us about a production of Indigenous artists in Brazil that needed to be seen.

No one wanted to listen, and we were really upset about this. While we were in São Paulo, we found out about the biennial and decided to visit. When we got there, we realized that there was a lot of Indigenous presence in that space through photos, objects, in the names

DENILSON BANIWA

of works, but there were no actual Indigenous people, which for us, was very uncomfortable. We started to think about what kind of response we would give to this.

We considered writing a letter but didn’t and remained upset.

One day the story of the Jaguar Shaman came to me, which is a very important story in Baniwa culture. He is one of the most powerful shamans and most knowledgeable about the universe.

I talked to Jaider and suggested we show this ancestral being what’s happening and let him see it.

The action of the Jaguar Shaman wasn’t linked to the biennial, it was linked to a protest at the Monument to the Flags (Monumento às Bandeiras) in front of Ibirapuera Park. Everything starts there.

The Jaguar Shaman comes to Earth and performs a ritual around the Monument to the Flags. Everything then unfolds in a way that I could no longer control. It goes through other monuments and art institutions in Ibirapuera Park until finally, I’m at the biennial.

When it was at the Monument to the Flags, the police intervened since they understood the protection of a public object. When it was at the biennial, everyone was confused. It took some time for them to realize it wasn’t a scheduled performance for the biennial. Once they understood it was an artistic performance, they waited to intervene. I made my speech at the end, and that’s when security approached me and took me to a room to talk. When I take off the mask, that is me. Until taking off the mask, it’s the Jaguar Shaman. This activation ended up having this title because it is inspired by a desire to bring to Earth a being who better understands this transformation of time, claiming the right to speak in these spaces.

Where did the idea of “hacking” come from?

The “hacking” portion came later upon reflection. I started to think about how there’s a sacredness in certain artistic actions. Maybe these spaces can be used as a mechanism for the insertion of discourse. I learned from computing that

a hacker is a person who studies systems and finds flaws within them. They begin to [prod the] tension in these systems until their collapse through the insertion of small new data that either modify the path of this information or erase it.

So hacking in this sense was understanding the system that is the art world and the performance within it as data.

Once it is detected, it has already caused a disruption. The Jaguar Shaman, in this case, is operating in the system of biennial, inserting new data into it, going unnoticed until when it does, there was no way to prevent the action. For me it became clear how other Indigenous artists could position themselves within this system. How, from their insertion or their presence, they could alter certain data.

The data can be discourse, various things.

“The Baniwa people don’t separate art and education. Every moment of life is a moment of learning.”

above Pescaria (Fishing), 2023, acrylic, chalk on canvas. Photo: Pedro Agilson. opposite Escola de Pajés (School of Shamans), 2022, acrylic and chalk on canvas.

Photo: Pedro Agilson.

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PROFILE

How has your work evolved since the São Paulo Biennial performance?

Since 2020 there has been a significant transformation in my thinking as an artist. I began to be recognized for my performance at the biennial, which was a somewhat violent performance. Most of my work up to that point, and a little after, was very combative. Even today, people think I still do combative work—against agribusiness, against the history of art, against colonization as a general context.

In 2020 I started to think about how to be an artist and be Baniwa in this entire world. How could I bring a discourse beyond my political activism? I started to think about how the Jaguar Shaman also taught me some things. I saw that it was necessary to challenge colonization, but that it could be done in ways other than direct combat.

I started to adapt what Jaider and I later called the “methodology of pussanga.” In Rio Negro, pussanga is a type of spell that can help cure illness, enchant someone to like you, or make people listen to you more carefully. It’s a medicinal plant that has the same meaning for the Macuxi people.

The first time I adapted this methodology was during the exhibition Véxoa:

Nós sabemos at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo with my piece Hilo: Nada que é dourado permanece (Hilo: Nothing that is golden remains) where I planted a garden in the parking lot of the museum.

It was as impactful as a combative work because that parking lot has not returned to a parking lot to this day. Today there’s a store, and there are plans to make another garden there. That work was done in partnership with the plants, butterflies, dragonflies, and birds there. Every time I do a project nowadays, I call someone to collaborate so we can build something together.

I think a good example of this is your work with Escola Panapaná2 also at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo in 2023.

Can you tell us about it?

Yes, I think Panapaná is exactly that.

I have called it a “sowing” project in terms of welcoming various people and creating a plantation of memories there.

I was invited to do a project, and I knew I didn’t want to do a solo work from the beginning. During all the conversations, the idea of creating a school and occupying the octagon with various activities came up, bringing Indigenous guests from across Brazil. It ended up being more than 50 teachers. There were

almost 60 activities and classes scheduled.

More than a thousand students enrolled during the four months that the school was active.

With the Panapaná school, we ended up creating a certain repertoire of saying, look, we have Indigenous filmmakers, here are their films. There are writers, musicians, visual artists. There is theater, there is performance. There is fashion. In short, the Panapaná school brought all these people together saying, if you’re really interested in understanding this world, these are the people, come.

It was a way to create this repertoire for whoever wants to understand the current Indigenous moment.

What are your current motivations and priorities? Where are you putting your energy for the coming years?

There are many new developments this year. I, along with two other Indigenous individuals, are curating the Brazilian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which is incredible. At the same time, it’s sad that it’s only happening in 2024. It took a long time for this to happen, and I think all of this has given me more motivation to want to study, not just to go beyond being an artist in terms of producing works, but to be a researcher of this history. Perhaps

2. Escola Panapaná was an interactive school within a three-story installation resembling a cocoon that transformed into a butterfly by the end of the 2023 exhibition at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Panapaná comes from the Old Tupi word for a flight of butterflies.

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DENILSON BANIWA

to study curation as well because then I think I can finally dedicate myself to writing, to thinking about this, which as an artist, I’m very tied to thinking and producing something in response to that.

There have always been Indigenous artists for a much longer time than us, but it was always about occupying spaces rather than thinking about those spaces, thinking about the theories, the histories of art, and so on. When we started back in 2016 up to the invasion of the biennial, we had very few references. We knew very few people. Today we have dozens of Indigenous artists occupying many spaces, winning awards, and being productive in their own ways, so I want to observe this. This is motivating

me to close the cycle that was started so I can dedicate myself to another way of working.

I think everything that has been done so far is important and has changed a lot of things. It’s necessary to understand it to find ways to make this enduring, not just a phase or a phenomenon that fades away over time. I have an interest in studying North American and Canadian production. They’ve been occupying important places in academia, knowledge production, and theory for much longer than us. I imagine that in Brazil, we could also reach a point where we can observe the history of Indigenous Brazilian art and the history of Brazilian art in general and find our places within it.

DENILSONBANIWA.COM.BR Mariana Brazão is a curator, researcher, and Fulbright Scholar with expertise in Indigenous art from Brazil, especially wooden benches. She has worked with independent art spaces, museums, and performing arts centers such as Coleção BEĨ, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, and the National Women’s History Museum.

“I started to adapt what Jaider and I later called the ‘methodology of pussanga.’”

above Estrangeiro (Stranger), 2023, acrylic, collage and chalk on canvas. Photo: Pedro Agilson. opposite Moqueca de Marido (Husband’s Moqueca), 2023, acrylic, chalk on canvas. Photo: Pedro Agilson.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 61

PROFILE

Haida/Tlingit Sculptor, Printmaker, Painter & Jeweler

ROBERT DAVIDSON

By Paul Niemi Raven sits in solitude on a beach on Haida Gwaii, the archipelago 60 miles off the north shore of the British Columbia coastline. Looking down at his feet, he spies an unusual clamshell. He then notices small beings projecting from its dull edges. Raven, often called the Trickster in Northwest Coast Indigenous lore, uses his charms to convince the shy creatures to emerge from the confines of their shell into the outside world as the first Haida people.

B

ORN IN 1946, Guud san glans Robert Davidson (Haida/ Tlingit), prolific carver, jeweler, sculptor, painter, culture bearer, author, and activist, knows well the history of the Haida people and their story of emergence. After all, it was he who conceived and carved with his brother Reg Davidson (Haida/Tlingit) the first totem pole to be raised on Haida Gwaii in nearly one hundred years. From the beginning of time to their cultural reawakening after this historic 1969 pole raising of Bear Mother in Masset, British Columbia, and beyond, the Haida have always adapted. They have moved forward despite the enactment of the 1884 Indian Act in Canada

which brought them into cultural darkness until the laws eased in 1951. It was a period when it seemed that Haida art and culture might disappear forever. However, forever is a long time.

Indestructibility seems to underpin the Haida's rise back into prominence, however, as well as Davidson’s life and career.

Davidson, whose Haida name Guud san glans means Eagle of the Dawn, descends from his famed maternal great-grandfather and carver Charles Edenshaw (Haida, ca. 1839–1920).

Davidson was first mentored at age 13 by his father Claude Davidson (Haida, 1924–1991) and his tsinii (his grandfather) Robert Davidson Sr. (Haida, 1880–1969), whom he credits as his biggest influences. His real journey, however, started when he left Masset to finish high school in Vancouver. Most of the historical art in his village had been cut down, sold, stolen, or left to rot post-contact, so it was in Vancouver where he first came face to face with excellent examples of ancestral Haida art.

Haida art has since joined the ranks of the world’s great artistic legacies. It demonstrates the complexity of Northwest Coast formline, a distinct system of ovoids, U-shapes, and three-cornered tri-negative spaces, or “tri-negs” as Davidson refers to them. This is what he calls the vocabulary of Haida art.

Guud san glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break (2022–23) recently showed at the Vancouver Art Gallery.1 While it closed last spring, its themes reverberate forward with the exhibition’s companion book, Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson, co-penned

by Gary Wyatt and Davidson with a foreword by Karen Duffek.

Both spotlight Davidson’s rise from novice serigrapher to master painter and celebrate the pivotal moment when he changed his work’s focus. It marked a career chapter filled with experimentation that would eternally alter the public’s perception of Haida art. His journey has included endless study and the kind of discipline that breeds intuition.

I asked Davidson to deconstruct the exhibition’s title, and in his soft-toned, professorial way, he grabbed a white unraveled clothes hanger, and the show-and-tell commenced. Drawing an ovoid requires tension, Davidson told me as he reshaped the

1. See Paul Niemi, “Guud san glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break, Vancouver Art Gallery [review],” First American Art Magazine, no. 38 (Spring 2023), 77–78.

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wire. “You have to stop the tension before it bends.”2 The artist must pause before the line breaks to ensure it has tension.

“You don’t want any kinks in the line.” To trust where the line is going, one must put in hours of study, so that it all becomes intuitive. One must “create the intuition,” he said.

As a budding artist, Davidson received guidance from established carvers in Vancouver such as Bill Reid (Haida, 1920–1998) and Doug Cranmer (Kwakwaka'wakw/’Namgis, 1927–2006). One day he showed some carvings to Cranmer, and the seasoned artist responded by drawing an ovoid for him to visually isolate the element. That flash of insight completely changed Davidson’s perception of Haida art. “Up to that point, I was doing just loose ovals.” He raced to the museum to look at the old boxes there, and he was amazed by the shapes he saw.

This lesson allowed him to truly “see” art in an active way. It set him on a path to master intuition, the kind that can result in creating new forms, consciously or not.

The artist recently told me that he had discovered a new being emerging in his art and wanted to introduce it to me. On a very chilly winter’s morning, I drove across the Canadian border to meet with him in his studio in Lower Mainland British Columbia. It’s easy to be intimidated by the 76-year-old Davidson, who many consider to be the greatest living Canadian artist. But he created a relaxed studio visit and even offered a beverage and breakfast. He is very comfortable with his status, and there is a confident humility about him.

Fueled by a thirst for knowledge, rigorous heavyweight training workouts, and a considerable amount of coffee, he has dedicated the last five decades to the study of the poles and boxes of the old Haida masters. Continuously pushing himself toward work, accepting challenges to get better and learn as a student of Haida art, Davidson frequently contemplates the complex style’s origins and the innovation that the Haida exhibited throughout history.

The discovery of something new in his

own work that expands the vocabulary means that the artist can firmly stand in the footprints of his ancestors and experience what they might have felt during the seminal moments in the evolution of Haida formline.

Gallerist and curator Gary Wyatt first pointed out this significant discovery in the artist’s work a few years ago.

With a slight chuckle, Davidson said he’s nicknamed it giidii (child or early development in Haida). Then he flashed his million-dollar smile that began with

above Giidii (Child of Tri-Neg), 2021, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Robert Davidson (Haida) describes the new emerging being in his work as found in his book Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson (Figure 1 Publishing, 2022). Photo: Paul Niemi, 2024.

2. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes by Robert Davidson are from discussion with the author, January 10, 2024, and February 10, 2024.

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above A Portrait of Eagle Transforming, 1989, serigraph on paper, 41 × 29 in., edition of 50. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Whirlpool Kwaa K'iilee, 2018, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.

a slight upturn of the brow, followed by a glimmer in his eye that signaled enjoyment had arrived out of deadpan seriousness. The tri-neg usually helps to direct the energy to where two energies converge and guide the viewer’s eye in one direction. Unknowingly, during the mid to late 1980s, he put an eye in the center of a tri-neg and added a mouth to it. “It was a subconscious move,” one that did not result from calculation. “When I am designing, I just follow my hand.”

He subconsciously repeated the being in 1989 while creating a maskthemed print for an Inuit Gallery

exhibition. In A Portrait of Eagle Transforming (1989), a serigraph with an edition of 50, the artist bookended a mouth between two tri-negs with eyes in the center bottom of the design. “It is really two faces facing each other, but the tri-neg is directing the energy around the ovoid on the bottom,” as Davidson described it. While he wasn’t paying attention to it then, over the last few years he watched giidii reveal itself. He asked the question, Is that how the art in the precontact years developed? “You master those two shapes, then you create a face, or you create a being, and next thing you know Salmon Trout Head emerges or the split pupil of the eye.…” The giidii can be found in many pieces, including the acrylic painting Whirlpool Kwaa K'iilee3 (2018), serigraph Rock Scallop (1989), and most recently acrylic painting Giidii (Child of Tri-Neg) (2021) that marks Davidson’s overt exploration of the being.

The development is exciting because it shows that Haida art never stopped evolving over time. Davidson and other experts know that the Haida were creating argillite carvings for trade beginning as early as 1820. Argillite is a black shale-like material found in various parts of the world including Kaagan (Slatechuck Mountain) on Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. Familiar with the earliest collected argillite carving from that period, Davidson noted its exceptional level of execution. He speculates that its origins were even earlier. “It was very well-developed …,” he said, “so my thinking is it was well-developed long before that time. And it [argillite carving] went through a whole history of development.”

Davidson said that after the early 20th century, argillite carving experienced a decline that resulted from the potlatch prohibition, but it never stopped. It merely adapted to the times. “They didn’t say, ‘Too bad! That’s the end of our life.’”

But the cultural silence muted Haida ceremony, and only memories in the minds of the elders remained. Much like potlatches morphed into large Christmas dinners and picnics, so totems, ceremonial masks, and bentwood boxes of the

3. Robert Davidson uses phonetic spellings of Haida terms that may not reflect the official Haida orthography.

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classic period suddenly diminished into miniature argillite totems, bracelets, and other objects with no utilitarian or ceremonial function. The raising of the Bear Mother pole in 1969, however, served as the catalyst for a revival of the past.

To be the conduit for the birth of a new formline being as it emerges into the world marks not only an incredible artistic achievement for Robert Davidson, but also the moment that solidifies the notion that the vocabulary of Haida art will continue to expand and flourish as knowledge, intuition, form, and function fill the void left by the past.

LOOKING BACK “YOU HAVE TO LOOK BACK once in a while to see where we came from so you can always find your way back,” Davidson said his father Claude once advised him, as he led a young Robert on a hike for the first time on an unmarked trail to

Slatechuck Mountain. Davidson began his career as an apprentice. He then carved and raised his first totem pole. He moved into printmaking and later created a collector’s market for the serigraph. He also rendered numerous major works, but Robert Davidson’s life would transform even more. His father’s wisdom has been integral in his personal growth. It is tied to his belief that there comes a time in an artist’s practice when they must examine what they have created up to a certain point and assess where they are going.

That moment occurred for him in the early 1980s when he saw himself “recycling ideas over and over and over again.” It was then that he made a conscious choice to study the work of one of the old Haida masters. The artist had ventured outside of the established box design by creating a “black shape within a shape.” Davidson gave himself permission to move beyond old models and experiment within the seemingly rigid

principles of formline. After rendering designs on drums for a 1981 potlatch, he discovered a love for painting. There was a fluidity and ease to the medium, and this period marks his transition into creating larger, more abstract works of art. In many ways, that time in the artist’s career helped him transform and emerge as the man and icon he is today.

TRANSFORMATION DAVIDSON EXPERIENCED THE CHALLENGES that life often brings while balancing marriage, raising adolescent children, and building a successful career—all of which have taught him a great deal. He considers the births of his children Sara Davidson (Haida), a writer and educator, and Ben Davidson (Haida, 1976–2020), an artist, to be huge blessings. He is currently and happily on marriage number three to attorney and performer Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson

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above Rock Scallop, 1989, serigraph on paper, 29½ × 41¾ in. framed, edition of 25. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Hugging the World, 1999, red cedar, acrylic paint, copper, 1061/3 × 1571/2 × 391/3 in., installed in the Vancouver International Airport. Photo: John Mitchell/Alamy.

(Haida), also one of Davidson’s Rainbow Creek Dancers collaborators.

His son and daughter taught Davidson “how to be a father.” He beams with pride about both of his children. He says that Sara can spin wonderful, vivid stories in short order. She has made recent weekly visits to his studio to learn carving techniques so she can document them for an academic writing project. Regarding her ability in the studio, he says it “blows me away!”

Davidson confessed that he was lazy as a boy. When his father handed him a piece of wood and told him to carve, it was to ensure that he would one day be able to provide for himself. Davidson was elated that Ben, after graduating high school, wanted to apprentice with him. Ben was also lazy early on, so Davidson pushed him equally to help him succeed. His high expectations resulted in frustration that sometimes sparked disagreements. He understood young Ben’s emotions since he too had worked with accomplished and demanding teachers. “It was a look at myself working with him.” As he grew as a parent, Davidson became aware of what is called in Haida k'iigudangaa (roughly translated: the feeling outside of oneself pertaining to the vibration of the external environment created by another). The elder artist began to notice that each time Ben came to the studio, whether grumpy or happy, it usually correlated with Davidson’s mood. Consciously adjusting his thinking made way for change, and they began to talk things out and over time became good friends.

In the short documentary, Haida Modern, Davidson praised his son for his exceptional grasp of the Haida art form.

He was convinced that Ben would move it forward through experimentation and relying on the old masters’ knowledge.4 When Ben was 35, Davidson told him that his artistic development was much farther along than Davidson’s was at the same age.

Ben passed away unexpectedly in 2020. Davidson told me that his son had frequently worked with elementary kids and was an “amazing father and as good a teacher as he was a student.” Before his passing, Ben’s thriving gallery on Haida Gwaii, All About U Arts, was building a strong roster of private collectors. As a result, Ben had less overall visibility in the art world as compared to his father, something that disheartens Davidson, especially given that Ben’s death cut the rise of his career short. Overall, Robert Davidson found Ben’s work ethic and dedication inspiring. Even after his

4. Charles Wilkinson, director, Haida Modern: The Art and Activism of Robert Davidson, Bullfrog Films, 2020, video, 1:20, web.

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“I feel we are all connected to the past by a thin thread. And when we come together as a group, then those threads form quite a thick rope.”

apprenticeship ended, Ben still wanted to work with his father to learn more. He even attended several free workshops for emerging artists that his father hosted on Haida Gwaii. Conversely, Davidson understands that even though he has reached master level in his career, he can’t know everything. He and his son provided creative sounding boards for each other.

To carve alongside his brother Reg Davidson on various projects brings Davidson knowledge and joy. The artist’s commitment to lifelong learning and experimentation shows in his retrospective, Guud san glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break. This exhibition framed his work up to a certain point in his career. Davidson says that he will always continue to innovate while creating everything by hand. He never reflects on what his legacy might be one day, nor does he choose to predefine this next chapter of his life. By turning the page away from the pain of the past, the activist in Davidson hopes to focus more on hope and the resiliency that Haida art can teach the world.

LOOKING FORWARD “I FEEL WE ARE ALL CONNECTED to the past by a thin thread. And when we come together as a group, then those threads form quite a thick rope,” Davidson once said.5 He told me that he believes that today’s Haida are their ancestors reemerging. They ensure that knowledge continues on, by growing and filling the void created by the laws that once silenced them. He honors the remaining ten or so elders, artists who carved argillite in Skidegate and Masset when he first started carving with his father and grandfather. To him, they were part of that thin thread connected to the old masters. Stujuu kawang (“walking visits”) is a concept Davidson learned from a friend whose father would meet with another tribal elder to share knowledge and solidify their “understanding of the history” as they talked. Davidson also associates stujuu kawang with the small group of elders at Masset who would gather prior to the 1969 pole raising to remember and tell childhood stories.

Though none had ever witnessed a pole raising, the stories gave insight into how

the ceremony should be conducted. One memory would often trigger another.

Little by little, the knowledge of the Haida reemerged.

Learning to carve Bear Mother gave Davidson an understanding of function, conveying the knowledge of how to carve a mask. He says that each medium informs another, and potlatches and ceremonies continue to change with new protocols. Davidson’s grandfather recorded old songs before he passed away, and his naani (grandmother) interpreted them for Davidson and his brother Reg as they began to form the Rainbow Creek Dancers. The context of the songs came from multiple generations before, so Davidson adapted them to contemporary Haida life. Over time they incorporated masks and added new songs. Other dance groups have also emerged to fill the void for today.

At present, Davidson says more earnest learners are tapped into the visual language of formline than ever before, helping to bridge cultural gaps. A moment of Indigenous cool has seemingly arrived.

He believes it is fueled in part by Native people individually choosing to come to terms with the past and the trauma it has

5. Ulli Steltzer and Robert Davidson, Eagle Transforming: The Art of Robert Davidson (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre with University of Washington Press, 1994), 99.

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above Supernatural Eye, 2007, epoxy powder-coated aluminum, 60 × 48 × 3 in., edition of 5, collection of the National Gallery of Canada, 42168. Photo: Pam McPherson (CC-BY-SA 4.0).

caused them. Among the connected are scores of emerging creatives, Haida or otherwise, who dot the Northwest Coast artistic landscape. Davidson, who has consistently advocated for and mentored younger artists, is encouraged by all the interest and keeps his finger on the pulse of things via Instagram. (He even manages his own account.)

Davidson reminds us that even for a living legend with numerous successes, artistic missteps can still occur and there is always something new to be learned. He told me he keeps a “reject” drawer. Whenever he is feeling particularly “broke,” he pulls one out and affixes a “serious price” on it. Our joint laughter continued for minutes.

More serious than not, though, Davidson believes that artists grow only after countless hours of training and study. He warns artists to not be in a rush to innovate. To build the foundation to innovate requires a command of the

knowledge of the old masters. He likens it to putting in the physical training to be able to run a long marathon or the study that is required to obtain certification to practice law. Formline is not random but follows carefully considered formulas.

Apprenticeships are also an important step in mastering Haida art, and many carvers have come to him to learn—but the task is not for everyone.

They must be able to show up, think, and work hard. While Davidson encourages mimicking in the apprentice period, he said it is important to first look at and model work after what he calls “good art.” This is characterized by intuitive, mathematical ovoid proportions,

whether elongated or abstracted, which capture the shapes of the old masters.

The design should emphasize curves as well as the proportions of shapes within shapes, all the while balancing negative space with positive.

Good art also possesses a “wow factor,” as seen in the work of Charles Edenshaw, who brought Haida art to “a new level,” Davidson says. The next step is to venture off and create a unique style within the structure of formline. When Davidson was young, he had access to only three or four books with grainy images from which to learn. A testament to the growth of interest in Northwest Coast art, numerous books are now available today.

What other advice does Robert Davidson have for early career artists? It’s up to them to build and maintain their market if they want to reach the level he has achieved. He sees several younger artists continue to set the bar. For example, Cori Savard (Haida) has built an impressive art practice for herself. Davidson also expressed high praise and respect for William “Bill” Kuhnley Jr. (Ditidaht), and Sgwaayaans TJ Young (Haida). Young, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and USA fellow who apprenticed with Davidson from 2012 to 2015, told me that he looked up to the artist all his life and eagerly collected books to study Davidson’s work. When he was finally able to work with him, something that he considered humbling and a “surreal experience,” he witnessed firsthand “the magnitude of his influence on Northwest Coast art as a whole.”6 He emphasized the importance of the master-apprentice relationship in maintaining a high standard in the art form and how it instills a responsibility to pass on knowledge and skills in the same way. Stujuu kawang.

ROBERTDAVIDSON.CA Paul Niemi is an arts and culture writer and blogger based in Washington State. He previously worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York and the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe.

6. Timothy (TJ) Young, email messages to author, January 24, 2024.

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Tessa Robledo, Comanche, beadwork, Southern Plains Song Purse, ©2022 FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 69

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Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria Painter, Educator & Printmaker

RUTHE BLALOCK JONES

By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

“I WAS AN INDIAN PAINTING CONVENTIONAL THINGS.”

A

SKED WHEN SHE FIRST CONSIDERED herself an artist, Ruthe Blalock Jones said, “I have always drawn and painted, and I can’t remember when I started. Probably by 11 years old I considered myself an artist. I was an obnoxious child.”

The obnoxious child submitted a watercolor on newsprint to the 1954 Philbrook Indian Annual at age 15, with the encouragement and support of Edna Wilson, wife of celebrated American artist Charles Banks Wilson, a family friend and artistic mentor. That watercolor, Powwow Camp, won honorable mention in the exhibition. Muscogee (Creek) artist

Acee Blue Eagle (1907–1959) bought the piece for $15 (approximately $170 today).

And where is it now?

“It’s in the Smithsonian,” Blalock Jones explains. “That was my first sale.

When Acee Blue Eagle passed away, his things went to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

That’s where it is.”

Blalock Jones began her career when Native art was regularly placed in natural history collections, and she is still making art today, as Native art is increasingly shown at major galleries and fairs, from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City to the Venice Biennale.

1. Mary Jo Watson, “Oklahoma Indian Women and Their Art” (PhD diss., University of Oklahoma, 1993), 329.

2. Jordan Poorman-Cocker, “Ruthe Blalock Jones,” Gilcrease Museum, 2021, web.

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BLALOCK JONES WAS BORN on June 8, 1939, in Claremore, Oklahoma, to Lucy Parks and Joe Blalock. Her mother belonged to the Delaware Tribe of Indians, and her father belonged to the Shawnee Tribe and Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.1 Blalock Jones is enrolled in the Shawnee Tribe, but she grew up immersed in the cultures of both her parents, who spoke their tribal languages and raised her to participate in Shawnee ceremonials and stomp dances as well as Native American Church meetings and powwows. All of these life experiences make their way into her artwork, and she is known for the accuracy of detail in ceremonial and cultural images.

Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa/ Tongan), curator of Indigenous art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, wrote in 2021, “Blalock Jones has had a profound impact on the canon of Indigenous art, not only through her contributions as a female artist but also because she intentionally upends Native American racial stereotypes by representing her subjects as individuals and portraying their humanity in intimate detail.”2 As a cultural traditionalist, Blalock Jones has always been acutely aware of the care she must take with her art. “I was very reticent about portraying certain [cultural or ceremonial] things,” she says.

“Some things I will never paint because they’re not for outsiders. When I was younger, even if I did portray something

RUTHE BLALOCK JONES

sacred, it was a veiled reference. It wasn’t precise or it just hinted at something.

Even today I don’t portray sacredness or things that are not to be discussed outside of the community or outside of the family.

Maybe I make a reference to them, but I don’t actually show them.”

Blalock Jones is proud to be known for cultural accuracy. “It’s a great compliment to be known for that,” she says.

“I’m very proud of it. I guess I could attribute that to Dick West because he always told us to paint a real thing—a person or actual event or something. Even if it was something that we thought we knew about, he made us research it so that our materials were correct and the clothing and all—how it was put together, how it was worn, what it was made of. That was the beginning, but it stayed with me all my life. I’ve always tried to research things that maybe I wasn’t quite sure of.

It’s been a lifelong practice.”

Blalock Jones learned from painter Dick West (Southern Cheyenne, 1912– 1996) in the 1950s when she attended high school and then Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on an Acee Blue Eagle Scholarship. Founded in 1880, Bacone is “the oldest [continuing] institution of higher education in the state of Oklahoma.”3 The Bacone art program opened in 1935, and many successful artists have passed through it. Even before attending Bacone, Blalock Jones was interested in art—and she realized there was a bias against women doing it.

Before she went to school, “I was just doing what we would call conventional drawing and painting,” she said.

“But I have always been a reader. Even when I didn’t know there was Indian art, I was reading art books and magazines, so I was somewhat aware of women artists, but mostly I was just aware of artists in general and how they continued on. So I was not discouraged.… I guess you would say I was upset by hearing some of the things people said about women artists, but it just made me kind of dig in and say, ‘I’m here to stay.’”

As a student at Bacone, Blalock Jones says it was “wonderful” to be able to focus on art and have all the materials needed to explore new techniques and

styles. “I had an Indian instructor, and most of the students were Indian,” she recalls. “It was just wonderful to be actually doing art. Why? It was just wonderful. We had materials, and we had the fantastic library. We had original manuscripts and original paintings to look at.”

Blalock Jones says working with the teachers and other students at Bacone had a profound effect on her art as well as on her perception of “Indian art.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as Indian art until I entered the Philbrook Invitational, then after that, of course, when I went to Bacone and learned what was then called ‘traditional’ Indian style. Before that, I wasn’t doing what we’d call Indian art as far as style. I was an Indian painting traditional things, but they were in just conventional

“…it just made me kind of dig in and say, ‘I’m here to stay.’”

above Delaware Women, 1980, oil on canvas, 36 × 24 in., collection of the J.W. Wiggins Native American Art Collection, University of Arkansas–Little Rock.

Image courtesy of J.W. Wiggins. opposite Ruthe Blalock Jones (Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria) at Cherokee Art Market, Catoosa, Oklahoma. Photo: Uyvsdi (CC BY-SA 3.0).

3. Watson, “Oklahoma Indian Women,” 334.

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Western style, not the style that I learned at Bacone and that I saw at Philbrook.”

The “traditional” style she speaks of is also known as Flatstyle, a “representative, narrative [style] characterized by solid color fields.”4 Among the types of Flatstyle is one known as Bacone School, which Blalock Jones has said began in the 1930s when Acee Blue Eagle was the director of the Bacone art program.5 While she began working in this style in college, she has developed her own style over the years as a painter, watercolorist, and printmaker.

She says of her long career: “I have enjoyed my life, and it all goes back to art. I have met so many nice people and traveled to so many places because of art. I have spoken and exhibited in Salzburg (where I stayed in a castle), in

Japan (where I saw famous woodcutters), in Paris, in London (where I once spoke at the British Museum), in Athens … so many places! In the United States, I have spoken and/or exhibited in Boston, New York, Washington, DC (when I was a member of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board for eight years), New Orleans, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco.… I was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow one summer in Olympia, Washington.” Her work is in the permanent collections of major American art museums, including the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Gilcrease Museum and Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, and the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York. It is also in the

collections of Bacone College, University of Tulsa, Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, and the US Department of the Interior Museum in Washington, DC.

“I AM VERY PROUD OF MY STUDENTS.” BESIDES CREATING HER OWN adventurous and influential art career, Blalock Jones has been instrumental in mentoring, teaching, and guiding many successful artists.

After graduating from Bacone College with an associate of arts degree, Blalock Jones attended the University of Tulsa, where she received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1972. She attended the

4. “Flatstyle,” Art Terms, First American Art Magazine, firstamericanartmagazine.com.

5. Lydia L. Wyckoff, ed., Visions and Voices: Native American Painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art (Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art, 1996).

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University of Oklahoma for a time, and eventually earned a master’s degree from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah. Blalock Jones married Carrol E. Jones (Kiowa/Cherokee), and they had four children: Deborah, Carroll, Nancy, and Mark. With all of those responsibilities and while still actively making art, she returned to Bacone College to become the first woman director of the art program—a position she held for 30 years, from 1979 to 2010.6 She even designed the college’s logo.

Blalock Jones said the diversity of tribes represented in Bacone’s art program was a strength. “At first we had mostly students from the Southern Plains: Kiowas and Cheyennes, with an occasional Cherokee or Creek artist,” she said. “That changed later on, and it became … more of a mix. We had people from New York, Montana, South Dakota, as well as Navajos and Oklahoma people.

It was very exciting.”

A working artist, she believed it was important for students to see firsthand what that entailed. “When I was at the University of Tulsa, working artists were my professors, and so I always wanted that for my students,” she says. “I did most of my work at home, nights and weekends, but I always kept something going in my office or in the studio so that they could see that I was a working artist, and I think it affected a number of them. They could see me working on it, or they could come by and see how it looked different from yesterday and so on. At Bacone, Dick West did the same thing. He always had something going on but never talked about it. He would answer questions if you asked, but he never talked about it directly. Maybe he was just doing it for himself. But I certainly appreciated it, and I think others did as well.”

She still has strong feelings about professors maintaining their art practices.

“I was aware of certain teachers who had never wet a brush since they left school, and I just was fighting against that,” she says. “I just couldn’t stand an art teacher to not be a working artist. I just didn’t

think they’d have any place in the classroom if they were not working.”

Blalock Jones’s daughter, Nancy Boyett (Kiowa/Delaware/Shawnee/Peoria) is a successful clothing and textile designer and wrote to me about her mother’s personal and artistic influence:

6. Blalock Jones notes that she took off one year of direction, during which time her student, Janet Lamon Smith (Cherokee Nation, 1943–2020), directed the art program.

above Delaware Doll Dance Woman, 1984, gouache on paper, collection of the Southern Plains Indian Museum, Anadarko. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Go Get-Em Dance, 1994, gouache on paper, 16½ × 20¼ in., collection of the J.W. Wiggins Native American Art Collection, University of Arkansas–Little Rock.

Image courtesy of J.W. Wiggins.

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in the worlds of Indian art and education, but she was also our momma,” she wrote.

“She was in a distinct group of women shaping and molding today’s leaders. And we, their children and students, have been inherently influenced in ways we may or may not ever recognize.”

Nancy’s daughter, Maggie Boyett (Shawnee/Kiowa/Peoria/Delaware), is a dancer and choreographer. Ruthe Blalock Jones, Nancy, and Maggie are featured together in The Dreams We Had, the fifth movement of the post-classical visual album Cube of Light (2021) by Christina Giacona and Patrick Conlon. Blalock Jones is proud that her children and grandchildren carry on both cultural and artistic lessons. She also appreciates the many students she’s had over the years.

“I am very proud of my students,” she said. “Some are art teachers in public schools, some at reservation schools.

Some are associated with museums. Some are working artists, like Tony Tiger, Raymond Nordwall, Dan HorseChief, Johnny Diacon, Randy Kemp, and others. Several work in tribal government, and one was a tribal chairman. Others are otherwise employed but still do art in spare time, and I am proud of them too.”

“…she was instilling integrity in us, a desire to do good.”

above Pie & Rissa at the Dance, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 20 × 16 in., collection of the J.W. Wiggins Native American Art Collection, University of Arkansas–Little Rock. Image courtesy of J.W. Wiggins. o pp o si t e S t o m p D a n c e , billboard image of original painting, 8 × 12 feet, part of Traveling On Native Lands (2021), curated by Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee). Photo: Dan Farnum. Images courtesy of Richard Zimmerman.

On several occasions and in a variety of settings, I’ve witnessed former students of my mom and their expressions and gushing of praise for her kindness, guidance, and overall help she was in their lives. In these instances, I often sheepishly joke, “Are you sure you mean my momma?” Because to me, she was the one who made me … sit up straight, shake hands, sit still, and listen, and other life-shaping, momma-loving ways she had. These, I have come to see, influenced my life and the person I wanted to be, and I’m certain she expected the same of her students. My siblings and I joke she was a “mean momma,” but she was instilling integrity in us, a desire to do good. Do a good job, no matter what it is. Help in all possible ways.

Nancy values those lessons. “While I was growing up, mom was blazing trails

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“I PAINT FOR THE IDEA.” BLALOCK JONES BEGAN her art career at a time when women were especially discouraged from pursuing art and particularly not considered worthy of painting. “It never was easy to be a working artist, really,” she says. “You always had to find a place to exhibit and be able to afford the materials and so on.

And then there was always that feeling that you belonged in the kitchen. I asked one of my professors at the University of Tulsa, ‘Why is it that when a man does something, like gets an award or makes something, everyone is patting him on the back and all, but if a woman does something, it’s like we’re taking food off the table?’ And he said, ‘Because you are.’”

While many things have changed for the better, she knows it’s still not always easy for women artists, especially younger ones. “I still think there’s

RUTHE BLALOCK JONES

a little bit of bias against women, certainly Indian women,” she says. “Early on, women were just not [respected] as painters. Lois Smoky,7 the Kiowa artist, was simply told that she needed to be at home in the kitchen. That she had no business out there doing what the men were doing. And we’ve all experienced something like that. It may not have been as direct as that, but I think most women artists have had that feeling that they were out of place early on. Later on, when people are stronger and they’ve had more experiences, particularly educational, they can hold their own, and when they hear something like that, it doesn’t bother them as much. They just dig in and go further.”

Blalock Jones certainly has.

“We always hear that you should keep moving and don’t be repeating yourself. When you look at really strong artists, they’re not repeating themselves, but they’re staying within their own ideas of what they want to paint,” she said. “They might be painting the same thing over and over, but not in the same way. For a long time I was afraid of that because I was thinking that I needed to

do something else, and I did a lot of times.

But then as I grew older, I realized that when you look at people’s work, that’s what they’ve done: They’ve stayed with a certain subject or a certain way of looking at something. And I decided that’s what I should do, rather than trying to do something new.”

It’s not that she doesn’t do new work. She has never stopped. But after all this time, she says, she has come to understand her cycles as an artist more fully. While she is always working on more than one painting, she is never working on two of the same subject.

“In the last few years, I’ve been painting Shawnee ceremony, Shawnee ceremonial life, or camp and dances and all,” she says. “Before that, I was painting powwow dancers, and all along, I’ve always been painting the Native American Church. In the last couple of years, I’ve gone to a more realistic style, but I’ve also been painting blankets and things

from the Native American Church—fans and gourds, things like that. I’m probably ready to change over, but I will go back to something that I’ve already done. I might go back to the Shawnee ceremonial cycle.

I could never exhaust the Native American Church, so I would probably do that.

Or even the powwow dancers. Powwow dancers are great fun to do … so unique and different.”

Since childhood, she has painted the subjects important to her, no matter what else happened. “I was just going to do it,” she says. “I always said if I never sold another painting, I would still paint.

I paint for the idea. Mostly, I paint for myself. I paint for certain ideas and events or subjects that I would like to explore and present to the public.”

Her dedication to art and her generosity in sharing cultural knowledge and artistic expertise continue to impact the Native art world—and influence the next generation of obnoxious young artists.

RUTHEBLALOCKJONES.COM Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke), is a poet, musician, and writer. She is a 2023 recipient of the Andy Warhol Art Writers Grant.

7. Lois Smoky Kaulaity (Kiowa, 1907–1981) was one of the Kiowa Six, who exhibited internationally in the late 1920s and 1930s.

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PROFILE

Santa Clara Pueblo Ceramic & Bronze Sculptor

ROXANNE SWENTZELL

By RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)

R

OX ANNE SWENTZELL’ S FRIENDSHIP with Clay Lady began when the artist was just four years old. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that Swentzell was born into one of Native America’s most esteemed families of Pueblo potters, ceramicists, and sculptors. But this early connection to what would become the artist’s first muse and medium was beyond mere tactile engagement or creative experimentation. With soft, moist pieces of clay left over from her mother’s pottery projects, she shaped forms and figures to compose a vocabulary that would become her first language. Spoken words posed a challenge when she wanted to convey her thoughts and feelings, so small figurative sculptures became Swentzell’s primary tool for communicating her ideas and inner emotional state.

Born on an early winter’s day in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, Swentzell’s

creative spirit has long been nourished by the land and lifeways of the Pueblo people. Her mother, Tewa artist, activist, scholar, and writer Rina Naranjo Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo, 1939–2015), was one of the many Naranjo family matriarchs from whom she learned customary techniques of Pueblo pottery making.

Watching Rina harvest clay from the earth to create hand-coiled, pit-fired wares was part of Roxanne’s early childhood education, which fortified yet another early connection to the cultural traditions of her Pueblo lineage. Roxanne’s father, Ralph Swentzell (1938–2005), a German-American philosophy professor who taught at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, also fostered his daughter’s early interest in art and introduced her to the work of Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens and the great Renaissance masters. Auguste Rodin, thought by some to be the founder of modern sculpture,

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would also have a lasting impact on Roxanne’s creative vision. Though more than a century lies between their respective careers, emotionally dynamic depictions of the human condition are central themes in the work of both artists.

Swentzell grew up in O'ga P'ogeh (Santa Fe) and often traveled north along the Rio Grande to Kha'po Owingeh (Santa Clara Pueblo) and Tua-tah (Taos Pueblo) and stayed close to her mother’s side of the family. In 1978 Swentzell enrolled in the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, where she finished the last two years of high school. Completion of the program resulted in her first art exhibition at the institute’s museum, then located on Cerrillos Road as part of the Santa Fe Indian School.

Afterward she studied at the Portland Art Museum School in Oregon.

She was drawn to its sculpture program’s emphasis on the human figure. But she grew homesick after one year of study there and became disillusioned with the local art scene, feeling that many of the artists in the area separated their art from their daily lives. Their compositions did not reflect the people or experiences that surrounded them, whereas Swentzell’s own work is inspired by and reflective of her tangible life experiences: an all-encompassing extension of family, tribe, community, and cultural heritage.

The transition from working primarily in clay to mostly in bronze did not happen without some initial trepidation.

The art form is a kind of multiphase production, especially in comparison to the singular, one-of-a-kind works that had defined her career up until then, so at first it seemed controversial to the artist.

However, the renaissance of the Indian art market created a demand for Swentzell’s

ROXANNE SWENTZELL

work that exceeded what she could meet.

Finally convinced by friends and family to work in bronze, she decided to create a small piece to have cast. Bronze publisher Peter Wright agreed to handle the production and upfront costs. But when she beheld the figure and felt its weight and the soft finish of the metal, with its familiar dark-bronze patina and soft glow, her reluctance was replaced with excitement. The bronze possessed a touchable and permanent quality that the clay pieces lost once hand-polishing and firing made them fragile.

Swentzell enthusiastically embraced her newfound medium and joined the small school of Native women bronze sculptors, which also included Evelyn Fredericks (Hopi, 1948–2021), Tammy Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo), Estella Loretto (Jemez Pueblo), and Kim Obrzut (Hopi), who propelled the art form into new creative terrain in Indian Country. Historically speaking, “For Native women, bronze has been less available as a medium,” says Swentzell, and until fairly recently, Native women sculptors were often passed over for commissioned work that systematically defaulted to their male contemporaries.

As Swentzell learned more about the intricate and laborious process of bronze casting, her appreciation for the art form grew. Seeing how each piece, even those in the same edition, was handled individually—with its own wax, its own casting and chasing process, its own grinding, and its own patina—alleviated her “mass production” concerns and opened up a whole new world of art possibilities.

“Every artist who ventures into bronze has their own reasons for opening that door,” says Swentzell, who could now work as large scale as she wanted. She no longer had to be concerned about losing anything in the firing process, which can claim a good percentage of a ceramic artist’s work regardless of their skill level.

Molds could be made without breaking or damaging the originals, and Swentzell found a new satisfaction in creating

monumental outdoor works that interact with nature, the elements, and even her grandchildren, who can climb atop the sculptures to become living, physical extensions of the art.

For more than three decades, Swentzell has worked in both clay and bronze. The bronze pieces are brought to their final sheen through the finishing work of her patineur,1 Mike Massey. These reflect many facets of

above Grandma, bronze, 13½ × 8½ × 5½ in., edition of 35. Image courtesy of the artist and Tower Gallery, Santa Fe. opposite Roxanne Swentzell with her sculpture Good Earth, 2021, collection of the Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Image courtesy of the artist and Tower Gallery, Santa Fe.

1. A patineur is a patina artist, who uses chemicals and heat to provide color and texture to the surface of bronze sculptures.

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the sometimes perplexing, ever-fluxing human experience. Works such as The Emergence of the Clowns, The Things I Have To Do To Maintain Myself, The Last Piece, Family, and Good Earth examine the concepts of origin and emergence and the everyday dualities that exist in the world. They refer to the constant state of human development, share personal and social commentary, reflect a loving respect for family and community, and evoke the artist’s deep reverence for Mother Earth. Often taking form through representations of the Pueblos’ sacred clowns (koshares) and various translations of the female figure, Swentzell’s work also explores gender roles, identity, politics, and the past. As in classic Pueblo pottery, Swentzell builds her to-be-castin-bronze figures from thick coils of clay,

using a stone to smooth over the ridges and press each coil into the other to build the walls of the hollow figure. During the two-to-four-day process of coil building, she keeps the clay moist as the figure moves toward its final form. Though the bodies of the forms are hollow, the fingers and toes of each piece are solid, and the finished sculpture is often painted and can include details such as eyes, hair, clothing, or accessories. Swentzell is not overly concerned that her clay is store-bought. She says, “All clay, regardless of its physical source, comes from the earth.”

In 1987 Swentzell cofounded Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, a Santa Clara Pueblo–based nonprofit organization for which she serves as president.

Inaugurated on the principles of sound

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ecological design, sustainable and healthy living, and agricultural practices kind to the planet, the institute offers classes in adobe construction, animal husbandry, farming methods, low-water-use farming in a high-desert climate, and solar energy.

All of these practices are in alignment with the artist’s personal philosophy of long-term self-sustenance in close relation to the Earth. Flowering Tree is also guided by the Indigenous knowledge of Native American ancestors “who serve as role models and protectors of the earth,” says Swentzell, who lives at Santa Clara Pueblo in an adobe home that she designed and built. Surrounded by gardens of indigenous foods, coaxed from the high-desert land with water harvested from rain and snow, the property’s integral use of permaculture and xeriscaping has manifested Swentzell’s vision in sustainable living.

Swentzell wrote The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2016). The book is based on her initiative, the Pueblo Food Experience, a culinary method that offers participants foods once available to the Tewa people before European contact.

Swentzell’s highly collectible work is exhibited at the Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallery in Pojoaque Pueblo. She has operated her gallery since 2003 and also shows other Native artists in changing exhibitions curated by Swentzell. Her creations have also been widely exhibited throughout the United States, including at the White House, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Autry Museum of the American West. They reside in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Wellington Museum in New Zealand, Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum, Joslyn Art Museum, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, among others. Commissions include permanent installations at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Wellington Museum, Penn Museum in Philadelphia, and the Poeh Cultural Center. Next door to her gallery in Pojoaque Pueblo, just north of Santa Fe, the Poeh has a diorama comprised of her expressive figures that

ROXANNE SWENTZELL

depicts the history of the Tewa people. Swentzell has taken top awards at SWAIA’s Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market. In 2019 she received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Dedication to artistic excellence, preservation of earth-conscious lifeways, and lifelong learning flow through Swentzell’s extended family of potters, sculptors, poets, authors, architects, builders, and scholars. Her family includes aunts Jody Folwell, Dolly Naranjo, Tessie Naranjo, and Nora Naranjo-Morse; uncles Tito Naranjo and Michael Naranjo; sisters Poem Swentzell and Athena Swentzell Steen; brother Cleo M. Naranjo (1959– 2018); and cousins Polly Rose Folwell, Susan Folwell, and Eliza Naranjo Morse.

Roxanne’s daughter, Rose B. Simpson, is also a widely exhibited sculptor who holds a ceramics MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Simpson followed in the Naranjo family’s long matrilineage of Tewa artists, as has Simpson’s young daughter, Cedar Rain, who is already working with clay alongside her mother and grandmother. Roxanne’s son, Porter Swentzell, earned his doctoral degree in justice studies from Arizona State University and is the director of the Santa Clara Pueblo Day School. Roxanne homeschooled her children and now teaches her grandchildren.

I recently caught up with Roxanne Swentzell as she prepared for the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, where half a dozen new clay pieces and a selection of miniature bronzes were among her treasures. She shared some of her insights into her inspirations, creative process, and family legacy.

How do you describe your art?

I describe my work as my first language because I used it to communicate as a child. I learned to imbue emotional context within the clay to capture what I wanted to say. So my sculpture speaks from human emotions.

What are some of your artistic inspirations and how have they changed over time?

My inspirations come from my life and what I am personally working through or wanting others to consider. Of course, the themes have changed over time as my life has changed over time. For example, as a young child, I wanted my mother to know I was having a hard time in school, so I sculpted a girl sitting at a school desk crying. Later, when I was having [my own] children, my pieces spoke of the love and hardships of being a mother or relationship issues. Sometimes world news about elections, wars, and the environment affects what I create. I’ve done many pieces that are about soul searching and asking hard questions, like, Who am I as a woman in these times? or putting it out to all of us in pieces that ask the onlooker, Who are you?

Who are some of your artistic influences?

As a child, I loved looking at pictures of sculptures by Michelangelo and Rodin.

My dad had books about them, and I couldn’t believe how they could make a piece of marble look like hands and

above Family, earthenware, 168 × 168 × 18 in. wide, collection of the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Image courtesy of the artist and Tower Gallery, Santa Fe. opposite Sister Love, 2021, bronze, 8 × 5½ × 6 in., open edition. Image courtesy of the artist and Tower Gallery, Santa Fe.

“What makes a sister beyond blood? Is it kindred souls that align the heart? I value my sisters out there: the women who walk side by side with me in our dreams and our knowing.

This bond is strong and what is needed to remember who we are not just as women but as beautiful women, strong, thoughtful, kind, wise, generous, loving, fierce women who can do what is needed. I send out a prayer to the universe, that women can find their sisters and hold hands till we are all united in one love, one direction and heal this world.”

—Roxanne Swentzell

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overlooked or may have some importance. For instance, I just finished a small piece of a woman quietly reading a book.

It invites the viewer to remember or feel what it’s like to be immersed in a silent place that is full of imagination, thoughts, and feelings. It’s a slowed-down place within themselves. In a frantic world, we often forget to take moments out to be quiet like this, but it’s very important.

How do you prepare to be creative?

Do you follow a particular creative process?

[When] I have a need to express something, I imagine this expression in human form. Once the form makes sense in my mind’s eye, I begin to form it in clay, coiling up the walls like a pot.

[The form] is not so stuck in an idea that it can’t change during the process, and often it will surprise me with more information than I could have imagined at first. So in many ways, it creates itself while teaching me.

“I have seen people from all around the world be able to relate to my work because of the common language of human emotion.”

above Full Circle, bronze, 10 × 7 × 10½ in., edition of 35. Image courtesy of the artist and Tower Gallery, Santa Fe. opposite, top E-wah-Nee-nee (For Life in All Directions), 2004, bronze, ceramics, paint, 93¾ × 121 in., collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/4546. Photo: Walter Larrimore. Image courtesy of NMAI Photo Services. opposite, bottom Details of masks from E-wah-Nee-nee (For Life in All Directions).

Image courtesy of NMAI Photo Services.

feet—it was so amazing! Vincent van Gogh was also one of my favorites, and later I was drawn to [figurative French sculptor] Camille Claudel and her story.

The emotional content of her work was powerful to me. I seem to be drawn to artists who have something to say and who do their work with care and sensitivity. I believe that it matters what kind of energy is put into the work. Art can be good medicine or bad medicine, depending on the energy that made it.

Can you talk a little about the theme of self-introspection in your work?

Many of my pieces are reminders to the viewers to look within themselves for moments or feelings that might be

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What are some of the gifts that come from being born into a multigenerational art family?

I am forever grateful that I was born into a family of artists and thinkers.

I was handed my first piece of clay from my mother and learned so much from watching her. My grandmother [Rose Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo, 1917–2004)] also worked in clay, as did many of my aunts, so I watched them whenever possible and learned. But I wanted to sculpt more than I wanted to make pottery. My family was open to this, and they encouraged me to make my sculptures, even if they didn’t always understand what I was doing. I also had my uncle Mike [Naranjo], who sculpted.

I loved watching him and being around him; he was my hero!

How does your work contribute to and expand the familial story?

I believe my work expanded the family story in opening more doorways for others to try different methods of expression within their art forms.

What do you hope will be your creative legacy?

ROXANNE SWENTZELL

I have seen people from all around the world be able to relate to my work because of the common language of human emotion. This is a connecting language, and I have been loved for it when the feelings it evokes make someone feel understood and not alone—and hated for it when people feel things that they don’t want to feel. What I hope will be my creative legacy is the power of my art to be used as a healing and connecting tool.

What about your work do you think will resonate with future generations of artists?

Sometimes I think that long after I’m [gone], my work will be recognized as a tool for healing the human emotional body and bringing self-love to other human souls. This is what it’s doing for me.

What’s on the horizon with new work or projects?

I’m working on a piece that has to do with the theme of “mother” that I want to build bigger than life-size. I want people to be able to interact with it. I want to be able to sit in its lap and have the feeling of being held by a mother. I think the world needs that right now. I am also building a retreat center, which I want to add artwork to, such as a fountain or reliefs on the walls, or maybe a “watcher” at the entrance. I’m not always sure exactly what’s next, but I will continue to create for as long as I am able. Every day is an amazing new book, a test in every discipline, a chance to advance myself—and great times on the playground!

ROXANNESWENTZELL.NET RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo) is a freelance writer and gallerist with the Allan Houser Foundation based in Santa Fe. She studied literature and its respective arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Naropa University, and University of California–Santa Cruz. She has written for and guest-edited numerous publications.

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REVIEWS BOSTON

Marking Resilience: Indigenous North American Prints Museum of Fine Arts Boston

M

ARKING RESILIENCE: INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICAN PRINTS carefully and tastefully displays prints by contemporary Native artists at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston. The exhibition was curated by Marina Tyquiengco (CHamoru), the Ellyn McColgan Assistant Curator of Native American Art at the MFA Boston1; Edward Saywell, chair of prints and drawings at the MFA Boston; and Duane Slick (Meskwaki/Ho-Chunk), professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2022 the MFA Boston’s prints and drawings department made Native American and First Nations prints a collection priority. This initiative was in collaboration with Tyquiengco and the MFA Boston’s Art of the Americas department. Tyquiengco told me she and Saywell wanted to curate an exhibition to celebrate the

MFA Boston’s recent acquisitions of 70 prints by contemporary Indigenous artists. They collaborated with Slick because of his perspective as a renowned New England artist, printmaker, and teacher.

Slick conceived of the exhibition’s theme of resilience.

The exhibition was hosted in one large gallery with grey walls. Two magenta, double-sided, free-standing walls stood on opposing sides of the room. Each wall displayed prints that engaged with the idea of resilience in unique ways through both technique and imagery. Superimposed on the magenta and grey walls were hard-edge abstract designs from Indian Edge (11 & 13), monotypes by James Luna (Puyukitchum/ Ipai/Mexican-American, 1950–2018).

My eyes were immediately drawn to the magenta walls and brightly colored prints

by Luna, Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee), and Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota). The anchor of the exhibition was a lithographed accordion-fold book by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish-Kootenai/Métis/Shoshone) displayed on a small magenta table in the middle of the gallery. The exhibition featured 30 prints made by 13 contemporary Indigenous artists. The works spanned more than 60 years, with the earliest print made in 1959 and the latest in 2022.

Crafting a Consequential Narrative (2020), one of Slick’s more recent prints,

1. Note to the readers that Tyquiengco is one of my curatorial mentors.

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was included in the recent acquisitions and exhibition. The work was created during the COVID-19 pandemic with a variety of printmaking techniques including collagraph, relief, and screen print with chine-collé and acrylic paint. It combines figuration with abstract expressionism, a common combination in Slick’s artistic practice. Coyotes, foxtail grass, and ribbonwork are depicted and refer to the resiliency of Native people and art in spite of the lack of mainstream education regarding Native histories. Crafting a Consequential Narrative speaks to Slick’s identity as not only a contemporary Native artist and intellectual but also an educator. The notion of resilience is common within Native American and Indigenous Studies discourse. The exhibition’s introduction text, written by all three curators, states: “Resilience can be expressed in many ways. It’s often noted as a trait of people who faced adversity and continue to bounce back. It can also be seen as ‘survivance,’ a concept Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor coined to express vibrant presence beyond survival.”

Across the room from Crafting a Consequential Narrative were four screen prints with metallic foil by Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota). Wówahokuŋkiya | Lead, Wókaǧe | Create, Nakíčižiŋ | Protect, and Wačháŋtognaka | Nurture are from the series Takes Care of Them (2019). In collaboration with Highpoint

REVIEWS

Center for Printmaking, a non-Native printshop in the Twin Cities, the prints were made in multiple stages. In a YouTube video produced by the center, I learned that for the foil ornamentation, adhesive was screen printed onto the paper and then foil was handstamped onto the adhesive. Each print in the series depicts a different color and style of a Plains woman’s dentalium dress. The framed screen prints are about the size of a dentalium dress, and the presentation covered an entire wall. The large presence of this suite was quite fitting considering the series refers to the roles Native women hold in kinship systems and the roles of veterans within the powwow arena. White Hawk’s mother is a veteran, and Takes Care of Them spotlights the notion that Native women’s roles as protectors are essential to resilience within families and communities. I enjoyed the curated balance of seven female printmakers and six male printmakers in the exhibition, especially considering that the contributions of women are sometimes overlooked within the practice of printmaking and the canon of contemporary Native art.

The design of the exhibition is a great example of more show and less tell.

Luna’s Sumojazz (16, 15, 9, 10, 3, 6, 5, and 13), on the largest wall, is the focal point of Marking Resilience. The orange, pink, purple, and magenta prints have a strong sense of color. The magenta in the series inspired the magenta walls in the gallery. Luna made this complex series in collaboration with Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, a Native-artist-founded printshop on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Overall, the Sumojazz series explores Luna’s interest in jazz music, Japanese sumo wrestlers, Native American stereotypes, and Indigenous geometric patterns.

Each monotype features photoshopped images of Luna wearing a Luiseño kilt with historical images of sumo wrestlers in their loincloths. This combination illuminates how bodies of color are perceived as cultural identifiers. Luna was well known for his artistic practice that challenged racial categories. Like many other labels in the exhibition, the label for this series focused on imagery and the

above Duane Slick, Crafting a Consequential Narrative (detail), 2020, collagraph, relief, screenprint and acrylic on Okawara chine-collé, collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Lee M. Friedman Fund. © Duane Slick. opposite Marking Resilience: Indigenous North American Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Edward and Nancy Roberts Family Gallery. Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

artist’s intentions rather than the printmaking process.

The MFA Boston’s recent print acquisitions increased the named artists in the museum’s Native American art collection by 25 percent. This increase brings to light the fact that art museums across the country steward collections of unattributed Native art. Will these institutions try to balance their historic collections with works by contemporary Indigenous artists? Thus far, the MFA Boston’s approach to this balance has been by way of prints. Tyquiengco is the inaugural curator of Native American art at the MFA Boston. As seen in Marking Resilience, she is drastically shifting and improving the ways that the museum’s Native art collection is grown and interpreted.

Marking Resilience raised the point that prints by Native artists are especially meaningful because paper was a key tool in settler colonization. Paper was the material used for treaties and laws that imposed the separation of Native people from their land and culture. From a historical standpoint, many Native American artists did not work with paper until Plains Indigenous artists made ledger art around the 1860s. About 160 years since then, Marking Resilience prompted

audiences to consider the hardships that contemporary Native artists and their communities faced and continue to face, including settler colonialism, forced removal, racial disparities, stereotypes, and exacerbated impacts of the COVID19 pandemic.2 At the same time, the exhibition celebrates printmaking as one avenue to visually express the powerful legacy within Native communities: to continue to move forward. Slick’s contributions as a co-curator were essential to the success of the show. His understandings as a printmaker and educator were apparent throughout the exhibition labels, design, and theme. In the label for Quick-to-See Smith’s book, she is quoted: “When I come through the door, I bring my community with me.” Slick, a friend of Quick-to-See Smith and other artists in the show, has done the same. He brought along his community of contemporary Native printmakers into the visually dynamic and thought-provoking exhibition. Marking Resilience closed on March 17, 2024. It will be followed by Ancestors and Place: Indigenous North American Prints, another exhibition of Native art on paper. Slated to open at the MFA Boston on April 27, 2024, the exhibition is also curated by Tyquiengco, Saywell, and Slick.

—Sháńdíín Brown (Diné)

2. Ivy Hurwitz et al., “Disproportionate impact of COVID-19 severity and mortality on hospitalized American Indian/Alaska Native patients,” PNAS Nexus 2, no. 8 (August 2023): 259.

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LUBBOCK, TEXAS

Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts

supremacist artist Charles Wing Krafft.

Still, an ambivalent portrayal of these weapons is daring in the state that leads the nation in gun sales.1 More provocative is Dance Clubs (2022), a series of cast ceramic gasoline pumps and wood with horsehair tails that evoke gasoline splashing down. Critique of the fossil fuel industry in Lubbock is a bold statement considering how integral oil and natural gas extraction is to the region.

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AVING NEVER HEARD of a Native Plains ceramic exhibition before and heartened that Karita Coffey (Comanche) was featured, I wanted to see Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains for myself. I caught a ride with Jane Osti and Karin Walkingstick (both Cherokee Nation), who spoke at the Texas Ceramic Symposium hosted by Texas Tech University (TTU).

Belonging artists Coffey and Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee) delivered the keynote address in a conversation with Klinton Burgio-Ericson, TTU’s assistant professor of art history of the Americas, who curated the exhibition.

In addition to Coffey, Fields, and Osti, four other artists were in Belonging: Chase Kahwinhut Earles (Caddo), Raven Halfmoon (Caddo/Choctaw/ Delaware), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota), and Cortney YellowHorse-Metzger (Osage).

Questions immediately arise about some of their relationships to the Southern Plains. The Osage and Western Cherokee, whose anthropological cultural regions are the Northeastern and Southeastern Woodlands respectively, have lived on the Southern Plains for the last two centuries.

Our histories and cultures didn’t freeze at the time of European contact but continue to evolve.

Luger, a Northern Plains artist living in New Mexico, is Southern Plains adjacent. For Belonging, he submitted Rounds (2022), a series of ceramic ammunition shells. He painted these ostensibly to decontextualize and aestheticize the form of this weapon component. I can’t help but wonder if all ceramic weapons are overshadowed by the oeuvre of late white

The region is within the historical territory of the Comanche Nation, and Karita Coffey was the first artist chosen for this exhibition. A longstanding ceramics professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), she taught Luger and inspired Fields. Coffey first encountered ceramics as an IAIA student in the early 1960s. Her approach is completely her own. Pottery is so reflective of culture that archaeologists name societies after their ceramic styles. However, Comanche people have no ceramic legacy; they became a people with the arrival of horses, when they broke away from the Shoshone in the Great Basin, adopted nomadic horse culture, and moved east onto the Great Plains.

Coffey comes to clay purely as a means of artistic expression, and her works are distinct in style even from each other.

Coffey’s Plains Indian Woman’s Leggings (1986) is seemingly straightforward: a faithful rendering of a pair of Comanche woman’s high-top moccasins with beadwork patterns painted in acrylic, upright, as if worn. But why is something as light, soft, and flexible rendered in a hard, breakable form? On one hand, rendering

these hallmarks of tribal identity quickly recognizable on a dance arena suggests a literal and metaphorical connection to the earth from which we all arise. On the other hand, the material could suggest a rigidness and fragility of cultural identity, calling for care and protection.

As part of larger sculptures, Coffey casts objects in clay, such as the baby doll with staring eyes whose torso is a small clapboard house with no roof. In the exposed room/torso sit diminutive, grey-clad figures gathered for a prayer meeting lit by kerosene lamps. This work embodies Coffey’s first memory as a young baby and speaks to religious syncretism so common among Oklahoma’s tribal communities. She also has an urn with cast bird figures and an absurdist teapot with one curved spout face up and another spout face down. Its humorous shape contrasts starkly with the serious portraits of a man and child drawn on its surface, presumably family members.

Fields also sculpted a vessel that’s not utilitarian but based on family stories.

In It’s a Bucket with a Lid on It (2016), the Osage word hanontze is emblazoned across a matte white surface.

Fields’s grandmother had once seen a useful-looking container in a store and asked her relative, “Hanontze?” (how much is it?). The white storekeeper misunderstood and rudely interjected, “It’s a bucket with a lid on it.” Fields’s grandmother responded in perfect English, “I know it’s a bucket with a lid on it!” The ridiculous exchange became an ongoing family joke. Fields also uses writing in her triptych, Do Your Best (2020), with impressed words on two white porcelain tiles that spell out “boarding/school l/oss of la/nd reloc/ation t/rauma!!” and flank a central tile with wash-shak’ in roman and Osage orthography, 𐓏𐓘̄𐓯𐓤𐓘͘. This straightforward and compassionate piece speaks to the perseverance of Osage social mores in the face of devastating challenges.

Works in Belonging feature a wide range of sculptural approaches: works in the round, monumental and diminutive, wall-hangings, suspended installation, and floor pieces. While the show’s emphasis is on content and experimentation, several works have classical pottery styles

1. Caroline Covington, “Texas’ complex relationship with firearms: Leading America in gun sales, but with a declining gun ownership rate,” The Texas Tribune, July 28, 2022, web.

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such as Coffey’s 1984 olla, Osti’s Coiled Cherokee Pot (ca. 2015), and Earles’s Large Caddo Traditional Utilitarian Jar (2019).

Osti and Earles can and do sculpt customary pottery forms of their respective tribes, which rely more on incising the clay for embellishment than adding colored slips. However, they both also have their own individual styles informed by ancestral aesthetics.

Throughout Osti’s career, she has used glazes, slips, and clays of various colors to achieve diverse effects. Works in this exhibition share a buff to burgundy fade achieved by flash-firing with pine needles. The high gloss on her incised ceramics comes from hours of hand burnishing. Her White Oak Pot (ca. 2009) is an elegant egg-shape of her own design with a scalloped mouth. Oaks, important to Cherokee ceremonialism and found in pre-Removal beadwork, are also part of Osti’s lived daily life. Nature is the present and future as well as the past.

Earles harvests Red River clay for his blackware pottery, which he tempers with ground mussel shell. While Utilitarian Jar is based on ancestral forms, he has purposefully embarked on his own twist on Indigenous Futurisms. His Star People (2023) surely resonated with Lubbock audiences. On the top of a flying saucer form etched with Spiro shellwork designs, a mother and child pose for a selfie with a smiling alien while a dog stretches and a man in a cowboy hat nonchalantly fishes off the edge. This idyllic country scene speaks to comfort and familiarity with alien life forms—a very different perspective than that of H. G. Wells in The War of the Worlds (1898), in which Martians are stand-ins for the English in their colonization of Tasmania.2 The Star People are seen as more benevolent than the Europeans.

Earles’s Scout (2023) takes a far darker view. An upright black feather identifies this ceramic Star Wars imperial probe drone as Indigenous. Scout speaks to the ongoing legacy of Native people aiding in the colonist destruction of fellow Native peoples.

Despite also being Caddo and inspired by Jeri Redcorn (Caddo/Citizen

above Installation view of Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains with works by, clockwise, Courtney YellowHorse-Metzger (Osage), Karita Coffey (Comanche), and Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee). opposite Karita Coffey (Comanche), Family Heirloom, 2018–23, stoneware clay, reduction fired with glaze and decals, 121/4 × 51/2 × 91/2 in. Both photos: A. Meredith.

Potawatomi), Raven Halfmoon’s monumental figurative works follow a completely different aesthetic. Recently named an Eiteljorg Fellow, Halfmoon layers clay upon clay then drips colored glazes across the variegated surfaces.

I was unfamiliar with Cortney YellowHorse-Metzger, who created two installations employing small daubs of clay impressed by fingerprints—one a vast collection of daubs suspended along filaments and clustered on the floor; the other a large bowl shape hung on the wall over a mural of clay slip handprints. These gestures in clay provide insights into the construction methods in Raven Halfmoon’s figurative works,

whose sense of immensity is more than just their larger-than-life scale; it’s the intensity of being built up from so many small daubs of clay.

From few Native Southern Plains artists working in ceramics through most of the 20th century, the geographic and cultural region now supports increasing numbers of Indigenous professional ceramic artists. The works in Belonging by just these seven artists are evidence of a vibrant, robust field. The artists approach clay with different strategies to address different concerns toward diverse goals.

Yet, the works speak well to each other, highlighting shared ideas and catalyzing new, nuanced conversations.

—America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

2. Matthew Wills, “What The War of the Worlds Had to Do with Tasmania,” JSTOR Daily, December 3, 2018, web.

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NEW YORK

Mario Martinez: Mindscape Garth Greenan Gallery

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URING A 2010 INTERVIEW for the National Museum of the American Indian, Yoeme (Yaqui) artist Mario Martinez remarked that “there are some of us [artists] who really see the in-betweenness of things—the abstract quality of life. This is the unseen. The things that have the sense of spiritual.”

In January the Garth Greenan Gallery in New York presented Mario Martinez: Mindscape, its first solo show for the artist. The 17 works, both paintings and drawings, span nearly 40 years of his career, with the earliest from 1985 and the latest from 2023. The visually stunning show of abstract works presents spiritual and mental conceptions. Martinez has explained that he doesn’t reveal Yoeme spiritual practices in his work. He might create works that touch on Yoeme cosmologies and dances, but the specifics aren’t revealed. They are essences of the spiritual, the sacred. The artworks in

above Mario Martinez (Pascua Yaqui), It's Probably Magic, 2004, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 76 × 135 inches. Photo: Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/Tohono O'odham descent).

Mindscape highlight Martinez’s ability to capture the liminal space of the “in between” that oscillates between corporal and spiritual worlds.

A member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, Martinez was born in 1953 in the village of Penjamo in Scottsdale, Arizona. Martinez earned his BFA from Arizona State University in 1979 and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1985. The earliest work in the show, Desert Night, was completed the same year as his MFA. The richly textured painting in oil and wax contains bright, colorful forms surrounded by a black and midnight-blue background.

The title alludes to a nocturnal scene in the desert and conveys how the evening is an active time for many desert animals and creatures.

Another early work, Arizona Memories (1995), is an abstracted natural landscape. In a kaleidoscope of colors are branch-like forms across the composition and a white flower near the center.

The painting is reminiscent of a dreamlike scene full of images layered on top of one another.

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Martinez’s works from the early 2000s continue his explorations of nature and landscapes. First Mesquitescape (2001) appears to be an abstracted mesquite tree. The painting has a central tree trunk that splits two color planes, a soft pink on the left and mint green on the right. Brown mesquite seeds and yellow seed pods dot the surface with branches and roots extending throughout. Along with being a food source, the Yoeme regard mesquite as a medicinal and supernatural plant.

In 2002 Martinez received a fellowship from the National Museum of the American Indian and has lived in New York ever since. A few works in Mindscape mark his early years in the city. It’s Probably Magic (2004), a horizontal work of two stacked canvases, measures 75¾ by 135 inches. A red horizon line and a black one mark the separation of the two canvases, and red and white vertical lines appear toward the left. Again branches and flowers appear in the painting along with Yoeme symbolism. Martinez has talked about his move to New York and his frequent visits to museums to see

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art by Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky, the first artist a leader of the Abstract Expressionism movement and the latter a painter who influenced Abstract Expressionism. In this work you can see inspiration from those artists and the incorporation of vigorous, gestural drawing. During his 2017 Voice of Contemporary Art interview, Martinez discussed his art school training and how his professors emphasized the artists associated with the New York School or Abstract Expressionism. For Martinez, being an artist living in New York was the natural progression.

Another work, DeKooning Obeisance (2019), is an unequivocal tribute to de Kooning. It is a work on paper executed in vibrant colored pencil and oil pastel. The gallery grouped eight works on paper by Martinez on the same wall.

They date from 2006 to 2021, and each work contains brilliant details along with a wash of bright colors.

The most recent artworks are canvas paintings from 2023. Ochre Brooklyn Thoughtscape (2023) is a surprisingly muted work measuring 60¼ by 72¼ inches. The main color is a warm , butter yellow. Underneath the surface are blue and ochre abstract images with checkered patterns and concentric circles.

Martinez has commented that his urban landscapes depict nature as well. Likewise, the concept of a “thoughtscape” suggests a place for one’s thoughts and meditations. It’s delicate and a departure from past works that might suggest a different artistic exploration for Martinez in the future.

Mario Martinez: Mindscape is the perfect title for this show and its grouping of artworks. While Martinez has lived in New York for more than two decades, he was born and raised in Arizona and then spent some time in San Francisco as well. These works capture the range of Martinez’s lived experiences, artistic influences, and Yoeme spiritualism. They also connect 40 years of his artistic career along with ancestral time or time immemorial. It’s the type of show that resonates weeks after you experience it.

—Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/ Tohono O'odham descent)

above Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné), Inherited Legacies, 2019, canvas print, yarn, pine lumber, red coral, pyrite inlay, 30 × 45 × 2 in., collection of the RISD Museum, 2023.68. Photo: Taylor Rose Payer (Turtle Mountain Chippewa).

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

Diné Textiles: Nizhónígo Hadadít'eh RISD Museum

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N OUR COMMUNITIES, Indigenous women have been creating items of couture and personal adornment for millennia. Each one-of-a-kind piece is woven with stories, power, and hope for its wearer. In this way, Indigenous fashion not only clothes us but encircles us with the resilient spirits of our relatives. Diné Textiles: Nizhónígo Hadadít'eh, an exhibition curated by Shándíín Brown (Diné) at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, celebrates generations of weavers and their contributions to Diné art history, fashion, and cultural legacies. In this exhibition, historic textiles are situated alongside contemporary art and design, thereby telling a rich and complex story about the widespread influence of Diné aesthetics.

Artist TahNibaa Naataanii (Diné) welcomes viewers to the exhibition in a video presentation. She speaks about her weaving practice with a steady and uplifting voice as the backdrop of stunning Diné lands dance in the interludes. At just under six minutes, the short film provides

a tidy framework with which to take in the rest of the small and eloquent exhibition.

It highlights the beauty of Diné weavers and their relationships to the land, sheep, and community—all teachers. In a particularly powerful moment, Naataanii shares the words and emotions that entered her mind when she was called to the gift that is this Diné art form: “I am a weaver.” This compelling maxim seems to dwell beneath the creation of the surrounding artwork.

Each of the 18 pieces represents a chapter in the story of Diné textiles—one that spans several centuries, geographies, and audiences. In the center of the gallery are the three-dimensional displays of Diné textiles framed by historic and contemporary photos on the surrounding walls and the aforementioned video, poetry, commercial items, and contemporary art. The stars of the show are seven thoughtfully selected textiles created by Diné women artists in the second half of the 19th century. Together they showcase Diné style, its geometrical symmetry, abstracted designs, thick bands of color, and its relationship to hózhó (balance, beauty, and harmony). In an illustrative example, a Chief-style Blanket, known to the Diné as a Diyogí n'teel, created by a weaver between 1880 and 1900, bears a prominent motif that honors Spider Woman. Resembling a cross, the design is repeated six times with possible reference to the Diné sacred mountains. As Brown notes in the accompanying label, this is an important piece as it contextualizes weaving practices within the Diné creation story in which Spider Woman brought the gift of wool and weaving to the community. Likewise, the other textiles feature a gorgeous vocabulary of abstract designs that hold Diné cosmologies, stories, and relationality.

In her photograph, Nikki, Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) provides a visual anchor for the exhibition. The work unites the two-dimensional pieces on the walls with their worn counterparts in the middle case. A figure is crouched with an eyedazzler-style Diné textile both beneath and behind her. She is mostly unclothed except for her Diné footwear. The partial nudity might suggest that she is cloaked in the fabric of her culture and community as represented by the textile behind and beneath her. As one moves their eyes down the photograph, the strength of the subject almost bursts out of the picture.

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above Diné artist once known, Diyogí n'teel/Chief-Style Blanket (Transitional Third Phase), collection of the Rhode Island School of Art and Design Museum, Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Danforth. Photo: RISD Museum. opposite Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), The Value of Sharpness: When it Falls, 2019, 60 porcelain hatchets, 131/4 × 5 x 1 in. each, installation variable.

Photo: Michelle J. Lanteri, PhD.

Taut muscles and plump veins in her wrists suggest strain. It is an apt representation of Diné women whose strength is the foundation of weaving and their matriarchal society. The photograph is a thought-provoking inclusion as it plays with the themes of embodiment and disembodiment. So often these textiles have been divorced from their weavers and makers. Even in the case of this exhibition, which reunites them as three-dimensional worn pieces on the mannequins, there is still an absence of an actual weaver, wearer, or human figure.

In welcome contrast, Inherited Legacies by Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné) departs from this sense of disembodiment with the excellent portrait and visual tie between the vertical loom, textiles, and would-be wearers and makers. As a wall hanging, it reflects the common museum

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move to hang Diné weavings on the wall.

At the same time, the weavings’ proximity to Romero’s photograph suggests a reclamation by the woman in the photograph who could have made or worn the piece.

Excellent curatorial moves mean that we can appreciate these Native women artists— known and once known—whose stamina and immense skill are evident.

While the textiles are certainly rooted in their relationship to Diné cultural practices, places, and identity, they also play a broader role in the history of American art and design. On the wall perpendicular to the Romero photograph is a Polaroid

by Andy Warhol from his Raid the Icebox 1 project at the RISD Museum. He took many pictures of Diné textiles and a myriad of other objects in the museum collection. A small but significant inclusion, the Polaroid stands in for the entanglement between Native artists and those American mid-century modern artists who collected and were certainly influenced by Diné textiles. The juxtaposition of the Romero and Warhol photographs is well-taken as it demonstrates the widespread engagement with Diné aesthetics.

Elsewhere in the gallery, a Pendleton blanket and shirt show the influence of Diné designs on the commercial and fashion industries that often do not credit Native artists. Without centering non-Diné artists, these sections of the exhibition adequately show the circulation of Diné textiles and designs albeit with a placid, educational approach.

A brilliant exhibition, Diné Textiles: Nizhónígo Hadadít'eh shows us what is possible when Native curators are empowered to showcase the artistic practices of their nations. Here, the curator relies on her vast network of relationships and Diné worldview to draw our attention to the cultural, aesthetic, and social value of Diné art. In a limited space, Diné Textiles includes rarely viewed, exquisite historic Diné works with contemporary fashion pieces that bear their legacy. The emphasis on fashion here is refreshing and offers a joyful respite from some of the well-worn approaches to 19th-century Native art. In fact, it is joy that permeates this exhibition. Vibrant reds and blues, the smiles and laughter of Native women, and father, mother, and child–sized textiles together again all show that joy is in the details.

—Taylor Rose Payer (Turtle Mountain Chippewa)

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SANTA FE

Nicholas Galanin: Interference Patterns SITE Santa Fe

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N VIEW THIS PAST WINTER, Nicholas Galanin: Interference Patterns offered a storied configuration of installations that compelled audiences to do a double-take at each narrative encountered in several media. Throughout the exhibition, a sense of precariousness accompanied viewers through the sequence of galleries, as if any of the artworks could break down at any moment. This feeling emerged from tensions between the poignancy of Tlingit/Unangax̂ artist Galanin’s themes and the materials that he chose to convey particular messages.

In a path that brought together artworks made between 2006 to 2023, viewers took steps through an arrangement akin to a chessboard. Each move contributed to one’s position in the game, a position that remained in flux, shifting one’s consciousness into an experiential discordance, an uncertainty of playing the game and simultaneously being played.

In a practice grounded in critical examinations of colonialism, Galanin’s specificity of medium amplified his concepts. As the first artwork seen, The Value of Sharpness: When it Falls (2019)

creates an alluring yet nerve-wracking experience. It features 60 porcelain hatchets suspended from the ceiling. Some of these run fairly low in height, and viewers are invited to walk underneath and around the sculpture. The installation conveys a sense of attack, and audiences must keep a close watch on their movements to avoid a collision. Cast in molds by a non-Indigenous studio, the hatchets have a red and blue floral pattern all over them, reminiscent of delftware, the blades dipped in a gold luster. Dutch delftware, or tin-glazed earthenware, was made as an imitation of Chinese porcelain and cobalt ceramics between the 17th and 19th centuries.

In this work, Galanin’s method of production, materials, and patterns signify an international colonialism through the movement of mass-produced goods through trade. The spread of these products represents a global affront on Indigenous peoples through the processes of resource extraction, land degradation, and community displacement, all in the name of industry. The shadows of this installation imply that this history continues to cause harm.

Adjacent to this gallery, the artist brought us up to the near present moment with his installation, Neon American Anthem (red) (2023), commissioned for this exhibition. Filling an entire room, this sculpture made of red neon letters against a black wall reads,

“I’VE COMPOSED A NEW AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM: TAKE A KNEE AND SCREAM UNTIL YOU CAN’T BREATHE.” This is an interactive artwork where visitors are invited to scream as loud as they can as they themselves take a knee.

The sculpture implies that Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, must be held accountable for his violent murder of George Floyd, a Black man arrested and killed on May 25, 2020. The video of this offense circulated globally, and millions of people bore witness to Floyd’s untimely death from Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd’s throat for almost 10 minutes. At once, Galanin also commemorates former San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick’s gesture of protest in taking a knee during the US national anthem on the football field in San Diego before a game against the Chargers in 2016. Museum visitors’ participation in this work brings forth implications of pain and privilege.

Further in, Galanin’s Intellectual Property (2020), six photographic prints, comments on the displacement of Indigenous belongings in museum collections.

The artist gave titles to each image of cultural materials that rejoin these media with their stories. Represented in photographic form, Galanin arranges pigments, wood, shells, hair, and fibers together to create a point of tension between the concepts of curiosity and Indigenous

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REPORT TORONTO

ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home above Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), Unconverted/Converted, 2022 dear hide, acrylic paint on wood diptych, left: 421/2 × 461/4 in.; right: 437/8 x 475/8 in. Photo: Peter Blum Gallery.

knowledge. In its medium of photography, this artwork also implicates the power of images to travel globally and in perpetuity, without Indigenous peoples’ consent.

This installation questions ideas of museum “ownership” and exposure of Indigenous collections in tandem with the jurisdiction of those decisions. In making this work in 2020, Galanin anticipated the 2023 changes in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. As museums and Indigenous communities navigate this law, this artwork will continue to reflect the need for Indigenous community dialogue and access to museum collections in order to enact protection, well-being, and responsibility.

The installation also suggests the scarcity of many Indigenous materials in the land due to the effects of climate change from mass industry. This pulls in a larger conversation about how Indigenous knowledge continues to be passed on once materials no longer grow in homelands. What does adaptation look like in these changes in environment already well underway?

In Infinite Weight (2022), the artist combines a taxidermic wolf mounted upside down to the ceiling with an LED monitor and a looped video of a wolf standing in the foreground, a beautiful landscape behind it. In a comment on climate change and resource extraction, the installation conveys the confinement of wolves to limited areas as their places of seasonal migration become untenable.

The position of the wolf upside down and overhead emphasizes its lack of mobility.

I interpret the presence of the wolf as a trickster figure indicated by its reversed position on the ceiling. The

wolf witnessed the foibles of “advancement” as a pathway to environmental degradation. With the video’s romantic landscape, this work implicates an irony in the destruction of mass tourism to the beautiful places that travelers seek to visit.

The dead, stuffed wolf creates a dynamic of considering one’s own participation in tourism and resource extraction.

At the end of the galleries is Galanin’s earliest work in this exhibition, Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan I and II (2006). Its position marries the beginning of the artist’s retrospective with the ending of the exhibition. The Tlingit in the song titles translates as “We will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care,” and the works frame questions of interchangeability. In this piece, Galanin presents two videos looped together. One part of the song, a Tlingit melody with analog instruments, features a non-Native performer, David “Elsewhere” Bernal, dressed in street clothes and dancing hip-hop style. Another part of the song features Galanin’s own electronic music with Dan Littlefield (Tlingit) dressed in regalia and performing a cultural dance to these digital beats. The artist interrogates the concept of who carries Indigenous culture and how it reaches a public audience.

Throughout the exhibition, Galanin’s installations provided a constellation of moments that stopped me in my tracks.

His works oscillated between the severity of ongoing colonialism and a trickster undertone. In this fashion, the pathway of the exhibition forced visitors to move back through the galleries in the same way they entered the space. Through this requirement, Galanin facilitated a space of shared history that viewers had to reflect on quickly. In effect, no one escaped the implications of the actions conveyed in the artist’s works. We are all connected. —Michelle J. Lanteri, PhD

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John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design

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OWARDS HOME is an Indigenous-led exhibition organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), that was on view in Toronto at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, through March 22, 2024. The exhibition is informed by the perspectives of a group of Inuit, Sámi, and settler co-curators, Joar Nango (Sámi), Taqralik Partridge (Inuk), Jocelyn Piirainen (Inuk), and Rafico Ruiz, who share the ambition to support northern Indigenous forms of sovereignty shaped by an understanding of the land as home. ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home reflects on how Arctic Indigenous communities relate to land and create empowered, self-determined spaces of home and belonging.

Through the exhibition, as well as its accompanying publication and programming, ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home aimed to have longterm impact by opening new forms of dialogue and ways of thinking about Northern Indigenous practices of designing and building with the land that are not normally considered in the canons of architecture. This report foregrounds the exhibition’s objects, voices, co-curators, and artists to walk readers through the exhibition’s guiding questions: Where is home? Where do we go from here?

Where does land begin? To begin, a welcome on the porch … —Rafico Ruiz TAQRALIK PARTRIDGE: The porch is an important space for homes in the North. There are memories in these spaces: the smell of sealskin, caribou hide, the fuel mix that goes into snowmobiles. I want Inuit or Sámi to recognize

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need to go out for the day to get wood or go out to check the fishing nets or pick berries, a backpack’s always hanging there ready to go. Some of these things are very beautifully made. We wear and keep them with pride but are not delicate about them. They are things for everyday use.

JOCELYN PIIRAINEN: Recently we saw Indigenous voices taking more space on settler platforms to speak to their communities. We are seeing a lot of Indigenous resilience globally these days and people reclaiming more autonomy.

In Angirramut or Towards Home, there is a feeling of moving somewhere implied.

The words give a sense of moving in the direction of something, it feels like going into the future or moving forward at least.

In Inuktitut, there’s no specific translation for the word art. There are a few translations, but one of the closest describes the idea of somebody making something. I think it’s the same with the word architecture—it’s about someone creating structures. Angirramut shows these interesting intersections between art and architecture and offers some perspectives from many different people on the future for building in the North.

JOAR NANGO: Understanding of home from a Sámi point of view is that it’s a major, rock-solid concept. Compared to, for example, the Norwegian, the European, the artist, or the architect— whatever other definitions I see myself through. When I define myself as a Sámi, home, land, tradition, and culture are more present in a way. The connection between home and land is something very present in Sámi culture. It becomes something that guides you, that corrects you, and that always forces you to respect a certain way of thinking, speaking, and relating to it. But this type of respectful knowledge system, language, and behavior patterns toward the land, for me, is the meaning of the title of this show.

above Three installation views of ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home. Photos: Scott Norsworthy. Images courtesy of the author.

and to see themselves in this space, in the things that are here. These are objects that my family and many other Inuit or Sámi families would have on our porch. If you

ASINNAJAQ: When it’s beautiful outside, I want to be outside. But it’s hard to use my screens in the glare of the sun.

It’s hard to read my books with my eyes open just enough to see. I want my home to have fewer walls separating me from outside, but I still want a roof to shield my eyes from the sunshine. I love homes that

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REPORT

This space reminds you that the universe is your home, that the earth is your home. have kitchens outside or garages that are half inside, half outside. I want to make a space with both the safety and security of walls and the brush of wind on your cheek.

To create a space that makes for the safety of an enclosed home and acknowledges the beauty of our outside home, I propose making the sky the ceiling of my tent, bringing a stream inside as a tap.

Bringing the moss inside as the bed, and rock inside as the countertop. I propose to bring in a stone qulliq with a neon light as a flame for the hearth of the home space.

This space reminds you that the universe is your home, that the earth is your home.

Taqralik Partridge: I think this exhibition is really about Inuit-led spaces and I think that it’s so important for Inuit to have self-determination in all its ways, not just in the political sense, but in everyday life, in the family, and in the workplace—those places where Inuit are the ones able to determine the places that are authentically Inuk.

BIOS RAFICO RUIZ is a settler (Northwestern Ontario/Ecuador), researcher, and curator. His work addresses infrastructure building in the Arctic, post-global warming ice, and practices of settler accountability. Ruiz wrote Slow Disturbance: Infrastructural Mediation on the Settler Colonial Resource Frontier, and co-wrote (with Melody Jue) of Saturation: An Elemental Politics, both published by Duke University Press. He is also the associate director of research at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

TAQRALIK PARTRIDGE is an artist, writer, and curator, originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik in Quebec, and now based in Ottawa, where she is director of the Nordic Lab at SAW Gallery. Her focus at the Nordic Lab is on bringing together artists from across the circumpolar world to collaborate and create new work. Taqralik is also an adjunct

curator at the Art Gallery of Guelph, where she is working on a series of exhibitions on the theme of Qautamaat / Everyday. Taqralik’s mixed-media textile works have toured Canada and overseas and can be seen at the Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, New Brunswick) and at Mimosa House (London, United Kingdom).

JOCELYN PIIRAINEN is an urban Inuk, originally from Iqaluktuuttiaq, Nunavut in Victoria Island. Since 2019 she has been working as the associate curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery–Qaumajuq. A graduate of Carleton University, Piirainen was educated primarily in the arts, particularly in film and new media. When not working as a curator, she works with analog photography and film in her artistic practice—mostly experimenting with Polaroids and Super 8 film—and hones her crochet and beading skills. She has contributed to publications such as Canadian Art, Canadian Geographic, and the Inuit Art Quarterly.

JOAR NANGO, born 1979 in Alta, Norway, is a Sámi and Indigenous architect and artist living in Norway. Nango’s work investigates nomads’ conceptions of space, territory, and ideas of home. He focuses on different ways of dealing with materiality, movement, and space.

ASINNIJAQ, organizer of Tillitarniit and contributor to the exhibition, is the daughter of Carol Rowan and Jobie Weetaluktuk. She is an urban Inuk from Inukjuak, Nunavik, and lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). asinnajaq’s art practice spans many media, from film and performance video to curation and much in between. She cocreated Tilliraniit, a three-day festival celebrating Inuit art and artists. asinnajaq wrote and directed Three Thousand (2017), a short sci-fi documentary. Longlisted for the 2020 Sobey Art Award, she co-curated Isuma’s presence in the Canadian pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale and the inaugural exhibition, INUA, at the Qaumajuq.

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BOOKS Iconicity of the UtoAztecans: Snake Anthropomorphy in the Great Basin, the American Southwest and Mesoamerica Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay and Alan Philip Garfinkel Berghahn Books, 2023

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ESIDES THE WIDESPREAD stereotypes about American Indians in popular culture, a second layer of historical myths all too often hide more dynamic and complicated realities of Indigenous histories. A persistent myth about Indigenous peoples of Americas is the that the Mesoamericans mistook Hernán Cortés for the divine feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl and his men for holy emissaries. While he was treated with the respect of a potential threat or ally, Cortés and his party never wrote about this mistaken identity. His men were not perceived as anything other than mortal men—strange yes, but merely mortal men.

This myth became a “cherry tree moment” of Mexican and Indian history; that is, a nation-building narrative. It became a story for historians from which to start and work back. To understand

BOOK REVIEWS

the stories about Quetzalcoatl became the “prologue” for the Spanish Conquest in the historical vocabulary of many children, including myself. In and around the Central Valley of Mexico, nations like the Toltecs, Olmecs, Zacatecos, and Tepecanos revered the feathered serpent as the bringer of wind and water, often closely associated with the aristocracy that regulated the agriculture that sustained the state. Beyond the parameters of Mesoamerican religion, it seemed the feathered serpent was no more important than maize, the sun, or other important elements of Mesoamerican spirituality.

Mukhopadhyay and Garfinkel challenge this conception in Iconicity of the Uto-Aztecans: Snake Anthropomorphy in the Great Basin, the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. The book’s topic is even more ambitious than its title. Mukhopadhyay and Garfinkel argue that they have mapped Uto-Aztecan–speaking peoples through the combined study of the archaeological record, linguistics, and most importantly, the examination of serpent iconography in art and religious work.

Exactly who the Uto-Aztecans are and where they came from is a contentious topic. The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of more than 26 languages once spoken from Oregon to Panama.1 Uto-Aztecan languages spread throughout the Great Basin, the desert Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Sinaloa, and Sonora), other parts of Mexico, and Central America.2 Contemporary speakers include the Shoshone, Paiute, Tongva, Luiseño, Ute, Comanche, Hopi, O'odham, Rarámuri, and Nahua (the people who founded the Aztec Empire). Scholars debate how closely related these groups are, linguistically, culturally, and genetically.

The main focus of the book is the significance of serpents in the religious and artistic expressions of the preColumbian Uto-Aztecans. The authors argue that common serpent motifs with a shared meaning were a sign of shared culture throughout the Uto-Aztecan world.

The three regions of the Great Basin, Southwest, and drier pockets of Mesoamerica share an arid climate favored by reptiles and watered by seasonal flash floods. Because the sudden downpours

Particular regions hosted different types of snakes, which influenced the snake patterns woven into baskets, carved into petroglyphs, and painted on ceramics. filled their sandy burrows, the appearance of snakes, the flash of lightning, falling water, the hissing of rain and serpents, and the cycle of fertility were connected in the worldview of Uto-Aztecans (although groups throughout the world also make these associations). Mukhopadhyay and Garfinkel provide pictographic examples where both hunter-gatherers and farmers featured snakes to represent these concepts with long lines, either curling or jagged, alone or as part of a human portrait (the “anthropomorphy” of the title).

The authors argue that these recurring symbols across different interpretations convey a core meaning to the psyche of the Uto-Aztecans, whether they were hunter-gatherers, farmers, nomadic, or sedentary. To make a Western comparison, despite the differences between Christian denominations, the cross holds widely understood meaning, no matter what style of the symbol.

By expanding their study of Uto-Aztecans beyond Mesoamerica, Mukhopadhyay and Garfinkel involve themselves in another “cherry tree moment” of history: the debate over the Aztec homeland. For much of the 19th century, historians and anthropologists of the United States mistakenly believed the Aztecs’ precontact rule reached as far north as Arizona and New Mexico (consider the Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec, New Mexico, where early white settlers credited the Aztecs for Ancestral Pueblo architecture). This seemed to pair well with the Nahua origin story: the Aztecs migrated at the guidance of the sun to Tenochtitlan from their homeland in the far north, which they called Aztlán.

The location of Aztlán has had many candidates, from the Four Corners to Atlantis.

While Mukhopadhyay and Garfinkel do not definitively argue a location for the Nahua homeland, they do track several origin points for regions within the “Proto Uto-Aztecan” peoples. Particular regions hosted different types of snakes, which influenced the snake

patterns woven into baskets, carved into petroglyphs, and painted on ceramics.

The role of water and fertility also varied among hunters and farmers, and the symbolism of snakes was tied to crops (maize) or game (deer, wildfowl) when snake imagery was combine to ceremonial human imagery. The authors provide several organizational charts that depict the changes in serpent iconography by region and Proto Uto-Aztecan subculture.

Iconicity does not use conventional regional names. Rather than states or nations, the authors refer to Oasisamerica (roughly the Great Basin and Southwest) and Aridoamerica (the dry borderlands of the United States and Mexico) along with names for smaller regions not likely familiar to those outside the archaeological field.

Regional dysphoria is thankfully mitigated by the authors’ frequent use of maps.

The authors also consult academic work from all over the Mexican-American West: from the 1850s anthropological sketches to present-day scholarship. Some of this is in the pursuit of myth busting, but it is mostly a testament to the extreme thoroughness of the authors in their inclusion of all available considerations as they examined all sources available, many in obscure subcategories.

This book is absolutely interesting, thanks to two passionately dedicated researchers thoroughly versed in their topic of interest. They have gone above and beyond to lay the groundwork, show their “paper trail” of research, and condense decades of debatable scholarship into a single work. They illustrate their analysis through graphs, charts, and timelines of their own creation. While the original work and summarizing work are nothing short of laudable, this book is not an easy read. In addition to very specific and detailed industry terms, the scope of the material discussed demands background knowledge that the reader may need to bulk up on before reading beyond the introductory chapters.

—James G. Bland

1. Lyle Campbell, American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 133.

2. Campbell, American Indian Languages, 134.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans

By Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, heather ahtone, Joy Harjo, and Shana Bushyhead Condill National Gallery of Art, 2023

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EPTEMBER 2023 saw the opening of Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC. Curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish-Kootenai/Métis/Shoshone), this survey includes more than 50 living artists. A 192-page catalogue was published alongside the exhibition.

While the main author is Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, the collaborative effort of this project cannot be understated. Other notable authors include Joy Harjo (Muscogee), heather ahtone (Chickasaw/Choctaw), and Shana Bushyhead Condill (Eastern Band Cherokee).

This collaboration underscores one of the fundamental goals of the exhibition and catalog, which is to demonstrate the “rich array of land-based knowledge systems shared by Indigenous peoples across millennia, addressed in the present, and looking to the future,” as Kaywin Feldman, NGA director, writes.

In her eloquent foreword, Feldman sets the premise, importance, and context of this project, noting that Land Carries Our Ancestors is the first Native American

exhibition at the National Gallery since 1993. The book is divided into two main sections: the four authors’ reflections on the exhibition and a complete collection of the works and biographies of artists exhibited in the show.

“Once the World was Perfect,” a poem by three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Mvskoke), introduces the catalogue’s first section. Harjo invites the readers to remember a time before widespread climactic destruction caused by human impact. She encourages them to harken back to a time when humans and the earth lived in balance and mutual respect. She laments that “once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world. Then we took it for granted.” This theme is recurrent throughout the catalogue and is embodied by the various artists and their work.

In “sky as place, land as body, landscape as spiritual compass” by heather ahtone, First Americans Museum director of curatorial affairs, establishes an artistic and extensive epistemological lineage for incorporating land in art. By creating this lineage and citing examples such as Chauvet Cave, Chaco Canyon, and landbased art in general, ahtone cements the cross-cultural relationship between land and art. ahtone also introduces the variability of cultural epistemologies—a theme throughout the exhibition and catalog—by comparing genesis stories, particularly Indigenous and Western. This juxtaposition between diverse teachings and cultures is integral to establishing the significance of this project as a whole. Not only does her essay elucidate the stakes for future exhibitions and scholarship, it also stresses the current environmental and academic state. ahtone concludes by encouraging her audience to rethink their outlook on life and how they treat the planet, asserting that “on behalf of the earth, these works entreat us to remember our planet is not merely a resource or asset over which humans have been given dominion.”

“Land/landbase/landscape” is the third article and written by Smith, which brings to the fore the importance of language, kincentricity, and the knowledge that is inherently embedded in the land.

Smith begins by recounting the story of her time living on a reservation and the necessity to exist in balance with the land

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and its resources. The anecdote introduces the audience to an Interior Salish story of Coyote and simultaneously highlights the entwined nature of one’s language and the land. Like ahtone, Smith stresses the differences in epistemology, and how being cognizant of, learning about, and working with Indigenous theories of knowledge is a necessary step toward regaining one’s relationship with the land. To conclude, Smith inquires, what happens 50 years from now and “where do we go from here”? This and other questions promote the audience’s reflection and concurrently places the catalog in conversation with future generations and discussions.

Shana Bushyhead Condill, executive director of the Museum of the Cherokee People, contributed the essay “The Dust on Our Feet” in which she recounts her formative relationship with Smith and reflects on the exhibition in its entirety. She places the project in conversation with the future by stating that this exhibition is one step in “correcting and continuing the conversation” about Indigenous artists and their work. Condill also links various themes and subjects demonstrated throughout the exhibition, such as water, animals, mountains, and feminine power, to exemplify the personal yet collective relationship between art and land for the wide array of artists. She concludes that works in this exhibition “illustrate the intense power and beauty of land, the danger to it and therefore ourselves, and our unwavering hope that lies in that interconnected love.”

The second half of this catalogue consists of a complete alphabetized index of the artists, their work, and their biographies and personal statements. Included are Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa), Raven Chacon (Diné), Mario Martinez (Pascua Yaqui), and Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation), among many others. These informative elements along with high-resolution photographs of the artwork bound together in this publication ensure this exhibition will not be forgotten.

Aesthetically, the book is as exquisite as the works showcased in the exhibition. Through the use of earthly colors, namely blue, orange, and green, the catalogue evokes themes of land and water highlighted by the contributors and artists. The front and back covers

by Emmi Whitehorse (Diné) feature

BOOK REVIEWS

organically abstracted shapes and designs that conjure floral and faunal elements found in pre-industrialized landscapes.

Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans is a foundational text for the future study, discussion, and appreciation of Native American art. The essayists’ and artists’ contributions are personal, reflective of their heritage and cultures, and inspirational. To present the pieces of the exhibition in dialogue with the words of four leading Native women authors not only creates a cohesive guide for readers but also extends the experience of physically being at the exhibition. In a sense the catalogue has taken something ephemeral and made it eternal. This book allows future audiences to engage with the artists, themes, and contributors while reinforcing the message that “we know that no matter where we go, the dust of the land carries our ancestors.”

—Abby Mikalauskas

Tallchief Elise Paschen Magic City Books, 2023

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N ACCOMPLISHED POET, Elise Paschen (Osage) is the daughter of America’s first prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief (Osage, 1925–2013). Paschen released her 2023 chapbook, Tallchief, on a cold, rainy day on the grounds of the Tulsa Historical Society.

That day, celebrated ballerina Misty Copeland, tribal leaders, actors from Killers of the Flower Moon, Chief Marilynn Malerba (Mohegan, the first Native American to serve as U.S. Treasurer), ballet fans, and other supporters gathered in a giant, heated tent to celebrate three events: the U.S. Mint’s launch of the Maria Tallchief quarter, the unveiling of the repaired bronze of Marjorie Tallchief on the historical society’s grounds, and the launch of Tallchief, the first publication for Magic City Books. The crowd enjoyed Osage singing and dancing, performances by the Osage Ballet, a coin drop, and the statue unveiling, then made its way inside the Tulsa Historical Society building for a book signing. There could hardly have

been a more fitting day for the chapbook’s release.

Paschen worked with the U.S. Mint on the quarter for several years. As the launch approached, she wished she had work about her mother to release at the same time. American poet Dana Gioia suggested she publish a chapbook of new and collected poems. “[My mother] has been a huge source of inspiration for me as a writer, as a person in the world, as an artist,” Paschen said in an interview just before the release. “In each of my previous books, I had at least three poems about my mother. The new manuscript, Blood Wolf Moon [coming in 2025], is really focused on my Osage heritage and includes many, many poems about my mother and about my aunt [Marjorie Tallchief] and Fairfax,” the Oklahoma town, where they grew up.

Even when they do not explicitly refer to Osage land, the poems in Tallchief are rooted in it, just as Maria was. The elegant, worldly prima ballerina of the poems set in Hamburg, New York City, Venice, and Chicago is the little girl from Fairfax where “your window looked over the meadow. / The wind through grass like a seesaw / seemed to sound out the field” (“Oklahoma Home”). In part X of “Heritage,” Paschen writes: “The year my mother was born / in Fairfax, Oklahoma, / white men were marrying Osage / women and killing them / for their headrights.” That period, of course, is depicted

in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which premiered in theaters a little more than a week before Tallchief’s release.

“No one ever spoke about the Reign of Terror in the family,” says Paschen.

“The only times I heard my mother talk about it, she said that my grandmother wanted to move them out of Oklahoma.

My mom was already eight by then, so here’s my grandmother in Oklahoma, [who gave] birth to my uncle, then my mother in 1925, and then my aunt Marjorie. I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like for these young parents—my grandfather and my grandmother— having these little, tiny children enter the world at this terrifying time.”

Tallchief is a book of contrasts: Between Fairfax, Osage Nation, Europe, and New York City, where Maria’s career and Paschen’s childhood took place.

Between Maria as prima ballerina and Maria as mother. Between Maria’s connection to her Osage heritage and Elise’s connection. Between Maria in her prime and Maria at the end of her life. And, with the inclusion of “Wi’-gi-e,” the connection between the world Tallchief was born into and the one she enthralled as America’s first prima ballerina.

Paschen was raised in Chicago and New York City, but her parents made sure she maintained a connection to her Osage identity through visits home. She said that she “was always so proud to be Osage, as was my mother.” Paschen recalled: “We would go to Oklahoma every year to visit my grandmother, my mother’s mother, Ruth Tallchief, in Fairfax. So I see Oklahoma, and Fairfax in particular, as a genius loci. It’s truly a place of inspiration for me. Whenever I go home to Oklahoma, I am so inspired in so many ways by the history, by the background, by the landscape of Oklahoma, by my family.”

In Tallchief, Paschen distills her connection to the Osage Reservation, to her mother, to her heritage, and to the impact of art in twelve powerful poems. Collected in this slim volume, these focused poems present a deep and loving portrait of Maria Tallchief as well as insight into the precise and insightful Osage poet she raised.

—Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

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TELEVISION Echo Marvel Studios, 2023–24

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CTION HEROES that look like us are hard to come by in the United States. Sure, we’ve seen Apache Chief fight alongside Batman, or the Sphinx mentor a bumbling superhero team every once in a while. If all else failed, we relied on Billy Jack, who was actually played by a non-Native, but we gave him a pass because he was cool.

Our stories have historically been told through a Eurocentric lens, but thankfully this is changing. Shows like Prey, Alaska Daily, Rutherford Falls, and Reservation Dogs have popped up and portray multidimensional Indigenous peoples, even tribally specific Native people, with a glimpse into modern Native life. Less leather and feather and more realistic characters.

Introduced to audiences in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series Hawkeye in 2021, MCU announced that Echo’s Maya Lopez was getting her own series. After a significant delay, Echo’s solo series burst onto the streaming service scene at the number one spot on Disney+ and Hulu. The series is based on a Cheyenne/Latine comic book superhero created in 1999

by David Mack and Joe Quesada.

While it’s unclear why Maya switched from Cheyenne/Latine to Choctaw, we confirmed that writer and artist Steven Paul Judd (Choctaw Nation/Kiowa), Echo’s executive story editor, reached out to Tony Ward (Choctaw Nation), District 2 councilperson of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, to begin a conversation.

In the past, a “Native consultant” would be brought into production to add “authenticity,” even if the characters were played by non-Natives. But this time, someone at Marvel had the wisdom to bring in Indigenous writers and creatives, as well as experts from the Choctaw Nation language and culture departments, to allow for more collaboration and richer storytelling by including Indigenous creators in front of and behind the camera. With the commercial success of Echo and other film and video productions, hopefully this trend will continue.

Newcomer Alaqua Cox (Menominee) plays the titular character and, though she’s described as a villain in promotional materials, this character plays out more like an antihero than villain. Cox is a powerhouse.

In her first lead role, her on-screen presence matches scene-for-scene with more seasoned professionals such as Graham Greene (Oneida), who plays her grandfather, and the illustrious Tantoo Cardinal (Cree/Métis), who plays her grandmother. Other familiar faces populate the

TELEVISION REVIEW

series including Devery Jacobs (Mohawk) as her cousin Bonnie; Chaske Spencer (Fort Peck Assiniboine/Dakota) as her Uncle Henry; MorningStar Angeline (Diné/Chippewa Cree/Blackfeet/ Shoshone/Mexican-American) as her ancestor Lowak; Zahn McClarnon (Standing Rock Lakota) as her father, and many more.

The basic storyline of this miniseries is the secret origin of Maya’s powers. It starts with a lengthy, hyperactive recap of Maya exacting revenge for her father’s death by shooting Kingpin in the eye. We get a little bit of the backstory of Maya before we see her getting back on the rez. There, she enlists the help of her cousin, Biscuits, expertly played by Cody Lightning (Cree), to begin her takeover of the Fiske empire while trying to lay low on the rez. As with most Native communities, the moccasin telegraph kicks in, and things get complicated. Her plans to take over an empire are disrupted. As she discovers more about herself and reconnects with her Choctaw roots, with the community, with her family, and with the ancestral powers that run through her, she begins to heal.

The pantheon of Choctaw women who lend their powers to Lopez creates a certain sense of nostalgia, echoing back to the female superheroes of our childhood, except now these heroes finally look like us.

Lopez’s growth as a character, who gains ancestral powers as she heals, gives Native women someone to relate to. She is one angry ohoyo. Given the heavy lifting that Native women do mentally, emotionally, and physically each day, our female podcast hosts certainly give her an enthusiastic thumbs up, who bonded over the satisfaction felt when she snapped the neck of her first victim.

Director Sydney Freeland (Diné) has assembled a lot of disparate information into a relatively clear narrative, given that the series was shortened to five episodes. She created excellent, well-choreographed fight sequences set in locations such as a warehouse and a roller-skating rink that take full advantage of Cox’s athleticism.

By the end of the five episodes, we see the full realization of the person that Maya Lopez was meant to be, courtesy of the women who led their people through the highs and lows of indigeneity in the US. Through the matriarchs of her family, she remembers the importance of community and ancestors and chooses love over anger and hate.

The time spent on the recap in the first episode could have been better spent developing the relationship between Maya and Devery Jacobs’s Bonnie. Scenes between young Maya, perfectly played by Cox’s cousin Darnell Besaw (Menominee), and Katarina Ziervogel (Sagkeeng Ojibwe/Mohawk) as her mother are sweet and worth more time. We really missed seeing more scenes with the brilliant Dallas Goldtooth (Mdewakanton Dakota/Diné) and Jana Schmieding (Cheyenne River Lakota), who apparently moved their budding onscreen relationship from Rutherford Falls to Tahama, Oklahoma.

Did this series fill the void of what many of us wished for as kids? That longing for a character to identify with and recognize ourselves in? Perhaps. Even with mixed reviews, Echo is a step forward in sharing our stories. But it is still just a small

Echo, promotional poster for Hulu and Disney+. ©2024 Marvel. Image courtesy of Marvel Studios.

Lopez’s growth as a character, who gains ancestral powers as she heals, gives Native women someone to relate to. She is one angry ohoyo. step toward a world of motion picture storytelling where each Indigenous tribe and nation develops their own content. This evolution of Indigenous film language could expand beyond our wildest dreams and perfunctory genres—including the superhero tent-pole story.

As for now, Echo does have themes and concepts that express what it means to be Indigenous in today’s society. It does give us a character to whom we can relate. Maya Lopez’s journey is that of a healer and how she discovers the convergence of hero and warrior—a very Choctaw concept. If we can continue these trends and strengthen our sovereignty in motion-picture storytelling, then stories like this can continue to heal viewers as we recognize our authentic selves in modern media.

—Angela Startz (Inupiaq) and tvli jacob (Chahta), Reel Indigenous podcast FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 97

ART+LIT

Syilx Novelist

BRIAN THOMAS ISAAC

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

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n 1950 Brian Thomas Isaac was born on the Okanagan Indian Reserve in British Columbia. As a teenager, Isaac left school after eighth grade and eventually began working in the oil fields of Northern Alberta. He retired as a bricklayer. In the early 2000s he began to write fiction. When his wife, Marlene, submitted his work to a writing competition in Penticton, British Columbia, he won the first prize in the fiction category.

The award inspired him to take his writing seriously.

TouchWood Editions published Isaac’s debut novel, All the Quiet Places, in 2021. In the book, protagonist Eddie confronts the aftermaths of colonialism by attending school outside the reserve, leaving his culture, and experiencing

family trauma. The book quickly became a commercial and critical success. The novel was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award, long-listed for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and longlisted for CBC Canada Reads. It won the Indigenous Voices award for fiction, was a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and was named an Indigo Best Book of 2021.

Isaac and Marlene live in West Kelowna where he is finishing his second book, Bones of a Giant, and enjoying time with his three grandchildren. I connected with Isaac through a series of email conversations in September 2023.

Let’s begin outside of writing. Can you tell me about your early life on the Okanagan reserve?

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My early life was similar to Eddie’s in All the Quiet Places. I lived with my mother, six brothers, and a sister in a three-room cabin on an isolated area of the Okanagan Indian Reserve. I think living close to the Salmon River in many ways saved me. Being outdoors away from the dark and depressing house was the best place for my brothers and me. We didn’t have electricity or running water, so we played outside from morning until night. One day when I was ten, my mother handed me the .22 rifle and said we had nothing to eat. When I came home with a grouse, I was so proud. But I didn’t understand how poor we were until I began school.

On that very first day when I crossed the bridge, the reserve boundary, I was not prepared for the world I was entering.

Attending a school in a nearby town where I was one of the few Indigenous kids resulted in many fights. After making it known that I could stand up for myself, I was able to adjust to school life a little.

Although I enjoyed reading and writing poetry, it was not encouraged by my mother. Riding the bus to high school 30 miles away was like riding in a pressure cooker, and I quit school before completing grade 9.

How did you get introduced to riding bulls?

Riding in rodeos is a rite of passage to many Indigenous boys—similar to boys in Spain who dream of being a matador.

When I was about 14, my white friend lived on the neighboring farm, and we would practice on an old barrel tied to the hay barn rafters that we pulled by a rope and also by riding steers when his dad wasn’t home. My friend was a big, strong farm kid, and he rode by sheer strength while I weighed about 120 pounds. I didn’t always have the money for the entry fee. I would enter my name for the bull riding and then try to come up with money. I had to stop bull riding because

ART+LIT

money became such a big issue for me while my friend went on for years. I still have a facial scar from a bull horn that I proudly show my grandchildren.

You worked as a logger in the Albertan oil fields and as a bricklayer.

How did those experiences shape your writing?

I eventually went to Adult Basic Ed and earned my grade 10, but my lack of education relegated me to jobs as a laborer. I had always loved to write poetry and to read novels, so when I retired from bricklaying due to an injury, I found I had time to read again. When I began to write, I discovered the great freedom that writing gave me to create my own worlds and allowed my mind to wander freely.

The many characters I had met in my working life with their different stories, reactions, and lifestyles were like a gold mine when it came time to write.

Is it important for writers to gain life experience outside academia, outside the publishing industry, outside the “art world”?

There are some fine writers who have studied and worked in academia all their lives, and I wish I had had that opportunity. The stories I write principally come from snippets of real-life occurrences that I have either seen, heard, or read about. If I had studied writing formally, I doubt I would have even attempted to write a novel. Because I knew so little about that world, I had the audacity to think I could write and publish a novel.

Although I have learned much about writing from reading the literary giants, I write from instinct, not from a set of rules or principles. I would like to think that might give me an edge because my writing is different from others. I am not handicapped by those rules.

There is something to be said for not being handicapped by rules. Some also actively unlearn the rules they absorbed in academia. All the Quiet Places wouldn’t read or feel as it does if you had pursued formal training.

It’s also your debut novel, which was released when you were 70. Was this novel possible when you were 30 years old, 40, or 50?

When I was asked about how I felt writing my first book at 70, I said that stepping out of my coffin in the mornings to start work was wonderful. But seriously, it wasn’t practical or even possible until I was 50 to write, as I had to work to help support my family. And I was pretty messed up when I was younger. But when I began to write seriously in 2000, it was my metamorphosis. Writing was my therapy, and I was able to let go of many long-buried, painful feelings.

above All the Quiet Places: A Novel (TouchWood Editions, 2021). opposite Brian Thomas Isaac.

Photo: Fiona Blaquier. Both images courtesy of the artist.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 99

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1956

T

HE SULTRY WEATHER had been building for days until the air weighed on Eddie’s bed like a damp blanket. His feet constantly searched for cool spots on the mattress but never found any. Even the burping frogs down at Heart Lake, a quarter of a mile away, stopped now and then to catch their breath. It was only when cooler air rattled the leaves on the poplars down by the outhouse and swept over the bed that Eddie fell asleep.

A screeching wind jerked him awake. The ceiling and walls cracked and thumped. He sat up. His little brother, Lewis, was fast asleep beside him, and no sound came from his mother’s bedroom on the other side of the paper-board wall. The slop bucket slid across the porch, hit the ground, and rolled banging across the yard.

Eddie stood on the bed and looked out the window but saw only pitch darkness. Then lightning flashed across the sky, showing trees that leaned at impossible angles to the ground. With a loud crack a bolt of lightning struck the top of a cottonwood down by the river, and pieces of wood scattered into the wind like dandelion fluff. Eddie saw spots in front of his eyes as if he had looked at the sun.

Lewis woke up crying and stumbled to join his mother, but five-year-old Eddie was drawn to the lightning like a moth to a coal oil lamp.

His hand felt the shaking glass with each thunderclap. A nail holding a loose board in a wall squeaked like it was being pulled out by a claw hammer. His mother called to him, and the three of them huddled under her blankets, listening to fir cones and pieces of boughs that hit the roof.

The next morning Eddie let out a long yawn as he stretched and arched his back. He heard water dripping on the hot stove. Psst, psst, psst. He jumped to his feet, and with his nose touching the window, scanned the ground around the house.

—Brian Thomas Isaac (Syilx) Excerpted from All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac, copyright © 2021 by Brian Thomas Isaac. Reprinted with permission of TouchWood Editions. https://www.touchwoodeditions.com

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above Sculptures by Smoker Marchand (Colville, 1951–2023) at the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos in the South Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. Photo: Gunter Marx / Alamy Stock Photo.

What is your advice for writers who take up writing later in life, either as a hobby or as a professional pursuit?

Be brave. And let go of the feeling that you’re not good enough.

A good friend or mentor is a must, so you can bounce ideas off of them. But you must read, read, and read again. For two years, I read every word of award-winning literary authors’ books with the greatest care and reflection so I could understand what made their writing so good.

All the Quiet Places is set in the Okanagan reserve community and Falkland, British Columbia, places you have lived. How did your knowledge of these places create a richer picture for the reader?

I have never written about an imagined setting, but I would love to try. One of the joys of writing is to create your own world, and I expect that as a first-time writer, writing about the familiar made it easier. For All the Quiet Places, I was lucky to find a professional editor who advised me to use real place names so readers can identify more closely with the book. For me, writing a science-fiction novel would be difficult—or maybe not, I haven’t tried. I have traveled quite a bit, and the Salmon

ART+LIT

River Valley is one of the most beautiful locations in the world. But the sad part of that is that recently a well-known biologist predicted that in ten years, if nothing is done about river conservation, the Salmon River will cease to exist.

It’s been two years since All the Quiet Places was released and read by tens of thousands of people. What are your thoughts on the book now that you’ve had some historical distance from it?

All the Quiet Places was written from the heart. When it was finished, I didn’t care if it was published or not. But with my wife’s persistence, we found the right publisher.

The book went out, and I am so proud that it did. I have learned so much about the business of books! I was lucky. The money and attention paid to good writing is so meager. The several major awards and prizes do help sell some books, but I know that there are many Canadian writers who write beautiful and important novels who have rarely been recognized.

One well-known writer told me that the writing awards are “a crapshoot.” Another wrote, “Imagine any other profession where hundreds of people work with no pay for two to ten years, and then a lottery is held, and a handful of people get a payout.” It’s the reality of writing.

But we need more Indigenous writers to tell their stories, because through writing and reading, people will learn about our reality so we can enact change.

What do you struggle with in your writing practice and how do you alleviate it?

I love writing. I can hardly wait to start in the morning because I am so comfortable sitting in my chair in my office, lit only by the light from my monitor. It is my fortress of solitude. What I struggle with is the public speaking and expectations of the interviewers. I am not an academic. I do not have a literary vocabulary, unlike

writers who were lucky enough to study literature or creative writing. I can only respond to questions in general terms or in stories about my own writing experience. And unless the interviewer is able to help me relax, I am not at my best while public speaking. It’s like a mental block. I much prefer having time to reflect on my answers. The two facets of a writer’s life are not compatible for me. Lock me in a dark room with a computer and I am at my best. Put me in front of an audience and I am at a loss.

Thank you for sharing this. You’re certainly not alone. I think many people would rather be in front of a laptop than an audience. What is the next project you’re working on?

Bones of a Giant, a companion (yet standalone) book to All the Quiet Places, has been sent to my agent who will be presenting it to publishers soon.

BRIANTHOMASISAAC.COM

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OPINION

COLORIZING HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS Ethical Dilemmas of a New Digital Technique

By Alicia J.M. Colson, PhD, and George “Choch” Kenny (Lac Seul Ojibwe)

A

technological development of the first two decades of the 21st century is the automated colorization of photographs, including historic glass plate or filmbased images that have been previously scanned into a digital format. What’s colorization? It’s the changing of black, white, and grey pixels into colored ones, with artificial intelligence (AI) now making the process even more automated and less time-consuming. It is often described as breathing fresh life into old photographs, but intellectual property rights (IPR), copyright, and ownership issues arise from the practice.

The increasing ease of colorization raises the possibility of digitized collections of Indigenous communities—some taken decades or even over a century ago—being altered. Complex issues arise and need to be considered by Indigenous communities, especially given the ongoing search for a better understanding of Native histories. Communities around the world have been “visited” by Outsider researchers who took photographs of those who lived there, including their buildings, landscapes, and cultural

artifacts deemed important by the photographers. These images ended up in the archival collections of museums, libraries, and other research institutions.

One example that raises the authors’ concern is images from the Lac Seul 28 Reserve in central Northwestern Ontario, Canada (N 50°15'0", W 92°13'0"). The Insiders who live there call it Obishikokaang, which translates to the “place where the white pines grow.” It consists of a 66,277-acre reserve containing three settlements: Frenchman’s Head, Whitefish Bay, and Kejick Bay. This is the home of one the authors (Kenny). His Anishinaabeg people—whom Outsiders have labeled “hunter-gatherers” and Oji-Cree—strive at and excel in managing wild rice, gathering foodstuffs, and hunting, as they have for millennia. The Lac Seul First Nation is a signatory to Treaty 3, a member of the Independent First Nations Alliance and a regional tribal council, and a non-Treaty 9 member of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Along with the three settlements already mentioned, a fourth (Canoe River) was obliterated in the aftermath of the 1928 Lac Seul Conservation Act— an agreement between the Canadian

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national government and the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba—meant to supply water for hydroelectric plants along the English and Winnipeg rivers. Subsequent damming caused flooding that destroyed sacred burial grounds, homes, berry patches, fields, and pictograph sites.

Today, Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of History holds the F.W. Waugh Collection, donated by the son of ethnologist Frederick Wilkerson Waugh (1872–1924) who visited Obishikokaang in 1919. From the perspective of the coauthor Kenny, the collection contains photographs of relatives, family friends, and his culture’s ritual objects. Originally black and white photographs, they have since been digitized and are now available for easy viewing and downloading. Let’s consider these facts and some questions about colorization from a First Nation’s perspective.

The colorization of black-and-white images can increase viewers’ familiarity with a specific subject, though the historic moment may now be visualized in black-and-white, especially by Outsiders.

But nostalgia and a desire to preserve memories feeds the demand for blackand-white photographs, even from glass

OPINION

above A photo of Lac Seul near Ear Falls, Ontario, left to right: original, black and white, flipped horizontally, and automatically colorized through Adobe neural filters. Photo: P199 (CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED).

plates, being colorized, which can make these old images more visually interesting, even eye-catching. The potential benefits are copious for researchers interested in the past. It is often far easier to begin understanding the history of a geographic region through its photographic record. Colorization can also highlight details that are often so faint that they are lost to the naked eye.

Colorization isn’t new. Artists handtinted photographs in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, while vivid color can highlight faint details in digitized images, it requires considerable research to correctly identify historic coloring patterns.

Colorization requires the person, preferably a historian, who is altering an image to be a specialist in their field. Written documents, such as diaries or catalogs, need to be consulted to establish the range of colors used at the time the image was captured based on building materials, dyes, and clothing design patterns.

For historical accuracy, it’s imperative to obtain as much information as possible to establish the precise colors that are contiguous with the original subject material.

Some notable thought leaders in this field are digital colorists like Jordan J. Lloyd, Marina Amaral, and Ross Day, who have been refining and undertaking the painstaking process of determining which color sets pertain to which historical contexts. But no matter the depth of the research, unknowns persist.

Important unanswered questions remain regarding the ownership trail of altered images. Does a distinct creative act take place during colorization, and if

so, how is this incorporated into the IPR and copyright chain?

If a collection of black and white images was taken by one person, then ownership passed to another entity that then digitized them, then there are layers of ownership questions already at play.

A new question is if the person who colorizes images is now also a holder of copyright and intellectual property rights—or some as yet-developed new rights. Unless the image is in the public domain, then an archive, museum, library, or person owns the IPR and copyright of the original black and white image. But who owns the IPR and the rights of the new colorized one?

The process of obtaining permission to reproduce material—whether a photograph, text, or archival record— always requires the user to obtain written permission from the copyright holder.

Museums, libraries, archives, and even publishers oftentimes have an individual, and occasionally an entire department, charged with managing copyright issues stemming from the collection.

For a specific work, the copyright holder grants use permission for a given length of time, stating this clearly in the documentation that covers the terms and conditions by which the image may be utilized. The party seeking permission will usually be required to preserve its original format.

As an example, an author has written a piece for an academic journal and wishes to obtain permission to reproduce a digitized photograph, now stored as a JPG or a GIF. They request, usually in

writing, that the copyright holder grant them the right to reproduce it in the journal. The copyright holder grants this request to use the digital image (file), usually in writing, and with specific conditions. The permission to use the file does not mean any ownership rights have been transferred. A person is just using the digitized image for a specified purpose and/or period of time. The situation is generally very clear, involving the use of an image or images alongside other data, usually text.

In another scenario, someone downloads a black-and-white digitized image from an online source—such as a museum, archive, or library that holds the copyright—with the intent to colorize it.

This person does not own the image file, which is now the storage medium of the photograph. They subsequently alter the vast majority of the pixels—i.e., replacing black, white, and grey pixels with new colored ones—while not altering in any way the arrangement of the pixels.

A new image file now exists on a hard drive or other electronic storage device. This new image—a descendant of the original photograph—is now not the same digital image as that held by the archive, museum, or library. Anyone who views both images will see they are now different. And from the perspective of computer scientists, they are different entities. The new image/file shares the same arrangement of pixels but the actuality—the underlying data—of the vast majority of pixels is not the same.

Is there a new item subject to copyright? If so, who owns it? The archive,

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OPINION

above Reverand Peter Jones, Kahkewāquonāby (Mississauga Ojibwe, 1802–1856) in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1845. Photo: David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. From the oldest known series of photographs of a North American Indigenous person (CC0). opposite Publicity photograph of actress Audrey Hepburn for Green Mansions (MGM, 1959), automatically colorized by Ruben van Kuik with Adobe Photoshop (CC0).

library, or museum in whose collection the original image is held? The original photographer? Or the person who did the colorization? And has the image moved from personal use to public use?

It can be agreed that an original creative act occurred when the black, white, and grey pixels were replaced with colored ones. The colorist—hopefully working with historians, anthropologists, and representatives of Indigenous peoples—has modified the color in the vast majority of pixels while not changing the arrangement of them within the file. A new computer file has been created.

Who is its owner? Generically, the original photographer and, if now held as part of a collection, the copyright holder must be cited and acknowledged. And whoever made the technical changes while acting as the colorist—unless legally

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stated otherwise—is now an additional owner of the newly created file.

Who owns the copyright of the new file? As in most legal matters, these questions must be refined through additional questions. What is the creative act taking place here? Who paid for this originality? Does any legal documentation exist regarding the consequences of the changing of pixel colors in this computer file?

Doing so involves the physical alteration of the file, i.e. manipulating the image itself. The stored image file now has different technical specifications than the original digitized image, which is itself a separate item from the original photo.

The process involves intellectual decisions and raises ethical questions regarding artistic liberty, historical revisionism, and historical contextualization that can also raise doubts about the veracity of the resulting image.

One person’s colorization techniques, which include a myriad of choices, may differ from another’s, which will cause the possible rendering of different points of view entering the historical record. This may even raise major differences of opinion regarding “what happened” in the past.

Images must be treated as documents; they need to be questioned.

In the future, someone might consider colorizing the Waugh Collection.

Acknowledging that one person cannot speak for a community, coauthor George Kenny—a Knowledge Keeper from the Lac Seul First Nation—is of the opinion that these photographs recorded many aspects of his people’s world and culture prior to the arrival of Catholic and Protestant missions during the 1920s and ’30s.

Who was this person with a collection of images of Native people and culture named after him? Waugh was a contract ethnologist from Ontario and took the photographs now held by the Canadian Museum of History between 1919 and 1921. He also wrote copious field notes also held by the museum.

Waugh arrived in the Lac Seul First Nation community a decade before a period of profound change. An 1884 amendment to the Canadian Indian Act banned Indigenous religious dances and ceremonies. It intended to assimilate Indigenous peoples into white Canadian society by preventing them from expressing their identities through their

OPINION

own forms of governance and culture.

But the Lac Seul First Nation community had seemingly ignored the new law. Its medicine people had continued to practice the spiritual and cultural ways of the Oji-Cree. This would soon change with the arrival of Christian missionaries.

The coauthor Kenny, now in his seventies, states that his community remembers the Christian missionaries arriving in the 1930s to establish a church in Lac Seul. One was Selwyn Dewdney, who became well-known in Canada for recording rock art pictographs and petroglyphs. He was a trainee missionary before becoming an artist.

Dewdney wrote, decades later, that the band “remained ‘pagan’ in official Church terminology.”1 The 1930s were the last time that the major Midewiwin ceremonies and the Feast of the White Dog were practiced in Lac Seul and the Berens River region. Kenny observes that the Waugh Collection captures the world of the great-grandparents of the living Elders, including images of ritual paraphernalia used by the Lac Seul community that were eventually taken away to museums.

From a non-Indigenous perspective, this collection of historic photographs might seem a treasure trove of information—and their colorization a positive step. However, according to Kenny, many people in his community think these photographs must not be colorized, as the objects in them are sacred and connected to Ahnishinahbayeshshikaywin, a worldview that embodies the spiritual rituals and beliefs as practiced by the Lac Seul First Nation (described by Outsiders as animism). According to Kenny, those who practice Ahnishinahbayeshshikaywin live close to and maintain personal relationships with the land, the water, and other natural resources.

Also, the Waugh photographs must be left untouched, according to Kenny, because something bad could happen to anyone who touches them, as happened to Waugh, whose untimely death remains unexplained. He vanished while en route to Ottawa in late September 1924.2 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)

and the Geological Survey investigated the case, with Waugh’s colleague, the anthropologist Diamond Jenness, speculating that he had fallen off the Lachine railway bridge while trying to reach the island of Montreal.3 Many historical photographs are not privately owned but rather held by museums, libraries, and archives. These collections are accessible to the public.

That makes them vulnerable to downloading and alterations.

Colorization must be undertaken in ways that do not infringe on copyright, IPR, and—above all—original contexts.

Polar historian Ross Day of Polar History in Colour (@polar_history_in_colour) and British historian Jordan J. Lloyd of Unseen Histories (@unseenhistories) argue that they colorize photos with the utmost historical accuracy, fearing that authenticity would be lost if they did not. Both believe that it is imperative for the colorizer to be aware of the original context of the photograph and to attribute both the original photographer and source.

Digital colorization can increase the audience for thousands of public domain images. Many archives, museums, and libraries have already undertaken programs to digitize their photograph collections so they can appear online.

Colorization is an increasingly popular treatment for vintage photographs, with companies like Ancestry.com even

providing a basic colorization tool to users. But as the wholesale alteration of images is becoming technically easier, the ethical implications are expanding.

One example in a closely related field is the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards. The winner of the creative open category went to what turned out to be AI-generated material. German artist Boris Eldagsen said that he entered his image of two women—in the style of a weathered old black-and-white photograph—to initiate debate on the consequences of AI-generated imagery.

This incident raised questions regarding the use of photographs, or their facsimiles, as sources of information and concurrent issues related to ownership, copyright, and IPR. It is our view that colorization of photographs must be undertaken following a strict code of ethics due to such issues, especially those raised by the development of AI. Colorization is the altering of black-and-white photographs—generally by a person from one culture (Outsiders) that once captured another culture (Insiders) possessing another worldview—at a specific historical moment. George Kenny, as a Knowledge Keeper of his community, is concerned about this issue—though his views are not necessarily shared by others in his community, contemporary Outsiders, or those working at the institutions holding such historic collections.

1. Selwyn Dewdney, Daylight in the Swamp: Memoirs of Selwyn Dewdney, ed. A. K. Dewdney (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1997), 68.

2. Barnett Richling, “Frederick W. Waugh (1872–1924),” Arctic 67, no. 2 (2014): 257–259.

3. Richling, “Frederick W. Waugh.”

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 105

MEMORIAL

KLEE BENALLY October 6, 1975–December 30, 2023

above Klee Benally (Diné). Photo: Sam Minkler (Diné), Flagstaff.

F

ROM DZIŁYÍJIIN (BLACK MESA), Arizona, Klee Benally was Bi'éé' Lichíi'nii born for Tódich'ii'nii (Bitter Water clan). He was the son of Berta and Jones Benally.

His maternal grandfather is Polish and Jewish, and his paternal grandfather is Naakaii Dine'é'. He lived in Kinłání (Flagstaff), Arizona.

A 14-year-old guitarist and vocalist, Klee and his siblings, Jeneda (bass and vocals) and Clayson (percussion and vocals), formed the punk band Blackfire. “Born into the heart of a political land dispute area on Black Mesa in the Navajo Nation, the powerful music reflects the hopes, freedoms, and barriers of today’s world,” the band proclaimed. From 1994 to 2007, they recorded seven albums. These included One Nation Under (2001), the last album that Joey Ramone contributed to before he died; and Woody Guthrie Singles (2003), on which Blackfire recorded two songs to previously unreleased and unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics. Their final album, [Silence] Is A Weapon (2007), included two CDs. The first featured twelve songs of Blackfire’s unique and highly energetic, social-political music, and the second held a special selection of twelve Diné cultural songs. The style combined, as the band wrote, “Native American, punk rock, and ‘Alter-Native’ music and bears strong socio- political messages regarding government oppression, 1. Klee Benally, “On Our Way…: A Mini-Festo,” kleebenally.com.

2. Klee Benally, “Book Release: No Spiritual Surrender,” kleebenally.com.

3. “About,” Indigenous Action, web.

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relocation of Indigenous people, eco-cide, genocide, domestic violence, and human rights.”

Still, Klee maintained that “music is not enough. Direct and effective action is essential if we desire a healthy and sustainable existence. Entire ecosystems are being destroyed to maintain unsustainable lifestyles.”1 An activist through music, performance art, film, writings, protest, and community work, Klee contributed significantly to a multitude of concentric circles in his life with inexhaustible creativity. He had the unique ability to express himself across multiple disciplines and to stretch his empathy and energy across many causes.

His final creations included jewelry (turquoise and recycled silver) that he sold through social media to support his grassroots efforts. These include his book, No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred (Detritus Books, 2023), and Burn the Fort, a board game about Indigenous resistance. Complementing each other, his book and board game are extremely direct in intent and content by confronting present injustices within a historical framework. Klee described No Spiritual Surrender as a “searing anticolonial analysis rooted in frontline experience” and rightly proclaims that he “unrelentingly agitates against colonial politics towards Indigenous autonomy and total liberation of Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth).”2 John Malkin’s 2023 book, Punk Revolution!: An Oral History of Punk Rock Politics and Activism, with interviews from punk bands including Blackfire, features a forward by Klee. He clearly and eloquently expressed his worldview, which was forever deepening and broadening. A common theme in his work was the intersectionality of all injustices and that recognizing common struggles can bring people together to create more empowerment and change.

Just days before his death, he was posting about demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people, justice for Epona Rose and trans liberation, lack of space and improper conditions at the local shelter, as well as an event organized by Haul No! to raise awareness about the Pinyon Palin Uranium Mine planning to mine uranium at the sacred Red Butte Grand Canyon with a planned transportation route through Flagstaff.

Klee was also instrumental in the websites, events, and services provided by Indigenous Action. Founded in 2001, the group provides “strategic communications and direct action support for Indigenous sacred lands defense … a radical autonomous crew of anticolonial and anticapitalist Indigenous media makers, designers, artists, writers, and agitators who work together on a project-by-project basis for liberation for Mother Earth and all her beings.”3 In “A Mini-Festo,” Klee wrote, “Points of intervention are all around us; the point of destruction, production, consumption, decision, etc. The question is what are you (we) willing to do about it?”

—Thollem

MEMORIAL

N. SCOTT MOMADAY February 27, 1934–January 24, 2024

W

HEN I THINK of our Say’gee, two things come to mind immediately.

The first is his Pulitzer Prize win in 1968 for his novel, House Made of Dawn. Secondly, I can see in my mind’s eye the first time I saw one of his paintings. While Momaday is a Kiowa writer mostly known for his fiction and poetry, he also painted depictions of Kiowa shields, like The Horned Horse Shield and Buffalo Tail Shield, which are both held by the National Museum of the American Indian.

You have to understand something about Kiowa people. Qualities of our traditional culture set us apart from other Plains tribes, one being our war shields. They were large—no, huge— often stretching to six feet tall. While most Plains tribes hooked small shields onto their arms, Kiowa shields covered a warrior’s entire body, and Momaday was a great advocate in bringing this history to the forefront with his art. Similarly, Momaday centered writing by Native Americans on a national stage. And with his large presence in the world of literature, he was our shield.

I was at the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2006 when I first learned of Momaday and all the work he has done for Native peoples. He was a poet, a painter, a memoirist, and an indomitable fiction writer. In his memoir, The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday wrote, “Once in his life, a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth,” and he offered depictions of my home state with a familiar landscape on the Southern Plains. It gave me validation and encouragement as a rez’d out Oklahoma boy, to believe in myself and think, haw, dreaming, I can do this too. And at the University of Oklahoma, I studied his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel in such detail that I wrote an entire chapter of my master’s thesis on the very book. He inspired a generation of Natives to write

above N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) at a book reading and discussion at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2007. Photo: Ernest Amoroso. Image courtesy of NMAI Photo Archives.

“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are.”

—N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa)2 about our experiences and share with the world how we were already here, have always been here, and are still here today.

In 2013 I returned to the Institute of American Indian Arts to adjunct a Native literature course and it was amazing to walk into the mailroom where all the professors’ boxes stood and see his name above mine, Momaday/Hokeah. And it reminded me of his poem, “The Gourd Dancer,” where Momaday writes, “And all of this was for Mammedaty, in his honor, as even now it is in the telling, and will be, as long as there are those who imagine him in his name.”1 He was a mentor and an inspiration for many of us and will continue to be so

through more than a dozen books and numerous works of art. He has created legacies in American art forms that will not only live with us for a long time but have also stretched across the globe. I’ll never forget when I was gifted a copy of Momaday’s book, The Gourd Dancer, and I asked my friend where he found this first edition. And he told me he found it in a small bookshop in Italy, and I thought, Momaday’s words were so powerful they carried across oceans and continents. Now when I turn the book over in my hands, I find myself melancholy to know our Say’gee has carried his war shield into the next life.

—Oscar Hokeah (Kiowa/Cherokee Nation)

1. N. Scott Momaday, In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961–1991 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009), 23.

2. N. Scott Momaday, “The Man Made of Words,” in The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature, ed. Geary Hobson (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981), 167.

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MEMORIAL

RAINY DAWN ORTIZ July 5, 1973–December 6, 2023

above Rainy Ortiz (Acoma/Muscogee), Water Spider, 2022, cut seed bead necklace. Image courtesy of the family of Rainy Ortiz.

“W

HAT BEAUTY, creativity, and brilliance came into this world when Rainy Dawn Ortiz was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 5, 1973,” begins the obituary of the Mvskoke/Acoma beadwork artist and poet.1 “From her first breath, she made a unique, creative path. She came to us when our Native nations were gathering for sovereignty, to affirm our place in the stories given to us to care for through time. She took her place in the story. She was named Rainy Dawn to be a blessing, like clouds and rains that appear to feed the plants, the People when there is little moisture and rain. Her appearance was a dawning of a fresh story.”

The daughter of poets Joy Harjo-Sapulpa (Mvskoke) and Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma), Rainy had been writing for many years.

Her first poems were published in a 1990 Teenage Parent Program student publication in Tucson, and over the years she performed her poetry at Salt of the Earth Books in Albuquerque, University of Rochester in New York, and the University of New Mexico–Gallup. In recent years, her poetry took on a new and powerful intensity. Her later poems can be found in journals

including Kenyon Review and Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, major anthologies, and on the Academy of American Poets website, among other places. Magic City Books has planned the release of her chapbook on her birthday, July 5, 2024.

Rainy’s prodigious creativity and vision also manifested in beadwork, which was sometimes accompanied by poetry. The poems and the beaded pieces share a plain-spoken prayerfulness at the heart of her art, a prayerfulness that encompasses an audacious openness to the spiritual world and the humor that attended it. For example, her incredible Beaded Storm Cuff (2023), part of a powerful collection of storm-based pieces, was accompanied by the short poem, “Storm Becomes Her”: “She is the Storm / In all its fury. / In all its strength. / In all its cleansing / Chaos and commotion.”

The series gives a nod to the alternative rock and metal of her generation as well as her tribes’ ancient cultural iconography and beliefs surrounding storms. In January 2023 Rainy began sharing the series of incredible storm pieces, as well as a beaded Spam medallion she made for her son’s birthday. She and her work encompassed all of it: the funny, the daily, the sacred, the eternal.

Spiders, corn mothers, ancestral Mvskoke mound imagery, and images of the natural world delighted viewers and moved with immediacy and timelessness. A testament to the connection people felt with her work, her pieces were almost impossible to acquire. Admirers barely had a chance to catch their breath from exclaiming over them before SOLD appeared on her social media posts. Images of her beadwork have appeared in major magazines including Vogue,2 and her pieces are worn and cherished by collectors, loved ones, and people all over the world.

Rainy’s She Comes With Fire and Weaves the World is the cover art for her mother’s 2021 memoir Poet Warrior.

Growing up surrounded by art, music, and poetry, Rainy cherished her family and often spoke of how they influenced her art. In a 2019 social media post sharing the initial sketches for what would become an Acoma pottery–inspired beaded bag, she wrote, “When I was little, I used to watch my grandma make her pottery. She used such kindness and precision in everything she did, preparing for each step. I watched her hands the most, and I have begun to see them in mine as I continue to get older.

I know she has guided me in my work and in life. I know she is around me. I hope that I make her proud.”

Rainy Dawn is survived by her parents; her children, Krista Rae, Desiray Kierra, Tayo Chayton, Chayson Rain, Shayla Jewel, Kaiya Feather, Natasha Arielle, and Tamarin; and six grandchildren, as well as many other family members and loved ones.

Rainy’s untimely passing is a profound loss. As an artist and poet who had just begun to come into her full strength and style, Rainy leaves an artistic legacy of beauty, love, humor, and courage.

—Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

1. “Rainy Ortiz,” French Funerals and Cremations, web.

2. Christian Allaire, “D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai Is Hollywood’s Stylish Indigenous Star to Watch,” Vogue, August 9, 2021, web.

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MEMORIAL

MARK SWAZO HINDS January 16, 1959–December 9, 2023

M

ARK ALLEN BERKELEY SWAZO HINDS (Tesuque Pueblo), a prolific Native American artist, created sculptures depicting subjects that tied him to his Pueblo roots, the environment of the land, his passions, intense beliefs, and spirituality. Mark grew up inspired by his father, Patrick Swazo Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo, 1929–1974), a renowned painter.

Born in Berkeley, California, Mark continued to hold the family ties there with friends and family who have played an important role in his life. When making his confirmation as a teen at St. Francis Cathedral, he and his sister were given the opportunity to choose their confirmation names. Mark chose Berkeley. An unusual name, but he always had that connection to his birthplace.

Mark moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the late 1960s and later to Tesuque Pueblo in the early 1970s. He was an integral part of the Santa Fe community. He attended Haskell Indian Nations University and graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he studied under Doug Coffin (Citizen Potawatomi/ Muscogee). “Mark grew up in that environment and kind of followed in [his father’s] footsteps, but he definitely was on his own path when he started stonework and his fetish work, which he was renowned for,” Coffin said. Mark incorporated seashells, pottery sherds, turkey feathers, and parrot feathers into his pieces, in addition to Pueblo and animal motifs. He was also a painter and jeweler and worked in other media.

His work was shown in many leading local and nationally known galleries around the country. He participated in the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix, the Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival in Indianapolis, and many other Native American art markets.

His work is in the permanent collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, the IAIA Museum

of Contemporary Native Arts, the Santa Fe Opera, and other collections throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Being an artist and having the flexibility of his time allowed Mark to travel, explore, and maintain a love of hunting, fishing, and creating masterful dishes from his bounty. Always the great host, he loved to entertain and was definitely the life of the party with his huge personality. His stories and adventures were something that gave him that larger-thanlife appeal, and he was friends with many.

He was a brother, father, grandfather, and uncle. His family was very important to him, and he loved unconditionally. “He was one of the most giving human beings around and such a good friend to many,” said his sister, Marita Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo). As the family gathered for his burial in December, the house was filled with so much laughter from the many stories about his life, his many antics, the stories that he told, and so many great memories. An artist gone too soon but who will always be remembered.

—The Family of Mark Swazo Hinds

above Mark Swazo-Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) was a noted sculptor specializing in carving stone fetishes. Image courtesy of the family.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 109

CALENDAR April 3, 2024–April 2025: New York, NY Grounded by Our Roots at the American Museum of Natural History, Northwest Coast Hall, 200 Central Park West | (212) 769-5100 | amnh.org April 4–June 1: Vancouver, BC a memory with you: of holding, of carrying together at grunt gallery, 350 E. 2nd Avenue | +1 (604) 875-9516 | grunt.ca April 4–September 2: Queens, New York Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies at MoMA PS1, 22–25 Jackson Avenue (718) 784-2086 | momaps1.org April 5–27: Tulsa, OK Harmony of Duality: A Two-Spirit Journey at 101 Archer, 101 E. Archer Street | (918) 631-4419 | calendar.utulsa.edu April 5–27: Topeka, KS Konrad Pumpkin Seed: SKODEN at 785 Arts, 935 N. Kansas Avenue.

New work by this Oglala Lakota Neo-expressionist | 785arts.com

thezuniconnection Picasso Marble Harpy Eagle

April 5–May 18: Winnipeg, MB Matthew Vukson: Man Travels Far at Urban Shaman Gallery, 290 McDermot Avenue | +1 (204) 942 2674 | urbanshaman.org

Hudson Sandy, Zuni Pueblo

April 5–July 5: Pojoaque, NM Then & Now: Poeh Cultural Center at the Poeh Cultural Center, 78 Cities of Gold Road | (505) 455-5041 | poehcenter.org

Fetishes Jewelry Pottery 227 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe Keshi.com 505.989.8728

April 5–August 2: Norman, OK Collective Wisdom at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, 609 Chautauqua Avenue | jacobsonhouse.art April 6–May 11: Tahlequah, OK 53rd Annual Trail of Tears Art Show at Cherokee Springs Plaza, 3377 Cherokee Springs Road. Hosted by the Cherokee Nation | (918) 456-7311 trailoftearsartshow.com

The Impact Award for Native American Art A $25,000 annual fellowship award to amplify the work of under-recognized Native American contemporary visual artists Apply online by

April 29, 2024 at

harpofoundation.org

April 6–May 25: Billings, MT Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories at the Western Heritage Center, 2822 Montana Avenue | (406) 256-6809 | ywhc.org April 10–July 29: Pacific Palisades, CA Picture Worlds: Greek, Maya, Moche Pottery at the Getty Villa Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway | (310) 440-7300 | getty.edu April 11–May 11: Oklahoma City, OK Marking: Indigenous Narrative at Art Space at Untitled Art, 1 NE 3rd Street. Woodblock print group show | (405) 815-9995 | 1ne3.org April 13–September 30: Bentonville, AR Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way. Curated

by Christopher T. Green | (479) 418-5700 | crystalbridges.org April 18–September 15: New Britain, CT The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans at New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. Curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish-Kootenai/Métis/ Shoshone) | (860) 229-0257 | nbmaa.org April 19–21: Tulsa, OK 3rd annual Mvskoke Art Market at River Spirit Casino, 8320 Riverside Parkway. Award reception: Friday, April 19, 6:30 pm | (918) 549-2434 muscogeenation.com/mvskokeartmarket April 20–November 24: Venice, Italy Inuuteq Storch | La Biennale di Venezia at the Danish Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, C. Giazzo, 30122 | kunst.dk

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April 20–November 24: Venice, Italy Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me | La Biennale di Venezia at the U.S. Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, C. Giazzo, 30122. Curated

by Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo) | jeffreygibsonvenice2024.org April 21–December 31: Baltimore, MD Dyani White Hawk at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive | (443) 573-1700 | artbma.org April 23–26: Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico Encuentro Nacional de Arte Indígena y Artesanía Contemporánea at the Bellas Artes de la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Plaza de la Danza, C. 2 de Abril, Calzada Madero, Centro 68000 April 23–September 8: Montreal, Pointe-Claire, Saint-Hyacinthe, and Sherbrooke QC Creation Stories | Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA), 7th edition, at various locations. Curated by Lori Beavis (Mississauga), Emma Hassencahl-Perley (Wolastoqiyik), Jake Kimble (Deninu Kųę), and Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé (Upper Tanana) | baca.ca April 27 & 28: Fargo, ND Indigenous Art Fair at the Plains Art Museum, 704 First Avenue North.

10:00 am–5:00 pm | (701) 551-6100 | plainsart.org/events

JUNE 14 – JUNE 22, 2024

San Damiano Park Monona, WI Join us for a celebration of art and community at the first international wood sculpture festival in honor of Ho-Chunk artist Harry Whitehorse.

Twelve world-renowned sculptors will be artists-in-residence for an enriching week of wood carving, art exhibits, and live demonstrations of traditional Ho-Chunk arts and crafts.

For more information, visit harrywhitehorse.com

April 27–October 14: Boston, MA Ancestors and Place: Indigenous North American Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 465 Huntington Avenue. Curated by Marina Tyquiengco (CHamoru) | (617) 267-9300 | mfa.org April 27–November 30: Winnipeg, MB Omalluq: Pictures from my Life at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 300 Memorial Boulevard | +1 (204) 786-6641 | wag.ca May 3–TBA: Phoenix, AZ Harry Fonseca: Transformations and Art and Sole at the Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Avenue | (602) 252–8840 | heard.org May 4: Gallup, NM Spring Friends of Hubbell Auction at the Gallup Community Service Center, 410 Bataan Veterans Street | friendsofhubbell.org May 4: Williamsburg, VA Indigenous Arts Day Celebration at the Jamestown Settlement, 2110 Jamestown Road | jyfmuseums.org May 4 & 5: Bernalillo, NM 7th Annual Bernalillo Indian Arts Festival at Loretto Park, 237 S. Camino del Pueblo | (505) 867-9667 | bernalilloindianfestival.com May 4–September 1: Brookings, SD Navigating Narratives: The Corps of Discovery in Titonwan Territory at the South Dakota Museum of Art, 1036 Medary Avenue | (605) 688-5423 sdstate.edu/south-dakota-art-museum May 4–October 27: Catskill, NY Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape at the Thomas Cole National Historical Site, 218 Spring Street | (518) 943-7465 | thomascole.org May 5: Washington, DC Portrait of an Indigenous Womxn [Removed] at the National Portrait Gallery, 8th and G Streets NW. Performance by Anna Tsouhlarakis and George C. Tsouhlarakis (both Navajo/Muscogee) | npg.si.edu May 11: Salamanca, NY Ohi:yo’ Art Market at the Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino, 777 Seneca Allegany Boulevard. Juried competitive art market open to all tribes, hosted by the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center and Visit Seneca Nation. 10:00 am–5:00 pm | (716) 945-1760 | senecamuseum.org May 11: Santa Fe, NM 13th Annual Pueblo Fiber Arts Show at the Poeh Cultural Center,

78 Cities of Gold Road, hosted by the Poeh, School for Advanced Research, and the New Mexico Fiber Arts Guild | (505) 455-5041 | poehcenter.org May 12–December 1: Baltimore, MD Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive. Includes the concurrent exhibitions Enduring Buffalo, Finding Home, Illustration Agency, and Caroline Monnet. Also Don’t wait for me, just tell me where you’re going, Indigenous films selected by Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga) | (443) 573-1700 | artbma.org May TBA–October TBA: Juneau, AK Protection: Adaptation and Resistance at the Alaska State Museum, 395 Whittier Street | (907) 465-2901 | lam.alaska.gov/asm-events May 17–August 24: Lincoln, NE Recent Acquisitions 2024 at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street (402) 472 – 3082 | unl.edu/plains/great-plains-art-museum May 17–September 23: Asheville, NC Shifting Perceptions at the Asheville Art Museum, 2 S. Pack Square. Curated

by Katherine Ware | (828) 253–3227 | ashevilleart.org May 18 & 19: Collinsville, IL Cahokia Mounds Indian Market Days at the VFW Hall, Post 5691, 1234 Vandalia Street | (618) 346-5160 | cahokiamounds.org May 18–September 14: Omaha, NE Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, 724 SW 12th Street | (402) 341-7130 | bemiscenter.org May 25 & 26: Santa Fe, NM 20th Annual Native Treasures at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 710 Camino Lejo. Hosted by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (505) 476-1269 | museumfoundation.org/native-treasures FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 42, SPRING 2024 | 111

May 30–June 2: Toronto, ON Indigenous Fashion Arts Festival at locations throughout Toronto. More than 100 Indigenous artists and designers with shows, market, discussions, workshops, and art exhibition | indigenousfashionarts.com June 1 & 2: Morrison, CO 23rd Annual Tesoro Indian Market at the Tesoro Cultural Center, The Fort, 19192 CO-8 | (303) 839-1671 | tesoroculturalcenter.org

CALL FOR ARTISTS “Recovering Ohio’s Indigenous Voices” invites artists connected through ancestry to Ohio’s Removed Tribes, including Shawnee, Potawatomi, Wyandot, Delaware, Miami, Ojibway, and the other tribes from the Ohio River Valley Part I. Selected artists will visit Ohio for six days, tour the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, and present a public program discussing their artworks as expressions of their Indigenous values and tribal traditions.

Part II. Exhibit new work in Ohio Jan. 2025.

Stipend included. To learn more and to apply, visit: greatcirclealliance.com/artist-residency Event Date: October 9–16, 2024 Submission deadline: July 1, 2024

June 1–August 11: Pine Ridge, SD 56th Annual Red Cloud Indian Art Show at the Heritage Center at Mapíya Lúta | Red Cloud, 100 Mission Drive | (605) 867-8257 | redcloudart.show June 8 & 9: Los Angeles, CA 33rd Annual American Indian Arts Festival at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, 4700 Western Heritage Way, with 200 artists | theautry.org June 10–28: Idyllwild-Pine Cove, CA Native American Arts Workshops at Idyllwild Arts Native American Arts Center, 52500 Temecula Rd #38 | idyllwildarts.org/nativeamericanarts June 14–22: Monona, WI Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival at San Damiano Park on Holy Bay. Weeklong festival | harrywhitehorse.com June 16–August 11: Yuba City, CA Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories at the Sutter County Museum, 1333 Butte House Road | (530) 822-7141 suttercountymuseum.org June 20–September 22: Windsor, ON Love Languages at the Art Gallery of Windsor-Essex, 401 Riverside Drive West. Curated by Julie Rae Tucker | +1 (519) 977-0013 | artwindsoressex.ca June 22–24: Indianapolis, IN 32nd Annual Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 W. Washington Street | (317) 636-9378 | eiteljorg.org June 22–September 1: St. Louis, MO Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection at the St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive.

Curated by Ilona Katzew | (314) 721-0072 | slam.org June 24–September 1: Thunder Bay, ON Piitwewetam: Making is Medicine at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, 1080 Keewatin Street | +1 (807) 577 6427 | theag.ca/piitwewetam June 26–July 1: Washington, DC Smithsonian Folklife Festival “Indigenous Voices of the Americas: Celebrating the National Museum of the American Indian” at the National Mall | festival.si.edu June 26–September 23: Warm Springs, OR Saddle Up! Ranchers and Rodeo Life of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs at the Warm Springs Museum, 2189 US-26 | (541) 553-3331 museum.warmsprings-nsn.gov June 28–30: Rapid City, SD 12th Annual Native POP: People of the Plains at Main Street Square, 512 Main Street | (605) 394-4101 x212 | nativeartsgathering.com June 28–30: Banning, CA 33rd Annual California Indian Basketweavers’ Association Gathering at Morongo Cultural Center, 13000 Malki Road | (530) 668-1332 | ciba.org

For more events, visit our online calendar at

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Plan Your Visit!

140 N. Indian Canyon Drive • Palm Springs, CA 92262 accmuseum.org