First American Art Magazine No. 47, Summer 2025

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

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

NATIVE CYANOTYPES

DISPLAY UNTIL OCT. 6, 2025

DENNIS ESQUIVEL

REVIVAL OF FEATHER CAPES

ROY KADY

NEW VOICES, BOLD VISIONS

TRACI RABBIT

THE CHITTO FAMILY

CHRISTAL RATT

Join Us This Summer!

MARKET ARTISTS FOR AUGUST 2025 Janice Black Elk Jim (Rosebud Lakota)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13

10 am–2 pm

Museum open

3 pm–6 pm

Benefit Sale: Early Bird

Dylan Coriz

Advance tickets: wheelwright.org

(Santo Domingo)

Cippy Crazyhorse (Cochiti)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14

Waddie Crazyhorse (Cochiti)

8 am–4 pm

Shop to support the museum

Felicia Fragua (Jemez)

Jonah Hill

(Hopi/Quechan)

Kevin Honyouti

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15 8 am–4 pm

(Hopi)

Ronald Honyouti (Hopi)

Daniel Jim (Navajo)

Yazzie Johnson (Navajo)

& Gail Bird

(Santo Domingo/Laguna)

Benefit Sale

Benefit Sale & Artists’ Market

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16 10 am–2 pm

Artists’ Market

10 am–4 pm

Museum open

Admission to the museum and Artists’ Market is free Aug. 13–16. Benefit Sale admission is free Aug. 14 & 15.

Raynard Lalo (Hopi)

Shanna Lalo Patterson (Hopi)

Harold Littlebird

(Laguna/Santo Domingo) PHOTOS: Top Left: Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Anishinaabe); Bottom Left, Bottom Right: Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné).

Jackie Sevier

(Northern Arapaho)

Deanna Tenorio

(Santo Domingo/Pomo)

Robert Tenorio (Santo Domingo)

505.982.4636 wheelwright.org

PO Box 5153, Santa Fe, NM 87502 702 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe, NM 87505

First Americans Museum (FAM) is one of 52 projects represented at the U.S. Pavilion of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. This year's showcase, PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity, highlights the Indigenous intentionality behind the construction of FAM, where form follows function.

The iconic Hall of The People glass structure takes its inspiration from the Wichita grass lodge. The FAM Mound is a 21st century continuation of mound-building cultures and serves as a cosmological clock. First Americans Museum is a unique blend of ancestral architecture and modern design brought to life by Johnson Fain and ADG/Blatt (formerly Hornbeek/Blatt).

WWW.FAMOK.ORG

405.594.2100

Kathleen Wall (Jemez) Evening Star, 2009. MIAC 60693/12. Photo by Addison Doty.

Look up. What do you see?

From radio astronomy to solstice calendars, Indigenous peoples look to the sky for timing, meaning, and beauty. Makowa: The Worlds Above Us tells the stories of an ever-changing world through connecting science, stories, art, and observations.

Opening June 1, 2025

On Museum Hill in Santa Fe, New Mexico IndianArtsandCulture.org · 505 476-1269

Partially funded by the Santa Fe County Lodgers’ Tax.

AUG 9 – SEPT 6 Experience our show’s 30th anniversary, as we celebrate Cherokee Nation’s artistry, culture and heritage in our capital, Tahlequah. Purchase art in person or through our online gallery.

2024 Cherokee Homecoming Art Show BEST OF SHOW

The Gallery at Cherokee Springs Plaza 3377 Cherokee Springs Road | Tahlequah, OK 74464 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tuesday Through Saturday

“Cherokee Rose 3, Continuance”

by Troy Jackson

issue no. 47, summer 2025

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

Recent Developments

By Staci Golar and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

13

Seven Directions

By Sháńdíín Brown (Diné)

22

Spotlight | Newspaper Rock

By Florence Wanjiru

94

Art+Lit | Jamesie Fournier: Inuk Poet and Author

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

114

Art+Lit | Erica Jacque (Inuk)

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

119

Four Indigenous artists bring exuberance and vitality to their diverse art practices

Calendar

By Abby Mikalauskas, Staci Golar, and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

123

By Mandy Yeahpau (Comanche/ Cherokee/Tarahumara descent)

To Carry the Wind: The Revitalization of Feather Mantles, Capes, and Cultural Memory

30

Tribes coast to coast are reclaiming the intricate art of featherwork clothing

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD 30

New Voices, Bold Visions: Native Artists Redefine Santa Fe’s Summer Scene

42

Photo Genesis: Native Cyanotypes in Five Parts

42

52

An early photographic technique yields delicate, haunting artworks in the hands of these artists

By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke) The Chitto Family: Generating a Large Artistic Legacy 52

60

A family encourages and inspires each other’s creative pursuits

By Dan Ninham, PhD (Oneida Nation)

cover Michelle Sound (Swan River Cree/Métis), Theresa Sound, Age 16, 2023, cyanotype on elk-hide drum: elk hide, wood, 10 × 10 in. Part of the series Every Photo I Have Of My Mother.

Image courtesy of the artist.

60

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 5

THROUGH AUGUST 17, 2025

Kent Monkman (Fisher River Cree Nation), The Great Mystery (detail), 2022. Acrylic paint on canvas, 117½ × 91½ in. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Miriam H. and S. Sidney Stoneman Acquisition Fund; 2023.18.1. © and image courtesy of Kent Monkman.

Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors is organized by the Denver Art Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It was developed with generous support from D.R. Sobey Foundation and Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Christensen Fund, the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, the Walker Youngbird Foundation, and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS Colorado.

6 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

issue no. 47, summer 2025

REVIEWS

ARTIST PROFILES

Galisteo: Indigenization 96

By Kateri Smith (Blackfoot/Métis)

Dennis Esquivel: 68 Grand Traverse Ottawa-Chippewa Fine Woodworker and Painter

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

Juneau: Át Kawdiyaayi Yéil, Raven in Motion

By Megan A. Smetzer, PhD

98

Reno: The Art of Judith Lowry

By Chris Lanier

100

Santa Fe: Dakota Mace: 102 DAHODIYINII—SACRED PLACES

By Michelle J. Lanteri, PhD Television | North of North

By Angela Startz (Iñupiaq)

104

Music | acbo, Only a Dream

By Thollem

106

Books From the Rez to the Runway: Forging My Path in Fashion

By Isabella Fuller (Seminole Nation/Creek) Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through Skin and Ink

By James Bland, PhD

68

Roy Kady: Diné Textile Artist

By Christy Hanson (Diné)

74

Traci Rabbit: Cherokee Nation Painter

By Ruthanne Johnson

80

Christal Ratt: Mitchikanibikok Inik Algonquin Birchbark, Quillwork, and Beadwork Artist

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

86

108 74

109

Reenvisioning Histories of 111 American Art: Transforming Museum Practice

By Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation) 80

MEMORIALS Jenny Irene (Inupiaq, 1988–2025)

By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq)

120

Abel Rodríguez (Nonuya, 1941–2025)

By Clara Jaeger

121

Mary E. Smith 122 (Muscogee, 1950–2025)

By Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation)

86

“It always makes me feel happy when I get to work on anything because my kokom [grandma] and tcom [grandpa] used to do this, and now I am. It’s like they’re with me. That’s what it feels like when I’m working on any project. I think of them like they’re there beside me.”

—Christal Ratt (Mitchikanibikok Inik Algonquin) FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 7

issue no. 47, summer 2025 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 Representative: Barbara Harjo Circulation Manager: Amy D. Bergseth, PhD Copy Editors: Rosa Cays (Chicana) and Angela C. Villa (Chicana) Proofreaders: Travis D. Day, Staci Golar, and Angela C. Villa (Chicana) Layout & Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Webmaster: John Paul Rangel, PhD (Mestizo/Apache descent) Social Media: Staci Golar, America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), and Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Interns: Liam Hart and Abby Mikalauskas

Regional Representatives

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) Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer (Hopi/Choctaw) Leah Mata Fragua (yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini 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

Advertising Representative

Barbara Harjo, barbara@firstamerican.art Internationally distributed by Disticor Magazine Distribution Services.

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

Copyright © 2025 by First American Art Magazine, LLC. Cover and contents are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or part by any method without written permission, except specific images listed with Creative Commons licenses. Any errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. First American Art Magazine® is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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EDITOR’S GREETING

I

N THIS ISSUE’S REVIEW of the acbo album, Only a Dream, Dylan Tenorio (Kewa/Diné) tells Thollem, the author, “We all need to wake up and realize that we can make this world a far better place than our current leaders are building for us right now.” Tenorio sees his music as “a gentle reminder that we are in this together, and that there is still good worth fighting for.” These are words we all need to hear right now. I know I do since I can’t stop doomscrolling news every day.

A friend commented on the disconnect she felt making jewelry in our current political climate. But antipoverty activist Jacqueline Novogratz writes: “Life is hard—which may be why humans have insisted on creating beauty in even the darkest times and in the meanest places.”1 This is true for Indigenous peoples of the Americas, just as it’s been true for humans across the globe. Some of our most splendid, intricate artworks were created during times of warfare and imprisonment, such as pre-Removal bandolier bags or Reservation-era cradleboards.

These artworks were embodied prayers for the protection of those who used them. Likewise, Matthew Ryan Smith shares in his feature article, “To Carry the Wind,” how Robert Perry (Chickasaw) believes that the featherwork cloaks serve as spiritual armor.

Art isn’t escapism, but it can be medicine. In “Photo Genesis” by Stacy Pratt (Mvskoke), Jarica Walsh (Osage) explains The Hope Flags (2020), cyanotype prayer flags she created to connect to her community during the isolation of the early COVID-19 pandemic. In Dahodiyinii, a series that reflects on the Diné’s Long Walk, Dakota Mace (Diné) says, “The piece is not about turning away but about leaning into these very sacred and painful places, not seeing them as sites of defeat but as spaces of remembrance and healing.” Likewise, our cover features a work in the series by Michelle Good (Swan River Cree/Métis), Every Photo I Have of My Mother, which commemorates the specific humanity of the mother she lost at an early age.

above America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Environmental Impact, 2007, acrylic, gel medium, stickers on panel, 10 × 8 in., private collection. Image courtesy of the artist.

Indian humor has been a survival skill through the centuries, and in our feature “The Chitto Family” by Dan Ninham (Oneida Nation), Dillon Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/Laguna Pueblo) is able to transform the Pueblo Revolt into a comedy. His brother Hollis Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/Laguna Pueblo) crafts exquisite beadwork but can also poke fun at our vanity with his self-admiring doll, Hmm… Pisa Saachukma Ka (Damn, I Look Good). Randy Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw) shares an unbound joy with his turtle and bear sculptures.

From an Indigenous perspective, our visual arts, writing, music, and performance are our universes in which we can embody what we value the most.

We manifest what we cherish, as the next generation of artists does in “New Voices, Bold Visions” by Mandy Yeahpau (Comanche/Cherokee/Tarahumara descent). “It’s not just about making art,” Carmen Selam (Yakama/Comanche) says.

“It’s about creating a world where we can see each other more clearly.”

—America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

1. Jacqueline Novogratz, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2020), n.p.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 9

SPECIALIZING IN THE SALE OF ESTATE AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Shaman Tranforming to Whale

by Jerome Saclamana, Inupiaq

Contact director@quintanagalleries.com

Q UINTANA G ALLERIES

for consignment and purchase inquiries

quintanagalleries.com 503-810-7525

10 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

CHEROKEE ART MARKET

Twenty Years of Native Artistry

Refined. Resilient. Revered.

O C TO BE R

1 1 – 12

Celebrate two decades of honoring and showcasing authentic Native American art and artists. Join us and find your connection to Native culture and expression — through art.

HARD ROCK HOTEL & CASINO TULSA

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 11

SAVE THE DATE

NATIVE AMERICAN ARTS WORKSHOPS & FESTIVAL WEEK JUNE 8 - 26, 2026 IDYLLWILD, CALIFORNIA

WORKSHOPS Since its founding in 1946, Idyllwild Arts has been firmly rooted in respect for and reverence of Native American arts and culture, offering dynamic Native American Arts workshops and programming for over 70 years. Annual summer workshops stimulate conversations, empower creative contributions, strengthen community, and support Indigenous artistic expression and cultural affirmation.

Workshops include: Hopi-Tewa Pottery | Ho-Chunk Porcupine Quill Navajo Weaving | Navajo Inlay Jewelry Cahuilla Basketry Cahuilla Style Pottery ...and much more!

FESTIVAL WEEK JUNE 15 - 19, 2026 FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Designed to enhance and add depth to the summer workshop experience, the annual week-long Native arts festival provides a provocative learning experience by bringing together distinguished artists, scholars, and cultural specialists to present performances, demonstrations, films, exhibitions, showcases, and the popular Michael Kabotie Lecture Series.

Scan to learn more, or visit idyllwildarts.org/nativeamericanarts

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS A building in Tenango de Doria, Hidalgo, Mexico, is being renovated to become the REGIONAL CENTRO CULTURAL DE LA SIERRA OTOMÍ-TEPEHUA. The federal, state, and municipal governments provided 7.9 million pesos toward the project. The new cultural center will serve 4,433 people, predominantly from the local Otomí and Tepehua communities. The center will provide studio space for music, poetry, dance, and visual arts, particularly tenango embroidery.

above Regional Centro Cultural de la Sierra Otomí-Tepehua in Tenango de Dorio, Hidalgo.

Photo: La Jornada Hidalgo.

ART FAIRS Rememory, the 25th BIENNALE OF SYDNEY, will take place from March 14 to June 14, 2026, throughout Sydney, Australia. The 37 participating artists include several Indigenous artists of the Americas: Ángel Poyón (Kaqchikel Maya), Angélica Serech (Kaqchikel Maya), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota), Edgar Calel (Kaqchikel Maya), Fernando Poyón (Kaqchikel Maya), Gabriel Chaile (Argentina Mestizo), Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Tania Willard (Secwépemc). Rememory, whose title comes from Toni Morrison, is led by Artistic Director Hoor Al Qasimi.

Rodrigo Tremembé (Tremembé) and fashion designer Armênia Rocha from Brazil curated an exhibition of Indigenous art and crafts from Ceará in northeast Brazil for RÉVÉLATIONS INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF CRAFTS AND CREATION in Paris.

They curated the works in partnership with KUYA (Ceará Design Center) and the Ceará Crafts Center. Rodrigo exhibited a garment and Pompê Tremembé, a mixed-media installation centered on a mat painted with genipap (jagua) and annatto. More than 500 designers from 30 countries participated in the craft biennial held at the Grand Palais de Paris in France in May 2025.

EXPO CHICAGO, at the Navy Pier’s Festival Hall in April 2025, included Indigenous representation. The Center

for Native Futures exhibited work by ten Indigenous artists, and Bockley Gallery showcased work by Rosario Perkins (Diné/Akimel O'odham). The collective Postcommodity (Xicano and Cherokee Nation) will be part of IN/SITU: 우리 Uri: We, Us, Our, a curated exhibition.

Heather Igliorte (Inuk), who is curating String Games, the fifth edition of the BONAVISTA BIENNALE, has selected 22 artists, including Taqralik Partridge (Inuk), Maureen Gruben (Inuvialuk), Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka'wakw), Inuuteq Storch (Kalaaleq), and others, at multiple indoor and outdoor sites across the Bonavista Peninsula, Newfoundland and Labrador, from August 16 to September 14, 2025.

ART SHOWS

above Trail of Tears Art Show Best of Show winner: Jerry Sutton (Cherokee Nation), ᎩᎳᎪᎨ Gilagoge (Spring), 2025, acrylic on canvas.

Photo: Edward Holmberg. Image courtesy of the artist. below First recipient of the Mary Ellen Meredith Award for Humor at the Trail of Tears Art Show: Andrea Tidwell (Cherokee Nation), Legends of the Rez, 2024, beadwork on deer hide and canvas. Photo: FAAM.

Jerry Sutton (Cherokee Nation) won Best of Show at the TRAIL OF TEARS ART SHOW. Classification winners were Brooks Henson (Cherokee Nation), painting; Troy Jackson (Cherokee Nation), sculpture; Levi West (Eastern Band Cherokee), pottery; Amy Deer (Winnebago), jewelry; Jennifer McAffrey (Cherokee Nation), textiles; Robin Stockton (Cherokee Nation), miniatures; Andrea Tidwell (Cherokee Nation), diverse art forms; Bryan Waytula (Cherokee Nation), drawings, graphics, and mixed media; Z Long (Cherokee Nation), photography/digital art; and Regina Free (Choctaw Nation), emerging artists.

Jon Tiger (Muscogee) won the Trail of Tears Award, Bill Glass Jr. (Cherokee Nation) won the Betty Scraper Garner Elder Award, and Ron Mitchell (Cherokee Nation) won the Bill Rabbit Legacy Award. FAAM sponsored the first Mary Ellen Meredith Award for Humor, given to Andrea Tidwell (Cherokee Nation) for her beaded piece, Legends of the Rez. Jeremy Thompson (Seminole Nation) won the virtual People’s Choice award, and Russell Smith (Cherokee Nation) won the in-person People’s Choice Award.

Marjorie Tahbone (Iñupiaq/Kiowa) won the judge’s choice award at the IDITAROD FINE ART SHOW in Nome, Alaska, for a parka she made for her daughter.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 13

Maka Duta Win, Brittany Morgan Hill (Ihanktonwan Dakota/ Muscogee) won the Br. Simon SJ Purchase Award at the 57th annual RED CLOUD INDIAN ART SHOW at the Heritage Center at Maȟpíya Lúta in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Division winners were Gilbert Jumping Eagle (Oglala Lakota), painting; Maka Duta Win, Brittany Morgan Hill, drawing; Roger Broer (Oglala Lakota), graphics; Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota) and Sheldon Starr (Oglala Lakota), photography and digital art; Jim Yellowhawk (Itazipco Lakota/Onondaga) and Ray Janis (Oglala Lakota), mixed media; Maka Duta Win, Brittany Morgan Hill, three dimensional; Carol Wilcox (Oglala Lakota), cultural art forms; and Joelle Follows the Road (Standing Rock Sioux), adornment.

The Yawanawá people held their largest art exhibition at MUTUM VILLAGE in Tarauacá, Acre, Brazil, in May 2025.

Women from the 17 Yawanawá villages displayed net-beaded collars, beaded earrings, and other jewelry, paintings, basketry, featherwork, and textile arts. Principal Chief Maria Júlia Yawanawá and Mushuinu Village Chief Janete Yawanawá (both Yawanawá) spoke at the exhibition’s reception. Craft sales provide vital income for Yawanawá women.

ART MARKETS Starr Hardridge (Muscogee) won Best of Show at the fourth annual MVSKOKE ART MARKET hosted by the Muscogee Nation at River Spirit Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kenneth Johnson (Muscogee/Seminole) won the Mvskoke Heritage Award, David Martin (Pokagon Potawatomi) won the Innovation Award, and Jaylee Lowe (Seminole/Mvskoke) won Judge’s Choice. Classification winners were David Martin, painting; Randy Kemp (Muscogee/Choctaw/Euchee), graphic art/photography; Jesse Robbins (Muscogee), jewelry; Yonavea Hawkins (Caddo/Delaware/Kickapoo), beadwork/quillwork; Bryan Waytula (Cherokee), drawing; Nathan Hart (Southern Cheyenne), sculpture; Marcella Yepa (Jemez/Chickasaw), pottery; Melissa Freeman (Chickasaw/Choctaw), textiles (wearable); Melinda Schwakhofer (Muscogee), textiles (non-wearable); Breanna Hill (Muscogee/Ihanktonwan Dakota), diverse art forms; Jessica Moore-Harjo (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Pawnee), digital art; and Ronda Moss (Cherokee Nation), basketry.

David Martin (Pokagon Potawatomi) won Best of Show at the first annual OHI:YO’ ART MARKET hosted by the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center and Visit Seneca Nation at the Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino in Allegany, New York. Christal Ratt (Mitchikanibikok Inik Algonquin) won the Jurors’ Award. Division winners were Ronnie Leigh-Goeman (Onondaga), basketry; Michael Galban (Mono Lake Paiute/Washoe), quillwork; Michael Galban, cultural items; Ron Mitchell (Cherokee Nation), drawings; Clifford Redeye II (Seneca Nation), innovative arts; Chaslyn Crespin (Kewa Pueblo), jewelry; David Martin, paintings; Marjorie Kaniehtonkie Skidders (Akwesasne Mohawk), photography; Natasha Smoke Santiago (Akwesasne Mohawk), pottery; David Farmham (Grand River 14 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

Onondaga), sculpture; and Emma Shenadoah (Akwesasne Mohawk), weavings and textiles.

Gilmore Scott (Diné) won Best of Show at the 35th Annual Autry Museum American Indian Arts Festival. Mary Helen Brown (Diné) won the Autry Purchase Award and Outstanding Achievement by a Youth Artist. Classification winners were Rain Scott (Acoma), basketry; River Garza (Tongva), diverse cultural art forms; Priscilla Nieto (Santo Domingo Pueblo), jewelry; Gilmore Scott, painting and mixed media; Andrew Curley (Diné), photography; Rowan Harrison (Isleta Pueblo/Diné), pottery; Jared DeCelles (A’aniih/Nakota), sculpture; Gloria Fain (Diné), textiles; and Horace Kayquoptewa (Hopi), wooden carving.

Regina Free (Chickasaw) won Best of Show at the 12th annual ARTESIAN ARTS FESTIVAL, hosted by the Chickasaw Nation in downtown Sulphur, Oklahoma. Dustin Mater (Chickasaw) won Best of 2D Art, Micah Hart (Chickasaw/Cheyenne) won Best of 3D Art, and Talisha Lewallen (Cherokee Nation) won Best of Cultural Art.

above Mvskoke Art Market Best of Show winner: Starr Hardridge (Muscogee), Hvt’ hvyvtke Herke Mahet (Peaceful Sunrise), 2025, acrylic, 48 x 36 in. Photo: Mvskoke Art Market. left Ohi:yo' Art Market Best of Show winner: David Martin (Pokagon Potawatomi), Family Hunt (detail), 2024, ink tattooed into stretched bison rawhide on wooden frame. Photo: FAAM. right Gilmore Scott (Diné), Jóhonaa’éí (Carrier Of The Sun) Dazzles, 2025, acrylic, 30 × 40 in.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 15

ON VIEW JUN 27 – OCT 12, 2025

Cara Romero, Alika II, Courtesy of the artist, © Cara Romero

GALLERIES The INDIAN CRAFT SHOP in the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, DC, closed on June 6, 2025. The shop was first opened 87 years ago in 1938. The Indian Arts and Craft Board is seeking a new company to reopen and manage the store.

In northwest Argentina, COOPERATIVA DE ARTESANOS QOM ALBA LOOPI, Chaco Institute of Culture, and Provincial Institute of Urban and Housing Development are creating a new Indigenous art salon representing regional artists to be managed by Qom Alba Loopi, a Qom artist collective.

ORGANIZATIONS Lara Evans, PhD (Cherokee Nation), was named interim president and CEO of FIRST PEOPLES FUND after Justin Kíí Huenemann (Diné) stepped down in mid-April. A search is underway for a permanent president/CEO.

NATIVE WOMEN IN THE ARTS, a nonprofit organization in Toronto, hired Melissa Johns (Kanien'kehá:ka) as its administrative director. A new media artist, Johns has previously worked with imagineNATIVE, the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition, and the National Film Board of Canada.

Emily Edenshaw (Yup'ik/Iñupiaq/Haida) is stepping down from her role as president and CEO of the ALASKA NATIVE HERITAGE CENTER in Anchorage.

AWARDS & HONORS The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation awarded three of its five 2025 AWARDS IN CRAFT to Indigenous artists: textile artist Kevin Aspaas (Diné), beadwork artist Teri Greeves (Kiowa), and woodcarver Robert Mills (Tlingit). The unrestricted $100,000 grant allows the artists to further explore their crafts.

Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish), executive director and chief curator of

16 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

Forge Project, received an inaugural ART BASEL MEDAL in the curator category. She was among 36 medalists who will vote to choose 12 gold medalists among their ranks in December.

Interdisciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/ Lakota) is one of 15 recipients of the 2025 WAYFINDER AWARD presented

by Kia from the National Geographic Society. Each awardee receives $50,000 and joins the society’s global community of National Geographic Explorers.

Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee), Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee), and Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Western Shoshone) have been elected to the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture posthumously awarded Jaider Esbell (Macuxi, 1979–2021) its ORDER OF CULTURAL MERIT, Brazil’s highest public honor in the cultural sector.

Interdisciplinary artist Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) was named a 2025 HALLIE FORD FELLOW IN VISUAL ARTS. The fellowship comes with a $35,000 unrestricted award for “Oregon visual artists who have demonstrated a depth of sophisticated practice and potential for significant future accomplishment.”

Bonney Hartley (Stockbridge-Munsee), Tyson Houseman (Paul Plains Cree), Lehuauakea (Native Hawaiian), Joleece Pecore (Ho-Chunk/Mohican/Oneida/Menominee), Rosy Simas (Seneca Nation), and Skye Tafoya (Eastern Band Cherokee/Santa Clara Pueblo) are the 2025 FORGE PROJECT FELLOWS. Each fellow receives $25,000 and access to the Forge Project site, libraries, and lending collection during their residency.

Native Women in the Arts gave its BARBARA LARONDE AWARD to Amber Waboose (Batchewana Ojibwe). The award came with a Can$5,000 prize. The five shortlisted artists, Emily Granville (Wiikwemkoong Odawa/Cree), MJ Singleton (Eagle Lake Ojibwe), Grace Swain (Swan Lake Ojibway/Wiikwemkoong Ojibway), Chevaun Toulouse (Sagamok Anishnawbe), and Colleen Toulouse (Sagamok Anishnawbe), received Can$1,500 awards.

Delaney Keshena (Menominee) received a HARLAN BOSS AWARD from the American Craft Council (ACC).

The award includes space at the American Craft Fest St. Paul, a stipend, ACC membership, and mentorship.

Stone sculptor Cliff Fragua (Jemez) was selected as the WEISMAN ART MUSEUM’S 2025–26 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE. The two-year residency culminates with new work to be exhibited at the museum in August 2026.

Beadwork artist and fashion designer Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock) is one of ten CFDA/ VOGUE FASHION FUND finalists. The winner will be announced on November 18, 2025.

Several colleges gave HONORARY DOCTORAL DEGREES to artists, including the Bowdoin College to basket weaver Jeremy Frey (Passamaquoddy), the Maine College of Art and Design in Portland to interdisciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/ Lakota), and the University of Alaska–Anchorage to Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂).

The FreshGrass Foundation and THE OFFICE performing arts + film selected Harrison Preston (Wa:k O'odham) for their ARTISTS AT WORK initiative’s 2025–26 cohort.

The Chancellery of Honours at Rideau Hall gave a KING CHARLES III CORONATION MEDAL to Felicia Gay (Opaskwayak Cree), a curator at MacKenzie Art Gallery.

The Center for Art, Research, and Alliances, a nonprofit based in New York, named Duwawisioma, Victor Masayesva Jr. (Hopi), as a 2025–2027 FELLOW. Awardees receive $75,000 and individually tailored support.

MAHOTATEXTILES. COM INFO @ MAHOTATEXTILES. COM FROM THE LEGACY COLLECTION, SHELL ORNAMENTS

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 17

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The Walker Youngbird Foundation awarded its first NÚHI GRANT to Hayden Haynes (Seneca Nation/Kiowa/Muscogee). The $7,500 grant supports Haynes’s project to carve eight medallions as gifts to the Seneca Name Givers of each of the Seneca clans.

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The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) named Steven Tamayo (Sicangu Lakota) as the BESS LOMAX HAWES NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOW in recognition for his contributions to sustaining and promoting cultural heritage.

Based in Omaha, Tamayo is a regalia maker, drummer, powwow dancer, hide painter, and teacher.

Gregory A. Scofield (Red River Métis) is among this year’s JIM BRADY MEMORIAL MEDAL OF EXCELLENCE recipients for his work in rescuing, repairing, and repatriating historic Métis clothing and beadwork from private collections, museums, and the open market.

Fashion designer April Allen (Inuk) received the ATLANTIC CANADA CRAFT AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE as an Industry Leader/Supporter. Allen owns Stitched by April, a fashion brand that reflects Inuit strength and resilience.

FILM & MEDIA The series NORTH OF NORTH is the first Canadian television series to earn a perfect 100 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (both Inuuq) created this Inuit comedy set in an Arctic hamlet for CBC/APTN.

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Steve Tamayo (Sicangu Lakota), 2025 NEA National Heritage Fellow.

Photo: Ryan Soderlin / Flatwater Free Press.

Miami Tribe of Indians, Otoe-Missouria Tribe, Quapaw Nation, Peoria Tribe of Indians, Ponca Tribe of Indians, Sac and Fox Nation, Shawnee Tribe, and other tribes.

Connecting andHistory History ConnectingPeople, People, Tradition, Tradition, and Connecting Connecting People, People, Tradition, Tradition, and History and Histor

Connecting People, Tradition, and History An audit by the State of California determined that the University of California continues to be noncompliant with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) and its 2001 California counterpart, CalNAGPRA. The letter from the auditor notes the university “lacks the accountability and urgency necessary to promptly return Native American remains and cultural items.”

The University of Oklahoma’s Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman will hire a coordinator to oversee the repatriation of Native American remains. According to ProPublica, the museum’s holdings represent the 18th largest collection of unrepatriated remains in the nation with more than 3,800 Native American human remains and more than 115,500 associated funerary objects.

Ira Lujan, hand blown glass

Ira Lujan, hand blown glass Ira Lujan,Irahand Lujan, blown hand glass blown glass

Ira Lujan, hand blown glass

CRIME & LEGAL ISSUES In an ongoing case against Alaska Stone Arts and Rail Creek in Ketchikan, Alaska, Cameron Losi of Washington was found guilty of conspiring to sell Philippine-made carvings as Alaska Native–made art. He misrepresented himself as the artist creating imported wood and stone carvings and was sentenced to five years of probation, 250 hours of community service, and a $12,000 fine. He must also issue a formal apology.

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In the case involving Cristobal Rodrigo, sentenced to prison for violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA), three additional men were sentenced for violating IACA: Travis Lee Macasaet and Simeon Cabansag of Ketchikan and Jessie Reginio of Seattle. They were involved in selling hundreds of Philippine-produced products marketed as Alaska Native– made artwork through Alaska Stone Arts and Rail Creek in Ketchikan. In addition to their sentences, defendants must pay restitution to the victims and write public apology letters.

www.amerind.org

2100 N. Dragoon Rd. Dragoon, AZ 85609 | 520.586.3666

www.amerind.org www.amerind.org www.amerind.org

2100 N. Dragoon Dragoon, AZ 85609 | 520.586.3666 2100 N.2100 Dragoon N. Dragoon Rd.Rd. Dragoon, Rd. Dragoon, AZ 85609 AZ 85609 | 520.586.3666 | 520.586.36 FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 19

www.amerind.org

2100 N. Dragoon Rd. Dragoon, AZ 85609 | 520.586.3666

36TH ANNUAL

OSCAR HOWE MEMORIAL LECTURE THURSDAY, SEPT. 18, 2025 | 7-8 P.M. COLTON RECITAL HALL

Warren M. Lee Center for the Fine Arts University of South Dakota

PUBLIC RECEPTION

Native American Cultural Center 5:30–6:30 p.m. | Light refreshments will be served.

LECTURER: DELPHINE RED SHIRT, PH.D.

Native American author and educator, who is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, a Lecturer at Stanford University, and holds a doctorate in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona.

The Teachings of Shell Face: Oral Tradition in Oscar Howe’s Art Oscar Howe, Ecstasy (War Dance), 1956, Courtesy of the Howe LLC

PRAYER AND SONG BY DAMON P. LEADER CHARGE

Sicangu Oglala Lakota | USD Director of Tribal Outreach

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON OSCAR HOWE: Archives: speccoll@usd.edu | Gallery: uag@usd.edu

UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

GALLERIES

• Oscar Howe Papers

• Oscar Howe Gallery

• South Dakota Oral History Center • USD Photograph Collection

• Digital Library of South Dakota • Special Collections Books

• University Art Galleries

• and more...

Sponsored by the Oscar Howe Memorial Association, the Native American Cultural Center, the Native Student Services, the Institute of American Indian Studies, University Art Galleries and the College of Fine Arts at the University of South Dakota.

20 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

OSCAR HOWE

(1915–1983) Premier innovative Yanktonai Dakota artist

WAR DANCER (1969) Howe is exploring different ways to break the plane and illustrate the dancer’s dimensionality and movement, a war dancer getting ready to go on the battlefield.

ccainaz@gmail.com 602.906.1633

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 21

Seven Directions

SHÁŃDÍÍN BROWN A Diné art historian, curator, and creative shares her top seven list global Indigenous contemporary art, Indigenous feminism, and Indigenous futurism. She earned her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, a double major in Native American studies and anthropology with a minor in environmental studies.

Previously Brown was the assistant curator of Native American art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, where she also co-taught in RISD’s apparel design department and served as a recurring critic. She has curated exhibitions at the Hood Museum of Art, RISD Museum, and Hudson River Museum. Her writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, First American Art Magazine, Pasatiempo, and Forging (published by the Forge Project).

In addition to her academic and curatorial work, Brown is a jewelry maker who works with shell, turquoise, glass beads, and juniper berries gathered from Coppermine Chapter in Arizona. She is currently based in Connecticut and enjoys traveling and spending time with family in Arizona.

Instagram @ShandiinBrown | @T.Begay.Designs

S

HÁŃDÍÍN BROWN éí Kinyaa'áanii niloó bi'dizhchį́.

Bilagáana yáshchíín, Tł'ízílání dabicheii dóó Bilagáana dabinalí. Sháńdíín Brown was born into the Towering House clan, for the white man. Her maternal grandfather’s clan is the Many Goats clan, and her paternal grandfather was white.

Brown is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, who was born and raised in Arizona. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale University, where her research focuses on multitemporal Native American art and fashion with an emphasis on its connections to

EAST

ERIC-PAUL RIEGE’s solo exhibition, ojo|-|ólǫ́ , opens September 3 at the Bell, Brown University’s contemporary art space in Providence, Rhode Island. A contemporary Diné artist from Na'nízhoozhí (Gallup, New Mexico), Riege works across textiles, sculpture, video, sound, and performance. During a past residency at Brown University, he spent time with historic Diné belongings in the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

This experience informed a new body of work developed in response to collections at the Haffenreffer Museum and the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

The exhibition features modular soft sculptures that Riege will rearrange at each venue as resistance to colonial ideas of 22 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

SEVEN DIRECTIONS

fixity and permanence. Works by Diné artists once known through the Haffenreffer’s collection will appear alongside Riege’s to emphasize cultural continuity as a living and adaptive process. And if you aren’t out East when the show is on view, it travels to the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle in March 2026.

Curators Thea Quiray Tagle, PhD, and Nina Bozicnik are collaborating with Riege to realize this multivenue project.

I’m especially excited to see Riege’s new performances, which will debut at each planned site. ericpaulriege.com | bell.brown.edu Instagram @ericpaulriege

WEST CARA ROMERO: PANÛPÜNÜWÜGAI (LIVING LIGHT) is the first major solo exhibition dedicated to the narrative photographic practice of Cara Romero (Chemehuevi). Raised between the

Chemehuevi Reservation in the Mojave Desert and Houston, Texas, Romero is known for her bold and staged fine art photography that centers Indigenous presence in contemporary life. Featuring more than 50 works created between 2013 and 2024, the exhibition traces the evolution of her visual storytelling.

Organized by the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, where it debuted and closes on August 9, 2025, the exhibition travels next to the Phoenix Art Museum and will open February 28, 2026. Keep an eye out for Cali Gold (2025) from her Native California series at the Phoenix iteration; it’s a standout piece in the show.

Panûpünüwügai is curated by Jami Powell, PhD, (Osage) with the Phoenix presentation coordinated by Emilia Mickevicius, PhD.

above Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), 3 Sisters, 2022, archival pigment print, 40 × 55 in., 3/7 ed., collection of the Hood Museum of Art, 2022.47.2.

Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, top Sháńdíín Brown.

Image courtesy of the author. opposite, bottom Eric-Paul Riege (Diné) performing dah ‘iistł’ǫ́ [loomz], weaving dance (2018) at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory, Albuquerque. Image courtesy of the author.

cararomero.com phxart.org/exhibition/ cara-romero-panupunuwugai

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 23

SOUTH SAIF AZZUZ: KEET HEGEHLPA' (THE WATER IS RISING) is the artist’s first museum exhibition, on view at the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston through December 21, 2025. Based in Pacifica, California, Saif Azzuz (Libyan/Yurok/ Karuk) creates paintings that straddle abstraction and surrealism.

The work in the exhibition examines the privatization of land, water, and natural resources under settler-colonial systems. Drawing from archival fictions and material histories, the show includes site-specific installations, newly commissioned works, paintings, and assemblages. I’m especially looking forward to the new commissions. Azzuz has a great way with color, and I’m curious to see what’s next.

Azzuz collaborates with family members—Lulu Thrower, Viola Azzuz, Moya Azzuz, Elizabeth Azzuz (Yurok), and Colleen Colegrove (Yurok/

Diné)—to weave intergenerational, ecological knowledge into the exhibition.

Together they reflect on land stewardship and rematriation in ways that echo White Earth Ojibwe writer Gerald Vizenor’s concept of survivance, the confluence of survival and resistance.

24 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

The Blaffer Art Museum is a noncollecting contemporary art space located in the Arts District on the University of Houston campus. The show is organized

by Erika Mei Chua Holum. blafferartmuseum.org/saif-azzuz Instagram @saifazzuz

SEVEN DIRECTIONS

NORTH

If you missed INDIAN THEATER: NATIVE PERFORMANCE, ART, AND SELF-DETERMINATION SINCE 1969 at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in 2023 and you’ll be in Western Canada, be sure to catch the exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, on view through September 21, 2025.

This landmark show features more than 100 works by Native American (including Alaska Native), First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists. Framed by the self-determination era—sparked by the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes—the exhibition is the first large-scale presentation to position performance and theater as a foundation for the development of contemporary Native art.

The exhibition is curated by Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish) and was originally organized by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard).

If you can’t make it to Regina, keep an eye out: Indian Theater will also travel to SITE Santa Fe, with dates to be announced. Also look out for the accompanying publication, Native Visual

Sovereignty: A Reader on Art and Performance, edited by Candice Hopkins and copublished by Dancing Foxes Press, CCS Bard, and Forge Project, forthcoming in October. The book traces six decades of Indigenous North American performance and self-determination in art through new essays, poetry, oral histories, and critical texts by leading Indigenous artists and scholars. I can’t wait to read this! mackenzie.art | ccs.bard.edu

ABOVE “Above” can be interpreted to include the internet—a space of cloud storage, algorithmic curation, and digital visibility. RELATIVE ARTS, an Indigenous-owned and operated community space in New York City’s East Village, extends its presence far beyond its brickand-mortar community space and store through an online presence. Founded by fashion designer Korina Emmerich (Puyallup heritage) and community organizer Liana Shewey (Mvskoke), Relative Arts is an incubator for Native-led creative exchange.

Across TikTok (@relativearts) and Instagram (@relativeartsnyc), Relative

above Installation view of Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 at Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College. Both images courtesy of the author. opposite Installation view of Saif Azzuz’s Shared Memories at ICA San Francisco, 2023.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 25

above Korina Emmerich and Liana Shewey of Relative Arts, the community space, open atelier, and shop displaying contemporary Indigenous fashion and design. Photo: Maria Spann, The Guardian. Image courtesy of the Guardian News & Media Ltd. opposite, top Visitors walk through the remediated meadow at Forge Project, New York, September 2024. Image courtesy of the Forge Project. opposite, bottom James Luna (Payómkawichum/Ipai/MexicanAmerican, 1950–2018), Hi-Tech Peace Pipe, 1992, metal pipes, pipe fittings, non-rising stem gate valve, peyote-stitch glass seed beads, telephone, collection of the Gochman Family Collection. Exhibited in Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time at the Hudson River Museum. Image courtesy of the Estate of James Luna and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.

Arts uses social media not only to showcase Native fashion, artists, and designers but also to share Indigenous art community events happening in NYC. Located at 367 E. 10th Street in New York, the space is open every Thursday to Sunday from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Visitors can shop a curated collection of works by Indigenous artists from across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America.

Whether hosting in-person gatherings or building visibility online, Relative Arts reminds us that the future of Indigenous fashion—and the futures we imagine for ourselves—are already unfolding in our feeds. relativeartsnyc.com Instagram @relativeartsnyc TikTok @relativeats

BELOW FORGE PROJECT is a Native-led nonprofit committed to cultivating and advancing Indigenous leadership in arts and culture. Located on the unceded

26 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok in the Mahicannituck (Hudson River) Valley of New York State, Forge is led by Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish), executive director and chief curator, and Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktityutityu yaktiłhini Northern Chumash), director of Indigenous Programs and Relationality. Since its founding, Forge has supported nearly 300 Indigenous artists, hosted dozens of cultural practitioners and knowledge keepers, and built new audiences and platforms for their work.

Forge’s annual fellowship program supports Indigenous artists, scholars, organizers, cultural workers, researchers, and educators. Each Forge Project Fellow receives $25,000 to support their practice, along with access to the Forge site, its libraries, and its lending collection of works by living Indigenous artists during a residency stay of up to three weeks.

Want to keep your ear to the ground on Native news and art opportunities?

SEVEN DIRECTIONS

Follow Forge Project on Instagram (@ ForgeProjectNY) and subscribe to their monthly newsletter for updates straight to your inbox. Each issue includes in-depth coverage of Forge’s programs, upcoming events, opportunities, press, and staff-curated recommendations of what to read, watch, and see. forgeproject.com

Instagram @ForgeProjectNY

CENTER If you’re in the New York City metropolitan area before August 31, 2025, please visit SMOKE IN OUR HAIR: NATIVE MEMORY AND UNSETTLED TIME at the Hudson River Museum, a group exhibition I curated featuring 22 Native American (including Alaska Native), First Nations, and Métis artists. Spanning multiple generations, these artists call us to consider connections as well as disconnections between customary practices and innovation, to reorient our notions of time, memory, and the future. Together they carry forward the artistic lineages of their ancestors while simultaneously

sparking new visions of the future. The exhibition is structured in three thematic sections—Wood, Fire, and Smoke—and was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick. It was an honor to curate this show.

To get there, take Metro-North’s Hudson

Line: either the local train to Glenwood Station (a short walk through Trevor Park) or the express to Yonkers, then a $5 cab ride. MTA Away also offers travel and admission discounts. hrm.org/exhibitions/smoke-in-our-hair

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 27

DANIEL MCCOY

Scenes Along the Rio Grande August 1 - September 1

HECHO A MANO 129 W Palace Ave ~ Santa Fe, NM

28 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

~

www.hechoamano.org

The Choctaw Cultural Center is more than a museum, it’s an adventure. Become The Choctawexplorer CulturalonCenter is morehunt thanthat a museum, it’s an adventure.

Become an intrepid a scavenger takes you through our immersive an intrepid explorer a scavenger hunt that takesfoods you through ourthrough immersive exhibits; learn how toon prepare traditional Choctaw and crafts our exhibits; learn how to prepare andtocrafts through our hands-on workshops; or just traditional take a quietChoctaw momentfoods to listen our storytellers hands-on workshops; just take a quiet moment to listen to our in the Luksi Activity or Center.

Whether you’re young or young at storytellers heart, the in the Luksi Activity Center. young or young at heart, the possibilities forWhether fun andyou’re learning are endless! possibilities for fun and learning are endless!

A unique one-day getaway for the whole family!

A unique one-day getawayExhibits for the whole family!

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Interactive Exhibits Hands-On Workshops Hands-On Workshops Living Village

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Scan code toScan learncode more. to learn more.

1919 Hina Hanta Way | Calera, OK 74730 1919 Hina Hanta Way | Calera, OK 74730

Visit ChoctawCulturalCenter.com to plan your visit.

Visit ChoctawCulturalCenter.com to plan your visit.

30 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

TO CARRY THE WIND The Revitalization of Feather Mantles, Capes, and Cultural Memory

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

A

FTER THE SPANISH CONQUISTADOR Hernando de Soto landed his ships in present-day Florida, he pushed west into what is now Alabama. There, in the autumn of 1540, he encountered Chief Tascalusa of the Mabila, who, as one chronicler recounted, wore a pelote—a type of feather mantle that extended from his shoulders to his feet.1 This, one of the earliest written accounts of feather mantles in North America, provides reliable evidence that they existed at least 500 years ago. Fifty years later, to the Northeast, Henry Hudson’s 1610 expedition into Lenape territory recorded that “many of the [Indigenous] people came aboard, some in Mantles of Feathers, and some in Skinnes of divers sorts of good Furres.”2 Similar documentation appears throughout the 18th century that details mantles and capes of various lengths and designs.

However, such accounts declined significantly in the 19th century as warfare and the forced displacement of Eastern tribes disrupted the intergenerational transmission of featherwork practices.

Nevertheless, feather mantles and capes originated much earlier than the written record suggests. For example, archaeological investigations at the Spiro Mounds site in present-day Oklahoma revealed fragments of dyed featherwork

above Julia Marden (Aquinnah Wampanoag) models her turkey feather mantle. Image courtesy of the artist.

and textiles linked to Mississippian cultures, dating from the 10th to 12th centuries CE.3 While feather mantles and capes are often presumed to have been reserved for high-status tribal members and Elders, early contact records suggest that, depending on the region and nation, these garments were also worn for both ceremonial purposes and practical use to provide warmth and repel rain.

In this context, mantle refers to a longer

above Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation), In Times of War (War Chief's Mantle), 2015, hemp, deer hide, turkey feathers, dyed goose feathers, collection of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Rebecca Haff Lowry (Delaware Tribe), Cape of a Matriarch, 2021, turkey feathers, dentalium shells, glass beads, hemp twine, 32 × 52 in. Model: Rebecca Haff Lowry. Image courtesy of the artist.

1. Victoria Lindsay Levine, “Feathers in Southeast American Indian Ceremonialism,” Expedition Magazine 33, no. 2 (1991), 3.

2. James Rementer, “Lenape Feather Mantles or Capes,” Delaware Tribe of Indians (October 2014), 2, PDF. 3. Robert Perry, The Turkey Feather Cape: My Creation from Beyond History (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2008), 4.

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feathered covering that extends to the feet or ground, while cape denotes a shorter, more versatile garment that covers at least the shoulders.

Some oral histories insinuate that featherwork was most likely the creative activity of women, though there is little evidence to suggest this was universal across all nations. The materials used— feathers, thread, and cordage—were often regionally specific or obtained through the complex system of intertribal trade networks. This phenomenon helps account for the presence of brilliantly colored feathers from species such as the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) far beyond their native range in the Florida wetlands—extending north and westward—before the species’s near extinction due to overhunting by colonial settlers in the 19th century. Other written accounts mention the appearance of “painted” feathers; however, it is more likely that certain feathers were dyed using organic materials such as plant or animal matter.4 Today, legislation such as the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects migratory bird species, so featherwork is now commonly made from turkey, goose, or duck feathers. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that the comparatively muted coloration of most contemporary mantles and capes today does not necessarily reflect the visual intensity these garments may have exhibited hundreds of years ago.

The intrinsic fragility of featherbased garments renders historical mantles and capes, even those less than 100 years old, exceptionally susceptible to deterioration from a range of environmental factors, such as insect infestation, ultraviolet radiation, fluctuating humidity, or anthropogenic factors like excessive handling, and improper storage conditions.

Awareness of these vulnerabilities has led contemporary featherwork practitioners to engage with archival sources, such as expeditionary records from Hernando de Soto and Henry Hudson, as critical references for both artistic production and conservation efforts. However, they also draw from the rich well of oral history, 4. Rementer, “Lenape Feather Mantles or Capes,” 3.

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relying on detailed descriptions passed down by Elders or preserved in collective memory. Through a thoughtful balance of reading, listening, and replicating, artists across the continent are increasingly engaged with historical netting and weaving techniques as a means to regenerate and disseminate a cultural practice that had, until recently, lain dormant. Their research aligns with that of other artists restoring historical arts— such as birchbark etching or moosehair embroidery—as the road forward is being retraced through the past.

At the forefront of this extraordinary revitalization project are Robert Perry (Chickasaw), Julia Marden (Aquinnah Wampanoag), and Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation), to name only a few, whose publications, exhibitions, and workshops have renewed interest in feather mantles and capes. Perry began researching feather capes after being asked to manufacture one for an exhibition at the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Like Marden and Rutherford, he spent time consulting archival documents and sought the advice of tribal archaeologists. Their field notes revealed that feathers were historically affixed to a crisscross pattern made of mulberry bast among Southeastern tribes, which he replicated by utilizing monk’s cloth, a coarse fabric with a basket weave generally made from cotton or linen.

While Perry’s wife and collaborator, Faye Perry, prepared the inner lining “to stop a lot of sewing,” he “invented a way to make an eye in the shaft of the flight feathers so that all I had to do was string up the feathers on the six different tiers before I had to do any sewing at all.” Following two years of research and two months of intensive work that consisted of eighthour days, the cape was completed and exhibited at the center.

Shortly after, in 2008, Perry self-published a small but remarkable book, The Turkey Feather Cape: My Creation from Beyond History, which offers a meticulous account of his journey in crafting the cape from start to finish. It remains the sole Indigenous-authored book devoted to feather cape production,

They also draw from the rich well of oral history, relying on detailed descriptions passed down by Elders or preserved in collective memory.

opposite, top Wailaki artist once known, Condor Cape, late 19th century, condor feathers, plant cordage, flicker quills, 36 × 27 in., collection of the Denver Art Museum, Native Arts acquisition fund, 1950.150. Image courtesy of the Denver Art Museum. opposite, bottom Detail of Condor Cape. Image courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

above, top Detail of turkey cape in production by Robert Perry (Chickasaw), 2008. All three images courtesy of the artist. above, left Illustration of creating a loop from feather quill tip by Robert Perry (Chickasaw). above, right Illustration of pattern for a cape by Robert Perry (Chickasaw).

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above Julia Marden (Aquinnah Wampanoag) modeling her fulllength turkey feather mantle at the Aquinnah Cultural Center in Massachusetts, 2024. Photo: Aquinnah Cultural Center. opposite, top Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation) and Sarah de Herrera (Choctaw Nation), 2022. Image courtesy of Lisa Rutherford. opposite, bottom Detail of netting in a feather cape in progress by Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation). Image courtesy of the artist.

making it an invaluable resource for artists and historians alike. While much of his focus lands on the technical intricacies of the cape’s tiered construction, Perry is also one of the few artists to explore the spiritual significance of feather capes among the Chickasaw. As he explains, in the Chickasaw belief system, birds— particularly the eagle, white swan, and turkey—are considered sacred beings, messengers to the Creator in the sky.

When birds such as turkeys were harvested, their feathers would have been blessed by a holy man and never permitted to touch the ground again, as doing so would diminish their power and attract bad medicine. This rationale underpins 5. Perry, The Turkey Feather Cape, 5–7.

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Perry’s belief that feather capes would have been regarded as a form of “spiritual armor,”5 functioning as a defensive safeguard against violent incursions by neighboring tribes and colonial forces like de Soto’s.

Julia Marden gained national recognition with the public unveiling of a spectacular turkey feather mantle—measuring four feet tall, six feet wide, and tailored to her body—at the Aquinnah Wampanoag Powwow in 2023. She was first introduced to featherwork nearly 35 years ago while learning twining, the oldest form of basket making, and since then she has garnered widespread acclaim for her expertise in mat twining and basketry.

The precise methods of construction and appearance of Wampanoag mantles remain uncertain, so she studied written descriptions that indicated feathers were likely woven directly into the fabric, using handspun cordage made from dogbane, mulberry fibers, or milkweed.

What is particularly impressive about Marden’s mantle is her use of the closetwine technique, where rows are placed directly adjacent to one another so that the weft cords—threads that run horizontally—can be seen from the surface.

This contrasts with openweave twining techniques, in which the interlacing is more widely spaced.

To start, Marden acquired an impressive three pounds of feathers and dedicated two months to the sorting and preparation of individual plumes. With the production of two rows per day, each requiring approximately two hours, from start to finish the project was completed over the span of a year. Her work constitutes the first—and most historically accurate—close-twine feather mantle created in Aquinnah Wampanoag territory in the past 400 years. As tribal members donned the cape at the powwow, one after another, Marden recalls that it was “absolutely overwhelming to see the look on people’s faces, and how their expressions changed as they were wrapped in it.” The cape now temporarily resides in the Little Compton Historical Society in Rhode Island for two years before moving to a

second exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Lisa Rutherford pursued her exploration of featherwork later in her career, having previously established her reputation as a potter and historical clothing designer. She began making 18th-century Cherokee-style clothing around 2006 after Barbara Duncan, then education director at the Museum of the Cherokee People in Cherokee, North Carolina, shared crucial information about their construction with her. She looked into de Soto’s early encounter with Chief Tascalusa’s feather mantle and soon resolved to craft one of her own. In pursuit of this goal, Rutherford, in collaboration with fellow Cherokee Nation artists Tonia Hogner Weavel and David Fowler, secured a feather cape produced by anthropologist Deborah Harding, which they studied over the course of a week.

After days of struggling to fully grasp the netting technique used by Harding, a breakthrough on the final day revealed the elaborate method behind the twined net’s construction. Rutherford completed her first feather cape in 2010 and, other than Valerie Kagan (Cherokee Nation), remain one of the few artists in her region producing historically accurate, museum-quality feather capes and mantles.

Though Rutherford often uses goose feathers in her work, she speculates that Cherokee capes or mantles of the past would have incorporated intensely colored feathers from ducks, flamingos, and the now-extinct Carolina parakeet.

“We’ve always liked brightness and bling,” she says. For the type of mantle where feathers are twined into a twined textile, her process begins upside down—from the top of the frame moving downward— so that the first row of feathers becomes the hem of the cape, which is similar to Marden’s. Other capes are forged on a hand-tied net where the feather quill is gently bent over a nail to create a round eye for sewing, then wrapped and lashed with hemp or cotton cordage, or a notch is cut from the side of the quill and the tip folded into the space made to form a loop before it is stitched to a knot in the net. That being said, these words say little about the considerable physical strain FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 35

that the twining method imposes on the hands, shoulders, and back—but as Rutherford informs me, “If you can’t make the net, you can’t make the cape.” That is to say, the most critical aspect of a feather cape or mantle resides in the structural elements that usually remain imperceptible to the naked eye.

A new generation of artists is revolutionizing cordage and netting techniques, while others are pushing feather capes into the expanded fields of contemporary fashion and critical aesthetics.

One such artist is Aaron Cajero (Jemez), who has worked with hand-coiled pottery since 1993 and recently taught himself to spin cordage from hand-harvested and processed yucca spikes. His inventive approach entails looping feathers and constructing the net concurrently, a method that stands in stark contrast to most known techniques. For his efforts, Cajero’s turkey feather baby blanket was recently awarded first place and judge’s choice in the diverse art forms category at the 2025 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market.

In 2014, when Jules Daugherty (Cherokee Nation) was crowned Miss Cherokee, Don Stroud (Cherokee Nation/Muscogee) and the Cherokee Nation Color Guard presented her with a feather cape made by Rutherford. Stroud was familiar with feather capes since his sister Virginia Stroud (Keetoowah Cherokee/Muscogee, 1951–2024) wore one when she was Miss Cherokee in 1969.6 Daugherty notes that Rutherford’s cape “ignited a passion,” prompting her to analyze the statements found in de Soto’s journals and other historical documents.

Daugherty developed her own distinctive style, shape, and approach that she says is informed by historical Eastern Band Cherokee fishing nets and traps. Her body of work, now featured prominently on the runways of Indigenous fashion shows, encompasses an array of forms, ranging from conventional turkey feathers to vibrant hues of dyed hot pink feathers— an homage to the Cherokee preference for “brightness and bling.” Incredibly, 6. Will Chavez, “Turkey feather cape returns via CN Color Guard,” Cherokee Phoenix, July 19, 2011, web.

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Daugherty’s sustained commitment to the medium has resulted in the creation of 55 feather capes to date, establishing her as one of the most prolific feather cape artists in recent memory.

For certain nations, including the Lenape, the revitalization of feather capes can be traced back to the 1960s. However, it was not until the industriousness of Touching Leaves Woman, also known as Nora Thompson Dean (Delaware Tribe, 1907–1984), that the creation of Lenape feather capes began to be systematically documented.7 In addition to consulting archival journals, Dean drew upon oral histories regarding Lenape clothing shared by family members, most notably by her great aunt Pommahpunaqua (Delaware, ca. 1850–after 1920). Regrettably, Dean was unable to complete her cape due to an acute shortage of turkey feathers, leading to the cessation of the project after only six rows. However, the unfinished sections were subsequently filled with fur as a comparable substitute.

Several years later, in 1970, Dean completed a miniature version of the cape for a small doll, crafted from pheasant feathers, and sold it to a private collector where it remains to this day. The efforts of Dean and other tribal citizens beginning in the 1960s are particularly significant as they stand as one of the strongest examples of cultural renewal initiatives among the Lenape.

Recently Joe Baker (Delaware Tribe) of the Lenape Center in Manhattan, New York, invited writer and artist Rebecca Haff Lowry (Delaware Tribe) to deliver poetry readings and subsequently commissioned her to create a turkey feather cape for an exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library in Greenpoint, New York. Although Lowry’s principal focus is writing, she also maintains a profound interest in the disciplines of fashion and design. She agreed to the project and sought assistance from her mother-in-law and weaving teacher, the acclaimed basket artist Susan Burdick (Yurok). The collaboration between East Coast clothing forms and West Coast technical expertise held particular significance for Lowry, as both

the Lenape and Yurok peoples share a common Algonquian linguistic heritage.

With only a month and a half remaining before the exhibition’s opening, Lowry and Burdick purchased a prefabricated net made of hemp and got to work. Their approach involved pairing two identically colored turkey feathers and tying them together, then weaving the smaller feather hairs together by hand. Burdick impressed upon Lowry the

above Jules Daugherty (Cherokee Nation), Woman’s Cape, 2025, goose feathers, twined netting. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, top Aaron Cajero (Jemez) holding yucca cordage ready to be twisted into twine.

His turkey feather cape is in the background. Photo: FAAM. opposite, bottom Aaron Cajero (Jemez) demonstrating looping a feather in yucca cordage.

Photo: FAAM.

7. Rementer, “Lenape Feather Mantles or Capes,” 6–7.

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above Artist once known, possibly Meskwaki, Cape, ca. 1850, feathers, cotton, 33 × 79 in., collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art 2008.64, the Jane and James Emison Endowment for Native American Art. Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

below Two men’s feather cloaks by Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation) at the Cherokee National History Museum, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Image courtesy of the Cherokee National History Museum.

opposite A woman’s feather cloak, feather fan, twined skirt, and twined moccasins by Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation) at the Cherokee National History Museum. Image courtesy of the Cherokee National History Museum.

gravity of the creative process itself and emphasized that the formation of art carries transcendental consequences: “When you weave something, you’re putting your energy, your life, your life force, and your thoughts … into this. That creates its own kind of spiritual property. That’s why you’re supposed to be very careful of what you think about when you weave.”8 In essence, Burdick proposed that having a negative mindset could invite error, whereas a positive mental state allowed the hands to flow with intuitive precision. A distinguishing feature of Lowry’s cape—setting it apart from most contemporary examples—is the inclusion of a collar adorned with elongated dentalium shells from the Pacific. Shells historically served as indicators of wealth and social status among the Lenape. This was likewise true among the Yurok people, thereby reinforcing the ancestral linkages between Lowry and Burdick once again.

The presence of feather-based garments in museum collections across the United States has provoked debate among curators and scholars, particularly concerning the uncertain provenance of 19th-century capes, mantles, and pelerines (short capes with dramatically pointed ends that hang down the front).

One prominent example from the Great 8. Rebecca Haff Lowry in discussion with the author, April 6, 2025.

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Lakes region—a feather cape belonging to Meskwaki Chief Poweshiek—remained unaccounted for nearly 150 years before its rediscovery in 1983 at the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History. A subsequent survey identified more than 50 similar feather garments in other institutional collections, yet this discovery also prompted speculation that their origins may lie in regions such as China, Myanmar, Hawai'i, India, or South Africa, which suggests a reluctance to attribute them to Indigenous nations of the continental United States.9 While conducting research for this article, and combing through the holdings of capes and mantles in museum collections, I asked myself more than once, How exactly did that get there? Persistent issues of misattribution remain unaddressed, indicating that Indigenous feather capes and mantles of the Americas—and featherwork more broadly—are especially deserving of critical academic attention.

While the provenance of many historical feather capes and mantles remain shrouded in obscurity, contemporary iterations of the form are undoubtedly experiencing a resurgence, sustained by the increasing circulation of knowledge and the development of supportive artistic networks. Many artists describe their work as part of a broader process to reconnect to ancestral homelands and reestablish a sense of cultural stewardship, which often motivates the revival and elevation of these and other historical practices. For some, including Marden, this revitalization is understood not merely as a cultural recovery but as part of a larger, even prophetic, moment of resurgence. “It’s time,” she affirms, “time for all of this to come back.”

This concept of return—physical, spiritual, and cultural—is central to Lowry’s short poem “Feather Cape Returns,” which serves as a poignant metaphor for the ongoing reclamation and revitalization of feather mantle and cape customs today:

A Cape hung over a branch, in Lenapehoking.

Raised by a strange wind, flew west, across the expanse, before landing on a cliff, at Requa. The mouth of the Klamath River, below, pushed into the Pacific Ocean.

Cape made a U-turn in that foggy

breath, circumventing columns of mist.

Picked up dentalium, before traveling back east.

Waiting, a line of bandolier bags.

Feather cape, they said, We saved you a spot.

Rejoining their company, they spoke all night.10

Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, is the curator and head of collections at Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ontario. The author is grateful to Lisa Aaron (Cherokee Nation) for her invaluable advice, proofreading, and technical assistance.

9. Nancy Oestreich Lurie and Duane Anderson, “A Lost Art Form: A Case Study of 19th Century Feathered Capes Produced by American Indians in the Great Lakes Region,” Museum Anthropology 22, no. 2 (September 1998), 3–16.

10. Rebecca Haff Lowry, “Feather Cape Returns,” in Lenapehoking: An Anthology, Joe Baker, Hadrien Coumans, Joel Whitney, eds., (Greenpoint: The Lenape Center and Brooklyn Public Library), 19–20, PDF.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 39

Take Home a Treasure from Indian Country Buy from members of federally recognized Tribes

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Tessa Robledo, Comanche, beadwork, Southern Plains Song Purse, ©2022 40 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

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KarmaHenry.com Wü-tsakwinuhi-ku (Twisted by the wind), 2025, acrylic on canvas, 30 × 40 inches

NEW VOICES, BOLD VISIONS Native Artists Redefine Santa Fe’s Summer Scene Santa Fe welcomes a new wave of Indigenous artists blending ancestral practices with personal narratives and fearless experimentation. Art rooted in identity and stitched with innovation—meet the creatives reshaping what Native art means today.

By Mandy Yeahpau (Comanche/Cherokee/Tarahumara descent)

E

ACH SUMMER, Santa Fe blooms into a vibrant gathering place for Indigenous artists from across the continent who bring fresh voices, bold perspectives, and generations of cultural knowledge into conversation with the art world. This year, four rising artists—Carmen Selam (Yakama/ Comanche), Mikaela Shafer (Hopi), Mikailah Thompson (nimíipuu/African-American), and Jimmy Dean Horn (Chickasaw)—are among those to watch.

Working with media from beadwork and printmaking to wearable art and abstract painting, these creators are making Native art on their own terms.

These four dynamic Native artists are redefining Indigenous expression with fresh energy, intimate storytelling, and bold originality. Carmen Selam makes her debut at the Santa Fe Indian Market with a body of work that blends printmaking and painting to reflect her experience living between reservation and urban spaces. Mikaela Shafer returns to the Santa Fe Indian Market offering abstract, sewn, mixed-media paintings that explore motherhood, healing, and identity, building on the momentum of her award-winning collection, Matrilineal Memory, with new collage works and upcoming exhibitions. Jimmy Dean Horn’s screen-printed fashion and upcycled garments incorporate bold

Chickasaw symbolism, merging cultural iconography with streetwear in a wearable art practice that is gaining major attention. Rounding out the group is beadwork artist Mikailah Thompson, who continues to turn heads with her unique designs that unite nimíipuu and Nigerian aesthetics, a celebration of cultural duality and authenticity through fashion and wearable art. Together, these four artists represent a fresh wave of Native art rooted in community and fearlessness—and are impossible to ignore.

QUEER INDIGENOUS STORYTELLING THROUGH COMICS & CANVAS CARMEN SELAM (Yakama/Comanche) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans printmaking, painting, clay, weaving, and beadwork. Her practice explores the tension and harmony of living both on and off the reservation, using iconography and pop culture to examine Indigenous identity in today’s society. Through bold visual storytelling, Selam reclaims space for untold Indigenous histories, and creates work that reflects her lived experience as a Yakama-Comanche woman. This summer

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in Santa Fe, she brings an exciting mix of new work: Risograph prints, original paintings, and the third edition of her limited-run comic book, Rezbians, a sliceof-life series about two young characters navigating queer love on the reservation.

Created during her 2023 Risolana residency, Rezbians is a deeply personal project born from a lack of representation in the media Selam encountered growing up. “It’s a story about self-love and community,” she says. “I felt very held by my community when I first shared it—even my grandmas.” Since its first release, the comic has resonated with Indigenous LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit audiences across the Southwest, including at a pop-up at Skoden Coffee in Albuquerque, where Native community members expressed feeling seen and validated. In a political climate where queer visibility can feel risky, Selam views the comic—and her broader creative output—as an act of resistance: “It’s become scarier to be out, but I’ve learned that simply existing— and making space for others to exist—is powerful.”

Currently in what she describes as “crazy work mode,” Selam is busy preparing new paintings for a solo exhibition organized by Curate Santa Fe at Iconik Coffee, opening July 26, and running through October. These new works reflect her evolving painting style influenced by

Carmen Selam in Santa Fe. All images courtesy of the artist. right Carmen Selam (Yakama/Comanche), Rezbians (Risolana, 2024), duotone Risograph comic book, 40 pages, edition of 200.

below Carmen Selam (Yakama/ Comanche), Come Thru, 2024, Risograph print on paper, 11 × 8½ in., ed. 9/30.

below, right Carmen Selam (Yakama/Comanche), Scorpion Queen, duotone Risograph print on paper, ed. 30.

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a b ov e Carmen Selam (Yakama/Comanche), inmí xasluú (my star), glass seed beads on hand-dyed cloth.

Image courtesy of the artist.

her training at IAIA and her interest in nontoxic, layered materials like acrylic and watercolor. As she also begins work on Rezbians volume II, Selam continues to balance experimentation with a clear, artistic mission: one rooted in care, community, and joyful visibility. “It’s cool to be in a space to meet your heroes,” she says of the Santa Fe art scene. “Other artists have been so sweet and gracious. That’s a bit of the magic of Santa Fe.” Beyond the gallery and the printed page, Selam’s work is fueled by connection, both with her peers and with younger generations of Native artists. She speaks candidly about the importance of mentorship and making room for others in the arts, especially those navigating the intersections of queerness and Indigeneity. “It’s not just about making art,” she says.

“It’s about creating a world where we can see each other more clearly.” Whether teaching workshops, tabling at zine fests, or sharing laughter with fellow artists at local cafés, Selam sees every interaction as part of her creative practice. In this way, her art is not only what she puts on paper or canvas, but how she shows up for community, and how that community continues to shape her.

Where to see Carmen Selam’s work: • SWAIA Booth #FR S 305 • Iconik Coffee in Santa Fe, July 26–October 2025 • online at carmenlauraselam.com

TACTILE STORIES OF HEALING & HERITAGE A Self-Taught Journey through Matrilineal Memory

above Mikaela Shafer (Hopi) in her studio in Olympia, Washington. All images courtesy of the artist.

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MIKAELA SHAFER (HOPI) is a self-taught artist, mother, and activist whose multimedia practice is rooted in her Hopi heritage and personal healing journey. Through a tactile and intuitive approach that incorporates dyeing, stitching, painting, and collage, her works layer memory, grief, and resilience. Shafer’s pieces often take on textured forms: stitched watercolor paper, hand-dyed fabrics, and layers that reflect intergenerational connection and the reweaving of identity. Her use of poetry and storytelling brings emotional depth and narrative to her visual work, emphasizing motherhood and healing as both intimate and collective.

After making her debut at Santa Fe Indian Market last year, where she earned a first-place blue ribbon in mixed-media 2D art, Shafer returns this summer with new works and a stronger sense of community. “It was probably the biggest market I’ve ever done,” she recalls, describing the intensity of navigating logistics, fundraising, and travel. But it was also deeply affirming. “I ran into my grandmother’s brother and my uncle, who was also vending, and it was this moment of realizing I have family here.”

Talking directly with attendees, selling out of works at her booth, and connecting with fellow artists turned the overwhelming into

above, left Mikaela Shafer (Hopi), My belly is a galaxy, 2024, mixed media on paper, 10 × 8 in., private collection.

the unforgettable. This year, she’s bringing more of her printed chiffon silks, which were a hit with market goers last year, as well as framed collages and new mixed-media pieces.

Beyond Santa Fe, Shafer is deep in preparation for her upcoming solo exhibition at All My Relations Arts in Minneapolis, running October 9 to December 13. Titled Matrilineal Memory, the show builds on her earlier explorations of ancestral connection. She’s currently working on a massive centerpiece of multiple 8-by-8-inch watercolor paper panels sewn together into a giant, quilt-like installation. As she continues to develop her practice, Shafer’s work remains a vibrant meditation on memory, identity, and the slow, powerful work of healing through art.

For Shafer, art is as much a personal ritual as it is a form of dialogue with her ancestors, her children, and the communities that surround her. Whether creating in her studio or preparing her booth, she integrates family into her process, honoring the matrilineal lines that inspire her work. Her studio doubles as a space of reflection and resistance, where healing happens through slowness, softness, and sustained attention. In a world that often demands urgency, Shafer's practice offers an alternative rhythm—one that privileges care, embodiment, and deep listening. As she returns to Santa Fe this summer, she does so not just as an artist, but as a carrier of story, memory, and love made tangible.

above, right Mikaela Shafer's work on display at the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market awards preview, 2024. below Mikaela Shafer (Hopi), When girls become matriarchs, 2024, mixed media on paper, 10 × 8 in., private collection.

Where to see Mikaela Shafer’s work: • SWAIA Plaza Booth #27 • All My Relations Arts in Minneapolis, October 9–December 13, 2025 • online at maqacollective.com FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 45

UPCYCLING INTO WEARABLE ART Jimmy Dean Horn Blends Chickasaw Symbolism with Street Style JIMMY DEAN HORN (Chickasaw) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Santa Fe whose practice spans printmaking, painting, stained glass, and wearable art. From his creative headquarters at Running Horse Studio—part gallery, part shop, part workspace—Horn transforms vintage garments into striking fashion pieces infused with Chickasaw symbolism, pop culture, and bold design.

For this year’s fashion shows in Santa Fe, Horn is bringing ten complete looks, head to toe, each featuring intricate screen-printed and stitched embellishments. Every wearable piece draws from Indigenous visual language, incorporating motifs like the Southeastern three-pronged, forked eye, Chickasaw designs, and even Felix the Cat with a hatchet. For Horn, wearable art is no longer just experimental. It’s become the center of a fast-evolving, highly intentional creative practice.

Outside of Santa Fe, Horn’s dedication to youth mentorship remains central.

In July, he’ll travel to Ada, Oklahoma, for a two-week teaching engagement with Chickasaw Arts Academy, showing K–12 students how to carve, print, and design their own upcycled fashion pieces. Using materials from experimental surfaces like traffic cones and gym mats, Horn’s workshops culminate in a student-led runway show and art gala. It’s a full-circle moment for the artist, who offers the next generation both creative tools and a visual language rooted in community.

One of Horn’s most exciting milestones this year is his hand-painted artwork being featured on the cover of the highly anticipated new cookbook, Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America,

by Sioux Chef Sean Sherman (Oglala Lakota), now available for pre-order. The 46 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

pictured Jimmy Dean Horn (Chickasaw) and his wearable art at Running Horse Studio, Santa Fe. All images courtesy of the artist.

Using materials from experimental surfaces like traffic cones and gym mats, Horn’s workshops culminate in a student-led runway show and art gala. design marks a high-profile moment for Horn’s visual storytelling. With momentum building from both fashion and fine art fronts, Horn’s future promises to be one of expansive creativity and deeper community engagement.

At the heart of Horn’s work is a deep commitment to story: one that is lived, worn, and shared. Whether teaching youth in his home community or screen printing in the studio, he sees every piece as an invitation to connect with heritage while imagining new possibilities. His designs don’t just restyle garments; they remap them with meaning, layering personal memory and collective identity into every stitch. As his presence in the art and fashion worlds continues to grow, Horn remains grounded in the belief that Indigenous design can be both high-impact and deeply human. “It’s about making things that feel alive,” he says, with works that speak, move, and carry the pulse of the people who inspire them.

Where to see Jimmy Dean Horn’s work: • Running Horse Studio in Santa Fe • Sean Sherman’s new cookbook, Turtle Island, publishing on November 11, 2025 • online at hallito.com FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 47

AFRO-INDIGENOUS IDENTITY, ELEVATED IN BEADWORK & FASHION NOW IN HER FOURTH YEAR showing at Santa Fe Indian Market, MIKAILAH THOMPSON (nimíipuu/AfricanAmerican) brings a powerful fusion of Afro-Indigenous identity, family legacy, and bold design to her beadwork and fashion pieces. Influenced deeply by her grandmother Chloe Halfmoon (nimíipuu, 1939–2019), who first taught her to bead using her collection of antique glass beads, Thompson honors that lineage with every stitch. Her work speaks to reconnection and resilience, evolving from early barrettes to one-of-a-kind accessories that sold out within hours during her first market appearance. That early success, she says, “gave me a boost of confidence to take my work seriously.”

You’ve likely seen Thompson’s work already. Her standout designs have been featured in collaborations with Manitobah, Eighth Generation, and ThunderVoice Hat Co. This year she’s expanding her practice with a new collection of Afro-Indigenous designs and wearable pieces made for both Santa Fe Indian Market and Santa Fe Fashion Week. She’s planning a trunk show and will highlight her latest beadwork, accessories, and fashion-forward pieces as she travels from Idaho to Santa Fe this summer. The shift into fashion reflects her growing vision and the creative freedom she feels in embracing all facets of her heritage. “Once I tapped into who I was,” she explains, “I realized there’s no right or wrong way—just learning, reconnecting, and doing it proudly.”

For Thompson, the Santa Fe art scene offers not just visibility, but community. “It’s contagious,” she says of the excitement and inspiration she finds meeting fellow artists she’s admired online. With future dreams of collaborating with artists like Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock) or Chad Yellowjohn (Shoshone/Spokane), Thompson is part of a new wave of creators rooted in heritage and propelled by bold self-expression. Her work continues to evolve and challenge assumptions, celebrate culture, and inspire others to do the same.

At its core, Thompson’s work is about showing up fully, in color, in culture, and in confidence. Each bead, each design choice, carries echoes of her ancestors and the future she’s building as an Afro-Indigenous artist. Her pieces are more than adornment; they’re declarations of presence, pride, and possibility. As she continues to push boundaries and lean into fashion, Thompson is crafting a space where hybrid identities are not only visible but celebrated. Her journey, stitched in legacy and lit by vision, reminds us that heritage and innovation aren’t opposites—they’re relatives, dancing in tandem across fabric and form.

Where to see Mikailah Thompson’s work • SWAIA Plaza Booth #28 • her collaborations with Manitobah, Eighth Generation, and ThunderVoice Hat Co. • online at beadworkbymikailah.com 48 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

right Three beaded panels on hide (2021–24) by Mikailah Thompson (nimíipuu/African-American), 16 × 12 in. each. below Mikailah Thompson (nimíipuu/African-American), qoqáalx (Buffalo Flat Bag), 2025, glass seed beads, cut charlotte beads, deer hide, hawkbells, 11 × 9 in. opposite, above Mikailah Thompson (nimíipuu/Afric a n -A m e r i c a n ) , q e ' m e s kicúuy'itetpes (The Gatherer’s Handbag), 2024, glass seed beads, commercial leather, brass brads, brass buckle, cloth, 8 × 7 in. opposite, below Mikailah Thompson (nimíipuu/African-American). All images courtesy of the artist.

CELEBRATING INDIGENOUS EXPRESSION TOGETHER, THESE FOUR ARTISTS intertwine personal histories, cultural iconography, and innovation.

Whether through comics, textiles, beadwork, or wearable art, they are creating space and visibility for their communities while carving their own distinct paths. Their presence in Santa Fe this summer is not only a celebration of Native creativity but a powerful reminder that Indigenous expression is evolving, expansive, and entirely alive.

Mandy Yeahpau (Comanche/Cherokee/Tarahumara descent) is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and marketing strategist specializing in Indigenous storytelling. She serves on the Roundhouse Indigenous Advisory Committee and is a board member of the Indigenous Creative Stage Workers Alliance (ICSWA).

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Artwork: Prayer Gatherer, 2025 by Erin Lee Antonak

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PHOTO GENESIS Native Cyanotypes in Five Parts In memory of Jenny Irene

By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

W

HEN I SAW the two winged children amid the hornet’s nest, I had to have them. Ethereal white images on a deep blue background, they called to mind the Cottingley fairies of 1917, whose photographs “proved” the existence of fairies to many people reeling from World War I. I’m Mvskoke. Of course I believe in estelvposcuce, “the little people.” I know they would never allow themselves to be photographed, if that is even possible, yet Don’t Be Scared by photographer Crystal Acuff Walters (Cherokee Nation)1 gave me an immediate, thrilling moment as if I were in their presence. Reader, I bought it, and I feel the same thrill every time I pass by it in my home.

It was my first encounter with a cyanotype. I later learned that the winged children are from a photo negative of the artist’s mother and sister; the “wings” are cicada wings she photographed; and the hornets’ nest was found on her property in Northeast Oklahoma, where both of us are from. Learning these connections makes the piece even more magical to me.

Cyanotype is seldom a primary medium for artists, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, several have found inspiration in its signature blue color, immediacy, and interplay with light, earth,

and water. The five cyanotype pieces presented here give a glimpse into how Native artists are using the medium today.

A BRIEF HISTORY SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL was one of those 19thcentury British astronomer-chemist-mathematicians. His father, William Herschel, discovered Uranus, and John Herschel named two of its moons.2 He devoted much of his life to astronomy, but he was so involved in the new medium

of chemically producing images that he coined the term photography as well as positive and negative in that context and took the first glass-plate photograph in 1839, among other photo firsts.

On June 16, 1842, John Herschel presented his paper “On the Action of the Rays of the Solar Spectrum on Vegetable Colours and on Some New Photographic Processes” to the Royal Society of London, an introduction to cyanotype. The term cyanotype comes from the Greek word cyan, which translates as “dark-blue impression.”3 Prussian blue (hydrated iron hexacyanoferrate complex), the image-producing material of cyanotypes, had been used as pigment in oil paint and watercolor since the mid-18th century.

British botanist and photographer Anna Atkins used the new method to illustrate her Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in 1843. It was the first book to be fully illustrated by photography. Atkins continued to add illustrations to the book through the 1850s and produced other illustrated botanical books, refining cyanotype methods and materials along the way.4 Commercial cyanotype chemicals today are usually potassium ferricyanide (a brilliant red salt) and ferric ammonium citrate (a light-sensitive iron salt), often purchased as powders.5 In a darkened

1. Crystal Acuff Walters works in several other media and is a community art leader. She is the community tourism manager with the Cherokee Nation.

2. Don’t laugh. It’s true. In 1787. He named them after characters from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

3. Dusan C. Stulik and Art Kaplan, Cyanotype: The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2013), 4.

4. Annemarie Iker, “Anna Atkins,” MoMA, 2020, web.

5. Pretreated cloth and paper are also available, often under the name “sun prints.” These materials are often used to teach children about cyanotype.

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room, these chemicals are combined with water and then with each other.

The resulting liquid, which dries to a dull greenish color, is spread in a thin layer on a receptive material, often paper or cloth. Once dried, the cyanotype artist places photographic negatives, natural materials, stencils, or other objects on the material and then activates the chemicals with sunlight or artificial light. Once the impression is made, the artist removes the objects and bathes the treated material in water to stop the development and reveal the blue background and the white image.

The blue deepens as it dries.

While other photographic methods became more popular for artistic photography, some artists continued to work in cyanotype. Most often, however, cyanotype was an inexpensive way to view negatives, reproduce notes, and perhaps most famously, create what architects still call “blueprints” of building plans.

A 1960s revival of early photographic methods saw artists return to cyanotype, including Fritz Scholder (La Jolla Luiseño, 1937–2005). Throughout the 1990s, Scholder produced several limited-edition cyanotype series, though they are often overshadowed by his more famous lithographs and monotypes.

These days several Native artists work with cyanotype, though few make it their main medium. Photographer Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota) used

cyanotype for a dramatic, beaded portrait as part of her Wínyan photo essay.

Delaney Keshena (Menominee) created playful cyanotype images of lingerie for a series of canvas bags. The two collaborated on a photography/cyanotype/poetry project called Mouth as part of the Great Northern Festival in 2023. Land-based artist Tania Willard (Secwépemc) writes in an artist statement for her 2024 piece The Bush, “I work with cyanotype as a process of collaboration with light on land in my home territory and am interested in working in ecologies with land, art, language, culture, and community.”

Now meet five other artists who engage in this elusive and artistic process.

JARICA WALSH Hope Flags (2020) PERHAPS MORE THAN any other Indigenous artist, Jarica Walsh (Osage) is known for her work in cyanotype, though her main medium is ceramics. Based in Oklahoma, Walsh has beaded onto cyanotype and made ceramics specifically designed for use with cyanotype, and several of her cyanotype pieces have been created specifically for community.

Walsh began working in the medium in 2016 and says, “I just love the idea of recording this moment in time, with the sun and the earth coming together, and

above, top Jarica Walsh (Osage), Hope Flags, 2020, installation of cyanotypes on fabric. Photo: J. Walsh. above, right Jarica Walsh (Osage), Gone to Seed, cyanotype on paper. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Crystal Acuff Walters (Cherokee Nation), Don't Be Scared, cyanotype on paper, 6/10. Photo: S. Pratt with permission of the artist.

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working with botanicals, thinking about our plant relatives in that way.”

In 2020, just as COVID-19 social isolation began, Walsh says, “I would go out and take walks every day. It was spring, and the growing things were a reminder that everything’s going to be fine, that this is just a moment and the plants are showing us the way.” Later that year, Walsh visited the gardens of people in her community and took impressions of the plants she found there.

“The Hope Flags took it out of me because I am such an introvert, but I feel like they are the best work I’ve done,” she says. “It was August 2020, pre-vaccine, so of course it was all happening outside, but I had to go and meet people, safely, and go through their gardens to gather plants.

It was all a reflection, really, of them, a reflection of their gardens, their healing practices, and it was so amazing. I felt like people understood what I was trying to do. The first installation was on the patio of Elemental Coffee [in Oklahoma City].

I installed it there because we still weren’t going inside, so I hoped to create that space as a place for collective healing.”

MONA CLIFF Untitled #9 and #10 (2024) KNOWN FOR HER BEADWORK and murals, Mona Cliff (Aaniiih/Nakota), based in Kansas, came to cyanotype through a residency at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). When another artist didn’t attend, she ended up with a huge studio to herself. She had always wanted to try cyanotype, so she took the opportunity. With what she’d learned through her printmaking degree with a minor in photography, some online research, and experimentation, she became so enthusiastic that when she returned home, she had her son help cover the garage windows with tinfoil to make a studio. Since then, cyanotype has become a powerful medium for her artistic vision, as evidenced by its incorporation into her Gas Mask series.

She made her first beaded and multimedia gas masks in 2020 at a funded residency that became in-home because

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of the pandemic. “I started making the masks based off the concept of generational knowledge and how things change and how culture evolves,” she says.

When she got to gas masks numbers nine and ten in 2024, she was able to attend a residency again, and there she discovered that almost nothing would adhere to the PVC masks she had brought. Enter cyanotype.

Cliff ’s ultimate goal for the gas masks was to include them in an installation of full-sized figures, and she had begun making war shirts and dresses as part of that project. She realized the large cyanotypes of negatives made from her beadwork could be used for the gas masks—apropos for a series based on the idea of utilizing found materials in the way ancestors did.

Untitled #9 and #10 (2024) incorporate cyanotype with muslin, seed beads, horsehair, jingle cones, beeswax, pine, resin, feathers, and thread on gas masks.

“These gas masks are this far-flung future where we have evolved,” she says.

“The materials have changed, but the knowledge hasn’t.”

MICHELLE SOUND Every Photo I Have of My Mother (2024)

opposite Mona Cliff (Aaniiih/Nakota), installation at the Ion Gallery, Kansas City, MO, of cyanotypes and mixed-media sculptures. Second from the left: Untitled #9, 2024, gas mask, cyanotype on muslin, glass seed beads, dyed horsehair, jingle cones, beeswax, resin, feathers, 40 × 11 in.

Second from the right: Untitled #10, 2024, gas mask, cyanotype on muslin, glass seed beads, cedar, feathers, 40 × 11 in. Image courtesy of Ion Gallery, Kansas City, MO.

above, top Michelle Sound (Swan River Cree/ Métis), Theresa Sound, Age 12 and Theresa Sound, Age 16, 2023, cyanotype on elk-hide drum: elk hide, wood, 14 × 14 in. and 10 × 10 in.

Image courtesy of the artist. above, bottom Michelle Sound (Swan River Cree/Métis), Every Photo I Have Of My Mother, 2024, installation of cyanotypes on elk-hide drums: elk hide, wood, 9 drums are 14 × 14 in., one drum is 20 × 20 in., Richmond Art Gallery.

Photo: NK Photo. Image courtesy of the artist.

THE VANCOUVER-BASED DRUM MAKER and bead worker Michelle Sound (Swan River Cree/Métis) says, “I really love working with materials that I don’t have control over. Working on a drum to begin with is working with natural materials. You have to let it go and let go of perfectionism. It’s still a living material, a living thing, and so it will do what it wants to do and fight you a bit sometimes. It’s the same with cyanotypes. You can be working on the same day, the same time, from the same hides, and get very different results. It can be a little frustrating, but it’s really fun to have that kind of making where it’s not entirely up to you.”

When she conceived of Every Photo I Have of My Mother (2024), Sound knew she was taking a chance with the uncontrollable medium, but it turned out to be a spiritual experience.

The piece is composed of ten elkhide drums with cyanotypes of the only photos Sound has of her birth mother.

Inspired by the work of Tania Willard, Sound learned to use cyanotypes for her plant-based series Medicine Prints (also on elk hide) a year before making Every Photo I Have of My Mother, which she made at the University of British Columbia–Okanagan Indigenous Arts Intensive in Kelowna.

“I had two weeks to make these drums, and I didn’t anticipate any problems because I had made them before,” she says. “I started making the drums and, no lie, ten drums in a row, all the negatives stayed on. Her hair was there, the flowers were there, everything was there. And then her face washed off when I was rinsing, and I was screaming. Only two of them had turned out. All the other artists who were there would come in and watch me while I was rinsing and be like, ‘Oh, I hope her face stays!’ And then it would come off and they would be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’”

Then Sound had a realization.

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above Jenny Irene (Inupiaq, 1988– 2025), Untitled (Portrait of Quinn), 2023, cyanotype on salmon skin, sewing needles, custom light box, 4½ × 3½ in. Photo: Daniel Ulibarri, 516 Arts. opposite Dakota Mace (Diné), Sǫ' Baa Hané III, 2024, cyanotype dyed with cochineal, Abaca paper, abalone shell, 14 × 11 in. each, series of 4. Photo: D. Mace. Image courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery.

“Working with hides is so expensive and making the drums is so time-consuming, and I was just freaking out and didn’t know what to do,” she says. “Then someone suggested to smudge the room.

So I smudged the room and started to talk to the hides and talk to my mom. She had passed when I was 10 and she was 30. I was raised by her sister. So I was talking

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to my birth mother and telling her what my plan was, what the idea behind all this was. Then when I started remaking the drums, I started to play music that reminded me of her that I remember her singing or listening to, a lot of Janis Joplin and some Rolling Stones. I turned out eight drums in two days, and her face showed up on all the drums. I got it done

on the very last day that I was there. It was painful—physically painful as well.

But it got done. I felt like I was collaborating with my ghost mom on that one. I just felt like I needed her permission and understanding to continue.”

The result bears witness to an important life.

“I just really wanted to honor her, to do a bit of a life cycle of her face,” says Sound. “In some of the photos, especially when she’s quite young, she has a very direct stare to the camera, staring people down a little. I wanted to confront people with the idea that this was a person’s life. Not their whole life, but more than what you might have thought about her as a person, not a statistic of an Indigenous woman that’s usually in the news or in people’s perceptions. This piece is about love and care for her. To show she was a real person, she was loved, and she was a mom.”

JENNY IRENE Untitled (Portrait of Quinn) (2023) PHOTOGRAPHER JENNY IRENE (Inupiaq, 1988–2025) left her home in Alaska to attend graduate school at the University of New Mexico (UNM) just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was teaching online—we couldn’t access our studios at UNM,” she said. “If I could boil my work down to one word, it would be home, so I was thinking about how to bring forward the stories from

home in New Mexico. How do I work with those stories and that rich material without being able to go back home?

“My practice had to shift, and I started working with cyanotype as a way to still have a tangible photograph instead of just looking at work online. It’s really because of that change and that shift, and to add more joy and play into my art practice during a really hard time.” After that, Irene said cyanotype became “a tool in my artistic toolbox.”

In 2023 during a residency at Bunnell Street Arts Center in Homer, Jenny Irene was inspired by an artist who works with salmon skin to try cyanotype on that material. “Salmon skin is very crispy, and I like the idea that it’s almost like seethrough when light shines through it,” she said. “I was thinking about light in general. Of course, within the photographic medium, light makes and destroys an image.” Irene was able to fix images on salmon skin, and she began working with it right away.

“I thought that was a beautiful material to print on because of the importance of salmon to my culture and to Alaska in general, and how using the sun to print is also a connection to place,” she said. “I was thinking about Inupiaq ways of being and where I come from when I made the portrait of my friend Quinn Christopherson, who is Ahtna Athabascan and Iñupiaq and also comes from salmon culture.”

The piece is delicate and tiny— around 4.5 by 3.5 inches—backlit, held away from the wall by sewing needles.

“My late great-grandma was a skin sewer, so I use the sewing needles as a nod to her,” said Irene. “And a lot of my work deals with, and I often think about, Indigenous refusal: what is seen and what is not seen and accessed, and that refusal being a form of protection. I had been thinking about the connection of photography to the colonial project in the U.S., how Indigenous people have been photographed as specimens and Indigenous place as an empty, vast landscape, when we know everything is full of life, from the tundra to the ocean. With this small piece, the ghostly image ties into the idea of refusal. I’m interested in the intimacy of it. With how small it is, the piece asks the viewer to come up and look and see the incredible details of the salmon scales and the rendering of the portrait.”

Irene had plans for more cyanotypes on salmon skin. “Salmon skin is an exciting avenue for me because I’m also thinking about the importance of salmon and the impact of what’s happening to salmon in Alaska,” she said.

“It’s also a way for me to work with my hands that digital photography doesn’t always provide. I learned that when you wet the salmon skin, it will bind together, so I could make a larger canvas. That’s my next goal, to have a larger surface to print with the cyanotype process.”

A few days after this interview, Jenny Irene was killed in a small-plane crash near Nanwalek, Alaska. You can read her memorial on page 120 of this issue.

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can deepen intensity, and something as seemingly insignificant as the pH of the water that you use in certain locations can alter kind of the essence of the work. It wasn’t a balance of chemistry or scientific experimentation but building a relationship over time.”

Mace dyes the cyanotypes with cochineal, an insect used to create a red color.

“This dye combines with the photographic process and becomes an important part of the story,” she says.

“Red is a color often associated with violence and the idea of ‘indigeneity.’ For me, it becomes a color of healing and medicine. It’s the color directly correlated to my clan, which is Kini, Red House.

Cochineal taught me that materials are alive with their own stories, and when we rush that, then we don’t learn those stories in time.”

above Dakota Mace (Diné), detail of Dahodiyinii (Sacred Places), 2021, cyanotypes dyed with cochineal, 7 x 5 in. each, series of 2,000. Also made into a digital archival print. Image courtesy of the artist.

DAKOTA MACE Dahodiyinii series DAKOTA MACE is a storyteller in print, photography, and textile. For her, the power of cyanotype is in its closeness with the elements. Dahodiyinii is a four-year project in which Mace created cyanotypes in undisclosed spaces along the route of The Long Walk, the forced removal of the Diné people from their homelands by the U.S. Army between 1863 and 1866.

“This project initially started as thinking about nature’s way of recording and keeping ancestral memory,” she says. “It became a reflection on these pivotal moments within Diné history that shaped the way that we understand ourselves today. The piece is not about turning away but about leaning into these very sacred and painful places, not seeing them as sites of defeat but as spaces

of remembrance and healing. The land doesn’t forget. It holds our stories, and it holds things that we can’t bear to speak about. The land is not only a backdrop but also an active participant in our histories.”

Cyanotype is one way to give voice to the land.

“Photography, and especially cyanotype, is kind of my way of really listening and allowing the land to not only be my teacher but also witness to the photographs that I’m creating,” she says. “For me, it’s a balance and a relationship between land and community, then using the cyanotype process to activate that landscape. Even a subtle shift in temperature affects the way that the light

“A LIFETIME OF ITS OWN” LIKE THE ELEMENTS involved in their creation, cyanotypes have a long life, but not an unchanging one. Depending on various chemical, material, and environmental factors, the signature blue can change or fade—but not always. In some cases, placing a fading cyanotype in a dark space for a time can deepen the blue to a darker tone—but not always.

The way cyanotype reacts with dyes and other materials in a piece can change over time—but not always. Several artists note that the ephemerality of cyanotype is part of its power.

“This work will continue to develop over time,” says Mace. “There’s no way to stop a cyanotype from changing. And I think that’s kind of the beauty of the process; that it’s living in its own way. It has a lifetime of its own.”

Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke), is a poet, musician, and writer. She was awarded a Rabkin Prize in 2022 and an Andy Warhol Art Writers Grant in 2023.

Initial research and interviews for this article were conducted at the Surf Point Foundation Residency in York, Maine. The writer thanks the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation for their support.

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THE CHITTO FAMILY Generating a Large Artistic Legacy As artists, the Chittos impact each other's creative expressions

By Dan Ninham, PhD (Oneida Nation)

EXPLORING DIFFERENT MEDIA

“My turtle and bear storytellers are not just art; they hold meaning, they carry stories, and they reflect a relationship with the natural world, our relations and ancestors.”

—Randy Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw)

T

HE CHITTO FAMILY will be at the Santa Fe Indian Market this summer. Father Randy Chitto, a Mississippi Choctaw sculptor who works with clay, will mark his 42nd year at the market and will display works that feature the animal storytellers of the Choctaw people.

His son Hollis, a successful beadwork artist, will join him at their booth, and son Dillon, a distinguished and nationally renowned playwright, will be featured at the nearby Santa Fe Playhouse with his award-winning comedic play, Pueblo Revolt. Expect to see Jackie drop by, the artistic matriarch who has supported her husband and sons in their pursuits of creative endeavors.

The patriarch of the Chitto family sums up his art career and acknowledges it may mirror his sons’ practices as well.

“I will be stressing and creating, as it seems deadlines always bring the best out of most artists,” Randy says. “Every artwork is deeply important to me and only leaves the studio when ready. My work has been very special and has also been very good to us.”

Randy Chitto is a citizen of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

The name Chitto means “large” in Choctaw. His wife, Jacqueline Carpio Chitto, is from the Pueblos of Laguna and Isleta and is enrolled with Isleta. Jackie met Randy in a clay class when they were both attending the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Hollis Chitto works from a studio at his home in Santa Fe. Dillon Chitto grew up in Santa Fe and now lives in Chicago.

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RANDY AND HIS FAMILY moved to Santa Fe in 1980, where he works from his Red Clay Studio at 1507 Center Drive in Southside Santa Fe. “I am a clay artist,” Randy says. “I work in clay and am known for my happy turtle and bear storytellers.”

Growing up in Chicago, Randy had hopes of being a painter after taking classes at the Young Artist Studios through a program at the Art Institute of Chicago. “When it came time to sign up for painting classes, they were filled up since the upperclassmen had first choice,” Randy says. “I needed a certain number of credits to stay in the dorms, so I decided to take a clay class.”

Randy is a current board member of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, which organizes Santa Fe Indian Market. His perspective comes from being an Indian Market artist. “I am extremely fortunate to have earned numerous blue ribbons in addition to numerous other colored ribbons,” he says.

“I was awarded their fellowship and have been on juries a few times.”

His commercial career as an artist began with exhibitions in numerous

galleries and art venues. Today he focuses on a small number of markets and is affiliated with two galleries. He also hosts two annual studio events at Red Clay Studio.

Randy has participated in museum exhibitions, led workshops, and given talks at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, University of California–Santa Cruz, and Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He and Hollis each received the Ronald N. and Susan Dubin Native Artist Fellowship from the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in 2006 and 2022, respectively. “The fact that Hollis and I were the first father and son to receive the School for Advanced Research Dubin fellowship makes me extremely proud,” he says.

Hollis first worked in clay but now prefers beadwork and quillwork.

“I started beading and quillworking when I was around ten years old,” he says. Since then he has earned numerous

awards and exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the country. “I create fine art pieces in the forms of beaded handbags, contemporary soft sculptures, bandolier bags, and some wearable art pieces,” he says.

Hollis has exhibited in such prominent exhibitions as Twisted Path IV: Vital Signs at the Abbe Museum in Maine, and Radical Stitch, a traveling exhibition launched by the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Winnipeg. He has won ribbons at art markets including Santa Fe Indian Market, Heard Fair, Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival, and Cherokee Art Market.

He won Best of Show at the Bernalillo Indian Arts Festival and most recently at the Heard Fair in 2024. His works are included in major collections of the Gochman Family Collection, Ringling Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Crystal Bridges Museum.

“The fact that Hollis and I were the first father and son to receive the School for Advanced Research Dubin fellowship makes me extremely proud.”

above The Chitto Family. Left to right: Hollis, Randy, Jackie, and Dillon Chitto. Both images courtesy of Randy Chitto. opposite Randy Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw), Chata Nita Drummer, 2025, clay, deer splits, mahogany and ash wood, rawhide, 7¼ × 6 × 8½ in.

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above, left Hollis Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/Laguna Pueblo), Napakanli Um Okla Imma (Flowers for My Family), 2024, beaded bandolier bag, wool, seed beads, pony beads, hide, dyed horsehair, brass hawk bells. Image courtesy of the artist. above, right Hollis Chitto at the Heard Fair 2024. Photo: FAAM.

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His brother, Dillon Chitto, took a different path.

“From a young age, I knew the power of theater,” Dillon says. “Starting at the age of five, I was fortunate enough to have my parents [take] my brother and me to the Santa Fe Opera as part of the Pueblo Opera Program. The program gave Indigenous youth the opportunity to see productions at the Santa Fe Opera every summer.”

Growing up, Dillon wrote comic books. “Then I moved on to actually writing plays after sneaking my way into a senior playwright seminar at the University of New Mexico,” Dillon says. “In the seminar I wrote my first full-length play, Bingo Hall, which was fully produced by Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles.”

Like his brother, Dillon has received significant recognition for his work. Bingo Hall was part of a play-reading series at the British Library in London and at the American Indian Community House in New York City.

“I won for playwriting at the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP) with Bingo Hall and have been featured twice after that at YIPAP [with] a short play and my new play, Pigeon,” he says, which the Uprise Grant at the Sundance Institute partially funded in 2022.

The AlterTheater Ensemble commissioned Dillon to write the play Pueblo Revolt, a comedy about two brothers from Isleta Pueblo living through the historic Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Produced by AlterTheater Ensemble in 2023, Pueblo Revolt won the Rella Lossy Award for Best New Play in the Bay Area.

“I have also had readings of Pueblo Revolt at Goodman Theatre in Chicago as part of their Future Labs program, Santa Fe Playhouse in Santa Fe, and American Stage Theatre

Company in St. Petersburg, Florida,” Dillon says. “I also was able to do further workshopping of Pueblo Revolt at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was also part of a Fringe Festival in New York City with No Peeking Theatre.”

As part of the 2023 Goodman Theatre’s Playwright Unit, he wrote the play Campy: The Search for Summer’s Campiest Camper. More recently he participated in a reading of new short plays during Story Theatre in Chicago’s Reckon/Revolt/ Revise festival with the play, TVSHKA. And Santa Fe Playhouse featured his play The Last Days of Old Man Gloom in the new version of The Melodrama.

Between writing projects, Dillon has served as the cultural advisor and engagement curator at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago for Sicangu Lakota playwright Larissa Fasthorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, and literary manager for BoHo Theatre in Chicago.

above Scene from the workshop of Pueblo Revolt, performed at the Santa Fe Playhouse, 2024.

Written by Dillon Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/Laguna Pueblo), and directed by Tara Moses (Seminole Nation), starring Bradley Lewis (Acoma Tribe) as Ba'homa and David James Garcia as Feem Whim. Image courtesy of the Santa Fe Playhouse.

THREE ANIMAL INFLUENCES RANDY’S SCULPTURES are shaped by the influence of three animals: turtles, bears, and raccoons. “Turtle storytellers became Chitto’s trademark, in which he blends stories from his Choctaw heritage with an art form known to the Southwest,” as his SAR fellowship bio states. “In his work, Randy tells stories of how the Choctaw were forced to relocate to a new geographical region. The medicine people instructed the elders to share their stories and wisdom with three chosen animals— the bear, the raccoon, and the turtle.

These wisdom keepers were instructed to protect the origin stories and preserve the spirit of the people through the ages

lest they not be permitted return to the land of their ancestors.”1 Some of his turtles dress as bears or clowns, and he sculpts storyteller figures as turtles. He even sews small medicine pouches for his bears, filled with tiny potsherds. “This simple, but special adornment mirrors a legend that relates how Choctaw warriors placed earth from their homeland in their pouches to enable their spirits to find their way home to the ancestral lands if they were killed in battle.”2 These animal stories have influenced other members of the Chitto arts family as well. “Without storytelling, our culture would have ceased to exist,” Dillon says. “When I craft a play, it is not just a chance to tell a story. It is my opportunity to show the audience life

1. “Native American Artist Fellows / 2006: Randy Chitto,” School for Advanced Research, 2025, web.

2. “Native American Artist Fellows / 2006: Randy Chitto.”

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it so they may be shared and have a long life after me. And so those who have never experienced Native theater may have the opportunity to, and that our People will see themselves and remember the importance of our stories in the theater and elsewhere.”

INSPIRATION

above Randy Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw), Scary Bear Stories, 2024, bronze, black walnut base, edition of 14, 19 × 13 × 16 in. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite, top Scene from The Last Days of Old Man Gloom in The Melodrama at the Santa Fe Playhouse, 2024. Written

by Dillon Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/ Isleta/Laguna Pueblo). Image courtesy of the Santa Fe Playhouse. opposite, bottom Hollis Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/Laguna Pueblo), Hmm… Pisa Saachukma Ka (Damn, I Look Good), 2025, deer hide, seed beads, cloth, basket. Hollis sewed the appliqué dress and wove the basket in addition to all the beadwork.

from a different perspective. I can bring people out of their everyday lives and transport them. If I do it effectively, I can tell a human story that influences the way the audience views the world for the better.” Dillon continues: “I always like to make the comparison of the importance of the turtle to my tribe and my family.

When my ancestors were removed from their land in Mississippi, they told their stories to the turtles. The hope was that, since turtles live long and have a hard shell, the stories would be kept safe until they returned.”

He has incorporated those influences into his work. “Theater has become my turtle,” he says. “I pour my stories into

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“MY INFLUENCES are not just one person, but we can start with my mom, Bernice Chitto, who was a bead artist in Chicago,” Randy says. The family didn’t perceive beadwork as an art form when Randy was a young boy. “It was more like a way of life for her. I learned that great work takes time and patience.” Bernice also encouraged him to work with other materials, including mahogany, walnut, pine, and ash wood.

Randy has been influenced by artists he has met along the way, as well. “I really liked the work of Jacquie Stevens, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska,” he says. “When she visited the pottery class, she was a professional artist who took the time to show me that there are several ways to create clay work and to work freely rather than rigidly. She, along with the instructor Otellie Loloma, stressed to me that I had the potential to go a long way with my work. They gave me the confidence I needed at the time to pursue the medium I had grown to really appreciate. Linda Lomahaftewa, Chris McHorse, and Ralph Pardington also have been big contributors to my career.”

It was at IAIA that he met Jackie Carpio, who would become his wife three years later.

“I felt the best way to support Randy’s passion was to hold onto a regular 40-hour-a-week job,” Jackie says. “Seven years later we had our firstborn, Hollis, and two years later we had Dillon. During this time Randy worked at home. I stayed home with them until they were in school full time. Randy’s art was taking off; he started in galleries and museums, and he taught a few classes.”

His art became a family affair.

“When Randy started doing art shows, we’d all go,” Jackie says. “The boys grew up totally immersed in the art world. We noticed they both had an interest in art.

When Dillon was two years old, he tried to help his dad finish a piece or two— without too much damage [laughs].”

The young boys entered their art in the [Santa Fe] Indian Market youth division and both won ribbons for their masks and shields, which led to a gallery show.

This also introduced Hollis and Dillon to other creative outlets. “With Randy home with the boys, he was able to take them to plays,” Jackie says, “as well as ballet performances and concerts.” In the summers we’d go to the opera. We all loved it, but to the boys it was spectacular. They developed a love for opera, which continues to this day.”

Hollis went on to college in Santa Fe, and Dillon attended college in Ohio and Chicago. But instead of continuing in academia, they entered the art world. “We all have influenced each other in a way that artists do,” she says. “We’ve supported each other in everything that we do, whether in playwriting, beadwork, or clay. They have this connection.”

Jackie worked as an assistant to the dean of students at IAIA for 14 years. “I loved my job there, interacting with budding artists,” she says. “I loved seeing the students develop into their own profession as a studio artist, writer, filmmaker, museum studies, and in Indigenous studies.”

Hollis was one of those students. He graduated from IAIA and has been an artist in residence. He says he has been influenced by Jamie Okuma, Ken Williams, Jackie Larson Bread, the Growing Thunder family, and Teri Greeves.

“Outside of beadwork, I really like to take inspiration from all over,” Hollis says. “I love the thought process that Félix González-Torres employs in his work. I’m inspired by the art styles of Art Deco and Art Nouveau. I also believe that my paternal grandmother’s beadwork talent was passed down to me.

Recently I have been exploring this in my work.”

Dillon has a range of creative inspirations. “My major influences are Madeline Sayet, Larissa Fasthorse, and Mary Kathryn Nagel because they are Native theater makers who are strong names in the field and are helping to pave the way for future generations,” Dillon says. “Neil Simon because his vast body of work has influenced my comedy writing. Tony Kushner because he has written my favorite play, Angels in America, and the 2019 box office flop, Cats, because it sparks joy and has gone from ‘guilty pleasure’ to just ‘pleasure.’”

His family has also played a key role in his development.

“My family has always been extremely supportive of my writing and my career,” Dillon says. “They are always there to see the plays and have been a strong influence on the stories I write. I learned my comedy naturally, just as a result of being in a family of hilarious people who are always riffing. This humor is seen in my plays.” He continued, “My brother, Hollis, reads my plays, and I am able to bounce ideas off of him. He is always one of the first people I let read scenes once I am happy with them.”

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above Randy Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw), various miniature Chata bears, 2025, clay, deer splits, felt, pine, feathers, florist wire-all, most are 5 × 4 × 3 in. Image courtesy of the artist.

SOCIAL IMPACT THE CHITTOS’ ARTWORK may not be overtly political, but they understand it carries meaning. “I don’t pretend to be so important that I am part of any social movement,” Randy says; however, he contributes through his “volunteer work in the nonprofit world for the underserved.”

Hollis realizes his art sends a message. “I think that art will make some sort of statement. In the time and place in which I work, any statement that I make can be taken as ‘political’ or ‘social,’” he says. “The art that I make largely deals with my own identity as a Brown, queer person in this world. My identity will be taken as a part of a social movement or statement.”

Dillon is also aware of the message that his plays send. “I see my plays

as part of a new era of Native theater.”

Native plays don’t always have to be about trauma. “We are able to show the varied stories and pluralities of identity. It is a challenging of colonial structures and PWIs.”3 He says, “My plays are also part of the wave of Indigifuturism.”

CORE VALUES & WORLDVIEW THE CHITTO FAMILY’S WORK is shaped by their worldviews. “Working with clay, with my hands, I hope I express

values like respect, connection, and storytelling—values that resonate with Indigenous views,” Randy says. “I live [away from] my tribal lands, but I carry these values in how I create. For example, my turtle and bear storytellers are not just art; they hold meaning, they carry stories, and they reflect a relationship with the natural world, our relations, and ancestors.” Randy continues, “Every piece I make tells a tale, connects to Chahta culture, and invites reflection on our past and present.”

Family has also helped shape that perspective. “Art is just something that I have to do,” Hollis says. “I am incredibly lucky that I was born and raised in such an artistic environment.”

Dan Ninham, PhD (Oneida Nation, Wolf clan), is a freelance writer who earned his doctoral degree in physical education with an emphasis in sport pedagogy from the University of Northern Colorado. He and his wife Susan Ninham (Red Lake Ojibwe) founded the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame, which recognizes elite Indigenous individuals and teams from throughout North America.

3. Abbreviation for “predominantly white institutions.”

66 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

JACK SABON Ahtna Athabascan Handmade Drums

www.sabonart.com Nerak194@gmail.com

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PROFILE

Grand Traverse Ottawa-Chippewa Fine Woodworker & Painter

DENNIS ESQUIVEL

By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

A

LTERNATING BETWEEN getting his 1968 Bel-Air station wagon up and running by Indian Market and finishing an intricate bespoke cabinet for an upcoming Anishinaabe exhibition in Detroit, Dennis Esquivel has his hands full.

“I’m working on a new piece, a four-side pedestal table, which is really complicated. It has all these geometric designs that have to be precise or it’s not going to turn out the way I want it to,” he says. “Each piece is framing and panels, and it has floral designs that I cut out in wood. The top and bottom are suspended with stainless steel dowels, so it looks like it’s floating,” he says. “I’ve done these before with two dowels on each end, but now I’m working with 16 dowels. If I’m off a little bit, it won’t come together.” His laid-back demeanor doesn’t reveal any stress. He’s met the technical challenges of fine furniture making before.

The table will show in Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation

opening at the Detroit Institute of Art in late September. “I’m honored to be a part of the show in Michigan,” says Dennis. “That’s where I grew up, and I’ve really never exhibited any work up there other than with my tribe.” Dennis is a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and of Mexican-American descent. He was born in Peshawbestown, Michigan, where his tribe is headquartered. The Grand Traverse Band was one of the first tribes to open a casino,1 and Dennis carries forth this love of gaming through his poker and pool leagues.

Michigan is home to twelve tribes, all of whom belong to the Three Fires Council: the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi. Between five hundred and a thousand years ago, the three formed a single tribe who migrated from the Atlantic Coast to the Great Lakes. Together with the Algonquin and Oji-Cree in Canada, they form the Anishinaabek. They speak dialects of Anishinaabemowin, a

language Dennis’s maternal grandfather spoke fluently. In fact, Michigan comes from the Anishinaabemowin term for “large lake.”

ROOTS & ROLE MODELS “I GREW UP in the Holland area and Grand Rapids,” says Dennis. “My family was always moving, but we were always out in the country. My parents took us fishing and hunting. We were always going into the woods—hiking, looking for mushrooms, looking for wild strawberries, just outdoors. Not like the kids nowadays; you can’t even get them to go outside. We couldn’t wait to go outside when we were growing up.”

When he refers to his “dad,” Dennis clarifies that he means his stepfather who helped raise him. “My stepdad really influenced my life, who I am today. He

1. Daniel S. Murphree, ed., Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2012), 547.

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DENNIS ESQUIVEL

above Dennis Esquivel with one of his classic cars, an Oldsmobile Cutlass. All images courtesy of the artist. opposite Great Lakes Floral Hall Table, Honduran mahogany, curly maple leaf lumber, band-sawn veneers of various colored exotic woods, 37 × 79 × 20 in. Photo: Stephen Lang. The legs are inspired by gunstock war clubs.

was a good man.” Dennis’s biological father left when he was about five years old, and he didn’t get to know him until he was much older, but he did have a close relationship with his paternal grandparents. “They were a big part of my life too, growing up, because we were their grandchildren. That’s on the Mexican side. I would go for whole summers and stay with my grandparents. They lived on a farm. They had horses. They had livestock. My uncle, he was always doing stuff with us too, riding horses. He was a good artist. He could draw really well. Being young, I could see that, and that inspired me, so I started drawing too. He was into martial arts, so he was always teaching martial arts. Back then, everybody was kung fu fighting.”

Another uncle by marriage had a black belt in karate. “He lived with us one summer, and so I learned a lot of stuff

from him. We were doing martial arts. We had the whole neighborhood kids coming over. He would hold classes, and we’d be out there fighting. It was crazy. But yeah, so I did get to know my grandparents on my dad’s side, on the Mexican side. They were really good people. I was fortunate to know them,” he says.

“I knew my grandparents on my mom’s side. My Native grandmother, she was a black ash basket maker.” Her second husband was Anishinaabe. “They would drive through the woods, and my grandma would see a tree. She would stop my grandpa, and then they would walk into the woods, and my grandma goes, ‘Keep walking.’ She could see the trees from far off. They would cut a tree down and bring it home. I remember one time, I was probably 14 or 15, I was driving by.

I pulled in and my grandpa’s out there pounding this log with a sledgehammer,

and he is tired. He’s the only one there doing it. I go up and I said, ‘How’s it going, Grandpa?’ And he just smiles and hands me the sledgehammer. I said, ‘What do I do with this?’ He shows me.

I don’t know how many hours I stayed there. Oh my God! Yeah, it’s a lot of work.”

The black ash tree (Fraxinus nigra) is unique because its growth rings, upon extended impact, will split apart into splints that are strong but astonishingly flexible. These traits make black ash perfectly suited for basketry. “My grandma, she’d have all these baskets in her living room. Basket material just getting out all over the place,” recalls Dennis. “She’d make the baskets, and she would sell them to secondhand stores, antique stores.”

Dennis’s good friend Kelly Church (Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Pottawatomi/ Ottawa/Ojibwe) is a black ash basket maker. After Indian Market each year,

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PROFILE

above Out of the Woodlands, standing cabinet, bird’s-eye maple, cherry, quilted cherry veneer, stainless steel, porcupine quills, 66 × 27 × 12 in. Photo: Stephen Lang. opposite Maple Raw Edge Table, live edge maple slab, walnut lumber, maple, brass rods, brass tacks, 37 × 70 × 36 in. Lumber all sourced from Northern Michigan. Photo: Stephen Lang.

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Kelly leads Dennis, his wife Teri Greeves (Kiowa), and their sons Animkeewa and Ahbedoh White Eagle (both Grand Traverse Ottawa-Chippewa/Kiowa) in basketmaking sessions.

“Kelly asked me, ‘What’s your grandma’s name?’ And I told her, ‘Violet Ashquab was her name.’ So when she came out the next summer, she goes, ‘I have something for you, Dennis, but you’ve got to close your eyes and put your hands out.’ So I did. And she put one of my grandma’s baskets in my hand, and it was a pretty good size one too. Oh, man. I still get teared up when I think about it.”

Violet Antoine Ashquab (Odawa/Ojibwe, 1918–1987) was a talented artist, but so was Dennis’s maternal grandfather, George Lawrence (Odawa/Ojibwe, 1914–1988). “He was amazing because he could make anything. He was always working with his hands. When something’s broken in the house, he wouldn’t just fix it; it would be better than what it was when it was first made. That’s how good he was.” Dennis continues: “He got a job performing at the local county fair in Allegan. So when I look at it now, he was a performance artist.

We just thought he was a cool grandpa. He would talk to the children, and he would teach them Native words. He would have his dance regalia on, and he would dance, sing, and then

DENNIS ESQUIVEL

he would eat fire. He’d have a lit torch, and he’d put it in his mouth, and he put it out like that. The kids just loved him.

And then he made these little souvenir bows and arrows and little drums, and he would give those to the kids or sell them as souvenirs. He was a good entertainer, and I really was close to him. We did a lot together, and I learned from him.”

BRANCHING OUT “GROWING UP, I did some drawing. I was creative and liked to make stuff,” says Dennis. “But I remember one time a lady came to visit. She was well educated with a college degree. She saw my artwork and said, ‘You need to go to art school. You have talent, but if you applied for a job as an artist, and you don’t have a degree, but the next guy has a degree, they’re going to choose that guy with a degree over you.’

I was probably 13, maybe 14, at the time, but I remember her saying that.”

In his early 20s, Dennis took art classes at Grand Rapids Community College. There he was the only Native student. “I felt a little out of place, but I held my own and I was a good art student. I learned a lot from the instructors, and they liked my work. But one day an advisor goes, ‘Have you heard of the Institute of American Indian Arts?’ And I said, ‘No, I never heard of that.’ She said, ‘This flyer came across my desk. Would you like to apply?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll apply.’ So we wrote the letter right there in her office. She wasn’t going to let me get out of her office. She wanted me to do it. So we did the letter and sent it off. A couple weeks later, she calls me back into her office. She goes, ‘Oh, I have a letter for you from the Institute of American Indian Arts.’ So I opened it, and I was accepted.”

A month later, he was headed to Santa Fe. “I had never really been out of the state. It was a big move. I didn’t even know where I was going. My vision of Santa Fe was the old Western movies with dirt roads. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.” To his great relief, Santa Fe was a city with paved streets.

Dennis graduated with an AFA degree in painting in 1996. “That was the year when there was a lot of cutbacks, and they

thought the school was going to close, so everybody scrambled to graduate.”

After graduation Dennis worked at SITE Santa Fe, a noncollecting, contemporary art exhibition space, or kunsthalle.

“When I went to SITE, it kind of just opened up everything for me, because it was visual art, conceptual art, installations, video art. It was everything. I was amazed by the artists they brought over.

Working hands-on with them was exciting too. I met a lot of great, well-known artists when I was working at SITE. James Luna did a performance there.”

Dennis continues: “I worked for SITE for around five years, and on the side I was making stretcher bars for myself. So I had a table saw that I would cut wood up with to make stretcher bars and do some framing. And so word got around, Dennis makes stretcher bars. I started making stretcher bars for Emmi Whitehorse, and I still work with her after all these years. She’s a good friend of mine. Artists asked me to make frames, so I had all these side jobs. I had this little,

tiny two-room apartment downtown. I’d have my table saw right next to my bed.”

While pursuing this side gig, he discovered the woodworking program at Santa Fe Community College. “I said, ‘I’m going to go over there and take a class, so I can learn a little more about making my frames and stretcher bars.’

So I get in there into the class, and I see all this furniture that people are making, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, wow! This is cool.’

So I enrolled in the course, and it took me maybe two to three years to finish the program and get my certificate in fine woodworking. That woodworking program at the Santa Fe Community College is one of the best in the Southwest. You learn joinery, design, and finishing your pieces. You learn machine skills and how to keep your machines running. It is a well-rounded, really good program. I learned a lot when I was there.

“A lot of the students were looking at James Krenov, Sam Maloof, and Craig Vandall Stevens—all really good furniture makers, and each one specialized in

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PROFILE

above Tulip Coffee Table, bubinga, maple, ebony, brass tacks, private collection. opposite Brilliant Colors of the Dawn, 2020, acrylic, acrylic gel medium on burled maple wood panel, 19 x 11½ in.

their own cabinets, chairs, and furniture.

So they were being influenced by those greats, while I was influenced by how I grew up in Michigan, being in nature, being in the woods.” He says: “My grandmother was a basket maker. My stepdad was a logger for a while, so I was around timber; I was around wood.”

Dennis recalls that when he presented his first original design, “The instructor says, ‘No, you can’t do that.

Wood moves, and your piece isn’t going to hold up. The grain’s in the wrong direction. It is weak.’” Undaunted, he continued learning techniques and materials, and he says: “I started designing more pieces and bringing in elements of the drum. So I designed this table that looks like a powwow drum. My instructors were like, ‘Whoa, we’ve never seen this before.’ So they were calling in the other teachers like, ‘Hey, look at what Dennis is making.’” He had made wooden dance mirrors as a teen, so connecting powwows and his culture to woodworking made sense. “And so I started doing these designs with drums, war shields, spears, bows and arrows, and canoes. Those are some of my first design tables that I did.”

While any student can appreciate the qualities of prepared lumber, Esquivel knew the woods intimately as

living trees within vibrant ecosystems. He knew how they rose up from their roots into towering trunks and how the sunlight diffused through overlapping layers of green maple leaf canopies. He knew birdsongs, the rustling of brittle leaves in autumn winds, and the quiet still of a forest blanketed by snow.

Dennis mastered the skills of building furniture with joinery, as opposed to metal screws or nails. As his craftsmanship grew, “I started bringing in more elements like stainless steel, sterling, silver wire. I started doing painted surfaces. I started thinking more of bringing in florals into the pieces.” He incorporated brass tacks which Native makers have used for centuries to embellish guns, war clubs, cradleboards, and other wooden implements. These tacks usually form geometric designs, but Dennis creates flowing floral designs, such as those found in birchbark cut-outs, ribbonwork, and Northeastern Woodland beadwork.

“I remember this art teacher from community college up in Grand Rapids.

He said, ‘Do a hundred paintings, and one might be a masterpiece.’ In other words, work. Don’t just be a sayer; be a doer. You know what I mean? And that’s what I try to do.”

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CARDS ON THE TABLE FINE FURNITURE is characterized by a deep understanding of techniques and materials, often hardwoods to create heirlooms that can survive centuries. In a world where cheaply made particle-board furniture quickly ends up in landfills, fine furniture making is increasingly a social statement for sustainability. From Native perspectives, serving utilitarian purposes makes artwork that much more valuable.

A useful artwork, like a table or cradleboard, brings beauty and meaning into the home and daily life.

Around 25 years ago, Dennis began exhibiting his woodwork and painting in Santa Fe Indian Market, and SWAIA gave him an artist fellowship which generated some buzz. He has shown at the Heard Fair, Cherokee Art Market, Shush Yaz Trading Company, and other venues, but word-of-mouth and commissions have served him well through the years.

“I don’t need to be in the spotlight,” he says. “I just do my thing.”

In 2002, he collaborated with his wife Teri to create Ah-Day: The Favorite One’s Chair, which the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum acquired.

DENNIS ESQUIVEL

His elaborate standing cabinet, Out of the Woodlands, showed in Art Without Reservation 3: Contemporary Native North American Art from the Northeast and Southeast, a traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Art and Design.

The bird’s-eye maple cabinet stands on curved legs inspired by ball-headed war clubs, and its doors feature carefully inlaid porcupine quills.

Dennis has experimented with exotic woods, but his annual trips to Michigan led him to a renewed admiration for the array of woods from his home. Forests cover more than half the state with northern hardwoods dominating and maples making up a quarter of the forest mass, especially in the Upper Peninsula, affectionately dubbed the U.P. Sugar maples, red maples, hemlock, basswood, and birches abound, as do conifers and understory trees. The neighboring Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin has led the way in sustainable forestry for more than one hundred years, and Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources and lumber mills follow suit.

Through selection harvesting, single trees or small groups are strategically removed to encourage future tree growth but not allow so much light as to grow underbrush that chokes out saplings.

“I like to go back and visit with the elders, and I do it every year. And when I do go back, I go up to the U.P. and there’s a lumberyard up there. I go up there and I hand pick all my lumber, all the wood that I use for my furniture. I’ve been dealing with these guys for over 20 years since I’ve been doing woodworking, usually over the phone.” The owner Eric always called him “Dennis from Santa Fe.” “So one day the family took a trip, and we went across the U.P. and I saw a big billboard advertising this place where I bought lumber from. I was like, ‘Look, there’s the place where I get lumber from.’

So I go in, Eric’s sitting in his office, he gets up, he goes, ‘Hi, can I help you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it is Dennis from Santa Fe.’ That was like ten years ago, and now every year, I make a trip up there. From Traverse City and Peshawbestown where the tribe is, it’s another five- or six-hour drive to the lumberyard. I let them know that I’m coming, and then he knows what I like to

buy. And so they’ll have an assortment of woods ready for me to look at, and then they’re shipped right to my door.”

He says: “I really like going up and picking my own boards because I can see the grain. I can see the color. When I see a board, I don’t know what I’m going to use it for, but it’s nice to have that palette.”

When visiting his studio south of Santa Fe, curator Denene De Quintal saw

Out of the Woodlands and chose that and a new artwork for Contemporary Anishinaabe Art. His new piece will feature wood exclusively from Michigan. Kelly Church, who lives in Hopkinsville, Michigan, says, “In his art, I see our florals that we use in our regalia. I see our birchbark canoes, our war clubs, and our quillwork in his work. When I look at Dennis’s art, I see home.”

Dennis Esquivel will have booth LIN E 731 at Santa Fe Indian Market and will be part of Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation at the Detroit Institute of Arts from September 28, 2025, to April 5, 2026.

MYINGAN@YAHOO.COM America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) is an editor, writer, artist, and independent curator based in Norman, Oklahoma. She is the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine.

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Diné Textile Artist

ROY KADY

By Christy Hanson (Diné)

H

AILING FROM TEEC NOS POS, Arizona, Roy Kady lives on the eastern slope of the Chuska Mountains in the Navajo Nation. He is a corral-to-textile weaver who has been instrumental in reviving the Navajo-Churro sheep. He has served as a president of the Teec Nos Pos Chapter and as director of the Diné be’ iiná, Inc. nonprofit that cohosts the annual Sheep Is Life Celebration at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona. He is part of the Navajo-Churro Sheep Presidium, supported by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity.

Kady guides multiple apprentices at a time, and several of them, such as Kevin Aspaas, Zefren-m Anderson, Zachariah Ben, and Eliseo Curley, all Diné, have established their own successful art careers and share their teachings. They hold spin-offs, gatherings at museums or farms that introduce youth and Elders to all aspects of carding and spinning wool.

A lifelong learner, Kady has studied Diné, Andean, French, Italian, and East

Indian weaving techniques. His maternal grandparents were both utilitarian weavers. They, along with his mother, Mary Kady Clah (Diné, 1927–2013), taught him how to weave, and by age nine he was selling weavings to supplement his family’s income.

Kady is always experimenting with new materials and techniques. He is even planning a project weaving fur from his donkey. Kady won Best of Textiles classification at the 2025 Heard Fair for a woven portrait of his niece, Dr. Sunnie Clahchischiligi (Diné), and below he shares the experimental twist he added to this weaving, along with the history and importance of Navajo-Churro sheep.

CH: What have you been up to lately in the weaving world?

RK: In the weaving world, I’m apprenticing some of the youth who come to me and ask sometimes to learn a particular technique, sometimes to learn the whole weaving process. A couple of future fiber artists and weavers in Shiprock wanted

to learn different styles of weaving. I’ve been working with a lot of youth on the reservation who have shown interest.1 This ties in with raising Navajo-Churro sheep. I’ve been helping our people reintroduce the breed. I work with the community, volunteers helping people and educating them about the breed. It has great, sustainable fiber with multiple uses in felting and art.

I am grounding myself again here at home. I’ve traveled a lot in my earlier, younger years throughout the globe. As I get older, it’s a hurdle, especially because I own sheep and spend every day with them. I hear a little bleat every time I open my screen door. They hear me and they start bleating. Either they’re saying, “You’re bad! We’re supposed to be out by seven,” or they’re just reminding me that they’re hungry. I do communal work within my chapter [house]. I keep the traditions, the culture, and the ceremonies of weaving and sheep. I help to keep it alive and ongoing as our grandparents and our ancestors have done.

CH: Navajo-Churro sheep is an American heritage breed, isn’t it?

RK: It is. It was near extinction in 1970.

I jumped on board almost 30 years ago.

We’ve had some Navajo-Churro in our flock, but I never could understand why it was never bred. A lot of them were old when I was passed on the flock. Stories came back when my mom said, “Those belong to your grandfather because he earned it as dowry.” He used to be a hataałii of puberty ceremonies. He acquired the sheep over in Navajo Mountain. He later learned about the history of Navajo Mountain and then [took the sheep] across the river in Utah. Those are the Navajos who stayed and weren’t rounded up during the Long Walk. That’s how

1. Roy Kady in discussion with the author, April 2025. Some quotations have been lightly edited for brevity and flow.

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ROY KADY

[the breed] was able to survive. There were some in Canyon de Chelly where they were hidden in caves high up. That’s how the survival happened. There’s a particular individual [Dr. Lyle McNeal] who helped us revive the breed standards.

That’s when I started my venture to turn our whole flock into Navajo-Churros and help others to also do the same.

CH: Saving a sheep heritage breed is an enormous undertaking.

RK: It’s been a struggle. It’s also been trendy. All of a sudden you start seeing everybody wearing traditional buns or getting their ears pierced. Not to say that that’s wrong, but I’m just saying things are trendy. That just kind of happened with the sheep. Because of that, the purebred [quality] of the sheep is not all there.

When people say, “I have the NavajoChurro sheep,” and then you look at it, you’re like, “Oh, this looks bigger than how it should look,” or the wool is not complete. It still has the waves in it that it shouldn’t have. That’s one of the reasons

above Roy Kady and his flock of Navajo-Churro sheep. Photo: Curtis Benally (Diné), Turkeyboy Photography. Both images courtesy of the artist. opposite Roy Kady weaving at his loom. Photo: Curtis Benally (Diné), Turkeyboy Photography.

the inspection is there through the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association. They inspect and register your animals. The importance behind that, and I’m sharing this, is the sheep breed is still considered threatened. I work with Jay Begay Jr. and Nikyle Begay, who register flocks. They’re involved in the recent Navajo Nation Wool Buys. We don’t really have a [breed] registrar on the Navajo Nation, and very few of us Navajos register our flocks who are Navajo-Churro, but it’s important because the fiber is very high quality for utilitarian weavings.

CH: What are the Navajo-Churro’s unique fiber qualities?

RK: It has a dual fiber, but there’s also a critical fiber that registers it as NavajoChurro, and that’s called kemp. Kemp is very low-grade fiber. It’s usually brittle, it doesn’t have the elasticity, and it also does

not take dye. That has to be present when it’s registered, but not in abundance. In our earlier utilitarian blankets, you can see those fibers in those yarns when you go and view them in museum settings because that’s where most of them are.

Because of the dual fibers and guard hair, this categorized the wool as a coarse wool.

As we know from our own histories, we wove them into blankets, and yet when we visit them in museums, they’re like silk.

The sheen of these blankets looks phenomenal. It can outlast many other kinds of wool. Using this fiber is now trendy; it’s become a part of the weaving again.

CH: Do you experiment with different fibers in your weavings?

RK: I go out with my sheep and I find a lot of different plant fibers, then I come back and I experiment. I’m sure it’s embedded in our genetic memory, all these different

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“As a fiber artist, the first thing is the fiber.” above Gandolf, 2021, hand-processed, handspun Navajo-Churro dyed and natural wool, dog hair, Navajo Angora mohair, wild turkey feathers, vegetal dyes, collection of Rick Kruis. Photo: R. Kady. Image courtesy of the artist. opposite Woven dress by Roy Kady (Diné), modeled by Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi, PhD (Diné), at the SWAIA Native American Regalia Showcase, Santa Fe Indian Market, 2018. Photo: Gabriella Marks. Image courtesy of the Southwestern Association For Indian Arts Archives.

fibers that we used to weave with. People also have to understand there was a pre-wool [era] for us. What did we utilize before wool? Plant fibers and animal fibers. There’re stories about utilizing the shedding of wool of the bighorn sheep and going up high into the mountain rocky areas and finding their shedding places and gathering the wool that they shed off and utilizing that in making twine, rope, and ceremonial string.

Of course my main intention is to bring it back to the community, mainly the youth, sharing it with them, showing them the process, and seeing that lightbulb, like “Whoa, that’s around here?”

There’s stinging nettle, cliffrose bark, and yucca, and we also have wild cotton.

Some of our cotton sources, I believe, were from the neighboring Pueblos who used to cultivate and grow cotton, and we used to barter with them at one time.

That’s where we learned some of these

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different usages of fibers, and that’s what I introduce into my Navajo weaving when I do my art. In the most recent one that won all these ribbons at the Heard, I utilized corn husks for the images of the corn stalks. My friend utilizes corn husks to weave corn husk bags in Oneida Nation. It just so happened that I had made some Navajo sweet tamales.

I remembered the preparation of it … to soak it so that it becomes flexible and pliable. I had soaked corn husks sitting next to me as I wove the corn stalks. I guess in the art world it’s considered innovative to weave different kinds of fibers. I refer to myself as a fiber artist because I utilize fiber of all [types]. I use silk, hemp, cotton, and so forth. Buffalo hair, buffalo wool, a combination of both.

When we talk about when the sheep were created and how we requested domesticated sheep, this was in reference to seeing the bighorn sheep. Since those

ROY KADY

belonged to the deities, we requested to have our own domesticated sheep who resembled the bighorn sheep. That’s how our domesticated sheep, the NavajoChurro sheep, were created for us. As a fiber artist, the first thing is the fiber. The bighorn sheep has hair and wool. When they shed, they shed the wool, and then when we prepare it. We utilize the two, and we spin it together, and it’s a quality yarn or string. And so all that makes sense to me according to Creation, that this particular breed of sheep would come to us at a later time when we’re ready for it. These are the stories that I’ve heard from the Elders. There’s always been that question, “Where did sheep come from?”

They said, “Ałk'idą́ą́’ t'áá íídą́ą́’ niháni' 'áyiilaa.” They said it was created for us. “Áádoo niléí háadi shíí bidahoolzhiizh.”

That’s when we will see them again.

CH: Are there specific Diné Bizaad words for describing the NavajoChurro breed itself?

RK: Yeah, it’s more descriptive. It’s dibé in reference to their horns because they’re one of the few breeds that have dual sets of horns or sometimes six. You might think of it as just one horn, but when you look closely, there are actually two horns fused together growing identically together. That one is dibé béé' hááłt'ahą́, and then there’s dibé deedį́ 'į́ , the fourhorned [ones]. And then the ones that don’t have the horns, they’re called dibé 'áts'oozí, or “the sheep.” Then in the ceremonial sense, there’s a different name for them that references their planting instrument, and that’s the name that is utilized in the songs with the sheep ceremonies, or Hozhǫ́ǫ́jį́ (Blessing Way Ceremony).

If you have livestock or sheep, they sing those songs for you. They’re called Ni'hoodlǫ' dibé.

The sheep have characteristics of being wild. They may look calm, but if you startle them, they go into defense mode. They can leap six or seven feet over you. The mothers are very protective, and they stomp as you enter the corral.

CH: You have to wonder how the sheep retained this behavior after all this time the Navajos have owned the sheep, that these characteristics have survived into the present.

RK: And of course, we also have our rituals when we do sheep ceremony, and that’s how the colors of the sheep came about, the different colors of the wildlife, like the badger. We would offer cornmeal or pollen and then dust them off, collect them, and put them on rams, asking [the Holy People] for these particular colors. When you go back to colors of the different Navajo-Churro sheep, there are such colors that are referred to as “badgers,” which have the color and the coat design of the badger. Navajo-Churro have about 16 different ranges of natural colors from whites, blues, greys, browns, reds, and blacks. You can breed for those shades. [One may say,] “I just want white because I want to dye them. I want to dye using vegetable dyes.” Some people want more black [wool]. They’ll introduce a colored ram to see if they can get some of those colors.

CH: How did you get into portraits in pictorial weavings?

RK: In my teenage years, I was inspired by cameras. I pleaded over and over for my mom to buy me a camera. She didn’t see, at that time, how that could feed us.

But I finally negotiated to where I said, “Instead of running away on weekends to go with my friends and hang out,

I’ll herd sheep.” And she said, “Okay.” I earned it. I didn’t run off with my friends to go swimming and do all the other fun stuff. I just herded sheep all summer. We rarely went to Farmington to shop. It was one of those times that she got me the camera, and then I started taking pictures of whatever interested me.

I decided to honor [my niece Sunnie Clahchischiligi] because she had received a PhD. That picture that I took of her when she was 11. She used to come up here after school, and we used to watch her. I used to do all this cool, fun experimentation with dyes with my nieces and nephews. We were trying to mimic my mom dyeing her yarn, and we would boil all kinds of plants, trying to derive colors from them, and steal some of my mom’s yarn. We achieved some of them, but we didn’t know the additives for some of them, like what we could add to brighten or mute or darken them. We just boiled different kinds of plant concoctions and then added the yarn that we stole from my mom. That’s where some of the inspiration came to me … when I started weaving again, utilizing vegetable dyes, and then the idea of utilizing some of my pictures and weaving them.

That came full force about 25 years ago when I took a French tapestry weaving

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workshop in Santa Fe. My wonderful friend Diane Kennedy gave me her spot at a workshop. She said, “Somebody Indigenous should be a part of this workshop.” It was a wonderful week of learning basic, simple techniques that I could introduce into my weaving. That didn’t happen until around 2013.

When I did my first image of a photograph that I took of my mother, she had dementia. I was her caretaker and I used to wheel her into the sheep corral so she could still communicate with her flock. I took the picture of that, and it came out really nice. And that’s when I said, “I learned these techniques and I should now apply them to my weaving.”

Then I finally did the first pictorial piece of my mother and her flock. That started a whole new weaving repertoire for me utilizing my photographs. After that, I’ve utilized pictures of my goat, my sheep, and now my donkey. Then, when my niece got her PhD, I said, “I’m going to honor you and how I remember you as a child, and thinking back when you were

11, who would have thought that you would achieve this? Yet you will always be a part of the sheep and a part of your grandma teaching you different, even weaving.” I wove that piece … the one that I call Dr. Sunnie.

The Heard Museum has a new innovative award. My first innovative piece that I submitted into the jury show was a woven piece that included needle felting. Using special needles, you can felt wool into [the weaving] and make images or designs. I wove my canvas, and then I did needle felting, and then I was the first to receive their innovation award.

I decided that I would continue that. In my recent pieces, I incorporate different kinds of fibers and needle felting.

There’s another story that I want to share about my mother. She only had vision in one eye, but she was a phenomenal weaver. She would create these beautiful arrays of colors. I thought to myself, How does she choose these colors that are just so compatible? I asked her.

She went into her room, and then she

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brought out this big bowl of rocks. I just used to see that on her windowsill. I had just figured that’s her rock garden. She put it by me, and she said, “Now look at these rocks.” Each rock that I picked, she said, “You look at some of the colors of them and the different colors that paired together.” She says, “That’s my reference.

You see them in plants, the newer sprouts, you see all these vibrant colors happening.

Or you see colors in the sky, in the clouds.”

It’s out there. That’s why I take my phone, which has a camera. I also have a 35mm camera that I also lug along sometimes. I take digital images of any and everything that I feel could make a weaving pattern or a texture in my weaving.

CH: Tell us about your corral-to-rug teaching process.

RK: Absolutely. With the youth, I teach them all of this. They’ll spend time this summer when we’re getting ready to herd our flock up to the summer pastures on the mountain in June. We’re still somewhat seminomadic in that

ROY KADY

way. We also have a winter sheep camp in Utah that we’re trying to revive. It’s lower in elevation.

CH: Is that your personal sheep camp?

Is that in your family?

RK: That’s our family grazing area in Utah. At one time we would travel from Utah and then go into New Mexico where my matriarch occupied land. Then we would come this way to Goat Springs, Arizona, which is midway to the base of the mountain. This is in-laws’ land where we’re at. From here, we moved up the mountain for the summer, which used to be the earlier route. Coming back down the mountain, we would go midway until it snowed. We came all the way down, and then we followed the path again back over to New Mexico and then into Utah again.

The only place we didn’t have sheep camp was in Colorado.

CH: Where’s your family from? Your mom’s side and your dad’s side?

RK: My mom’s side, my matriarchs come from New Mexico. [They] were still semi-nomadic because they followed the river in herding patterns all the way down into New Mexico. Then they would come back this way. And then somewhere along the way here in that area into Utah, because this chapter is a tri-state region.

It’s the only chapter with a tri-state boundary. That’s where my grandmother was “captured” by my grandfather who lived across the San Juan River in Utah.

That’s where Cupid was around. They married, and that’s where they settled, and our grazing area is in Utah.

We say we’re from Goat Springs, Arizona. Back in the time before they named it, the people from this area referred to it as Goat Springs because there were a lot of goat herders. I always used to refer to my mother as an agropastoralist.

I credit that as part of my weaving repertoire too, that I learned all of this from wonderful matriarch teachers who I’ve had in my life, my community, and other weavers who I’ve met who shared

with me their techniques and their style of weaving. I’ve learned all of this from them. That’s how the spin-offs were born.

That’s how I was able to learn all these different things by going to different communities and meeting weavers, artisans, toolmakers, and dyers.

My teachings began with my own matriarch. We were instilled in this lifeway.

FACEBOOK.COM/RKADY

above Dr. Sunnie Clahchischiligi, 2025, hand-processed, handspun Navajo-Churro wool, vegetal dyes, commercial dyes, corn husks, Angora mohair. Photo: R. Kady. Both images courtesy of the artist. opposite Shimá, hand-processed, handspun Navajo-Churro natural and dyed wool, vegetal dyes, commercial dyes. Photo: S. Clahchischiligi. Image courtesy of the artist. Monumental woven tapestry with a portrait of Kady’s mother visiting her sheep.

Christy Hanson (Diné) is a writer, knitter, weaver, and yarn spinster based in Tohatchi, New Mexico.

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Cherokee Nation Painter

TRACI RABBIT

By Ruthanne Johnson

T

HE WOMEN who Traci Rabbit (Cherokee Nation) portrays in her art carry an undeniable strength: intelligent eyes, firm jaw, confident air, and rich, brown skin.

“I am here. I am strong,” they seem to say. Yet they share a certain peace, tenderness, passion, and sense of wonder.

They are beautiful. They evoke pride of their Native heritage.

Anyone who meets Rabbit has little doubt that there are dabs of the painter herself in the personas she creates. She would agree, respectfully noting the influence of strong women in her family, a father’s love and great wisdom, and lots of adopted aunts and uncles at the art shows she and her father attended over the years.

These days, Rabbit’s art practice is doing well. She produces original paintings and canvas giclées at Rabbit Studios in Pryor, Oklahoma. Her bustling merchandise line features artwork by her and her father on tiles, earrings, fabric, and housewares, all printed in-house. One of her biggest contracts is with the National Park Service, which took her years to cultivate. “I live a very blessed life,” admits Rabbit.

But to talk about Rabbit’s success, one first must talk about her father, Bill Rabbit (Cherokee Nation, 1946–2012), who was internationally renowned for his paintings. Self-taught, he became a Cherokee National Treasure and Master Artist of the Five Civilized Tribes Museum. As a child, Traci traveled everywhere with him and watched him paint in the back bedroom, his makeshift studio. She learned to cut mats, frame paintings, and pack art for shipping. “I loved watching him paint, trying to absorb it all,” remembers Rabbit. Her mom used to tell her that the day she was born, her dad picked her up and never let her go. “We were very like-minded, like two peas in a pod.”

Rabbit earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, the first in her family to go to college. Rabbit has helped build the family art business, with her classes in computers and tax accounting proving invaluable. She revisited her dad’s contracts to ensure they weren’t being taken advantage of and created the print and merchandise lines to build a sustainable business, which allowed her father to paint full time.

Later, as her father grew sick from exposure to Agent Orange during his tours in Vietnam, she helped care for him.

She remembers with a bittersweet chuckle: “I got to where I could hook him up to his dialysis, believe it or not, in the truck while we were traveling to an art show.”

Through it all, she painted.

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Rabbit grew even closer to her father in his last days, spending many hours working on projects and keeping their business going while visiting him in his hospital room. He died in 2012, just four months after being recognized as a Cherokee National Treasure for his artistry and preservation of Cherokee culture.

In 2020 Rabbit was also officially recognized as a Cherokee National Treasure for her painting. “When people ask me about receiving it during COVID, when everything was shut down, it was God’s perfect timing for me,” she says. As the oldest of three kids, she’d been the responsible one growing up. “I’ve always been okay being in the background of art, just being the worker bee and giving everything to my family first. Whatever it took for survival, to pay the bills—I was that person. And so I got to celebrate being a National Treasure at home with my boyfriend during COVID, in the quiet that came to everyone.”

TRACY RABBIT

For Rabbit, success is knowing that her work has made an impact. Sometimes, when talking to admirers at art shows, she asks what the painting says to them. “I want the viewer to ponder, to wonder, What is this person thinking? If I can evoke emotion in them, then I feel as an artist that painting is my purpose,” she says.

Rabbit’s thriving art practice and the generous help of her family, especially her mother, allows her to do what she loves.

“I do not like being a boss, but I will quarterback the Rabbit Studios team,” she says.

Every year she sponsors the Bill Rabbit Legacy Art Scholarship through the Cherokee Nation Foundation and the Bill Rabbit Legacy Art Award, which goes to artists in the Trail of Tears Art Show, Cherokee Homecoming Art Show, and annual shows hosted by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum and Pryor Area Arts and Humanities Council. Her studio offers tours to local schoolchildren as well as a class for mentally and physically challenged youth.

In this interview with First American Art Magazine, Rabbit discusses growing up around strong women and a successful father, and the road to success.

RJ: Your dad was an incredibly talented artist. What was it like growing up with this larger-than-life reputation?

TR: For me, Dad was just Dad. I didn’t realize anything different about him. Growing up, he always did art, whether it was in the spare bedroom making jewelry or painting. His national notoriety came later in my life. It wasn’t really until I graduated from my senior year of high school. So I’ve seen all aspects of his career. From him and my mom struggling and raising three kids. My dad worked three jobs, and my mom worked two jobs.

I finally realized his fame when I went with him to Santa Fe [Indian Market] one year, and hundreds of people stood in line for his autograph on a poster he’d done the art for. It just blew my mind. I had no idea.

RJ: I read a few online articles in which you talk about in-the-shadow syndrome.

TR: When you follow a parent who is well known … in-theshadow syndrome is a real thing. It took me many years to come out of that. All the while, my dad is teaching me, showing me techniques, and giving me all these tools for my tool chest. At the same time, that independent spirit would kick in, and I’d be like, I don’t want to do it that way. I want people to recognize my work for my work and not because I am Bill Rabbit’s daughter.

It took me years to use the tools and techniques he taught me.

It was this independent spirit that he raised me to have. My parents also instilled in me that when you’re in fear, you jump anyway. I remember my dad would say, “Well, what are you afraid of, Sis? All they can do is tell you no.” Those were the kind of parents I had.

RJ: How was it for your dad, living full time as an artist with three kids to support?

TR: There came a time when my mom, who has always been the backbone of our family, and she believed 1000 percent in

above I Feel His Presence, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 30 × 15 in., private collection. opposite Traci Rabbit. All images courtesy of the artist.

his talent, said, “Well, it’s time we jump off the bridge.” I think it was in the early ’80s. He did his first art show at the [Tulsa Indian] Art Market. My mom was with him, and he realized it was now or never to do this full time. My dad was a workaholic.

He painted seven days a week. My mother and I took care of everything else. Definitely he wanted better for his family than what he had growing up.

RJ: Was becoming a full-time artist intimidating for you?

TR: Not at all. You have to remember my dad was still alive at the time. So being in that shadow, you enjoy the shade of that bigger-than-life shadow, if that makes sense. Also, it was a natural progression. I started working for my dad when I was about twelve, and I was the janitor. It’s so funny when I FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 81

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“I stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me. Without their sacrifices, I would not be the woman I am today.”

above Traci Rabbit and Bill Rabbit (both Cherokee Nation), Land of My Heart, 2005/06, gouache on paper, 36 × 48 in. opposite Honoring Our Traditions, 2022, acrylic and digital print on canvas, 48 × 24 in.

think about it now. He cut me no slack.

None. He said, “You will clean the bathroom. You’ll sweep the floors.” I was no one special. I was an employee. And I’m thankful because he taught me good life skills and how to be responsible with money. By the time I got out of college, things were happening at the shop. My aspiration was to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs or Cherokee Nation.

But my parents needed me. God laughs when you make plans, for he knows the plan he has laid out for you. So I came back to the studio and stayed. All along I was painting, and Dad would take me to art shows with him. I started out by entering the smaller shows around here, and it grew from there.

RJ: The Native American women in your paintings have similarities, especially the strength and confidence they exude. Tell me about this.

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TR: A lot has to do with how my mom and dad raised me. They both pushed me to be self-sufficient. I was also surrounded by strong matriarchs, Native and non-Native, not only within my family but my friend circle—my chosen family. My mom is the strongest, most faithful woman I know. My Aunt Billie, Aunt Nita, Aunt Jean, Aunt Dorene, Grandma Rabbit, and my sister Kim… and it goes back to my ancestral line. I stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me. Without their sacrifices, I would not be the woman I am today.

I think that’s what comes out on canvas for any artist is what we are made up of, whether it be circumstances or DNA. For the Cherokee people in my family history, walking the Trail of Tears when the government thought they would kill us all … but our strong DNA survived.

We are still here thriving and doing well, upon the sacrifices of others. It’s something I will never forget.

TRACY RABBIT

RJ: I understand you and your dad sometimes collaborated on pieces.

TR: The first time he asked me to collaborate, I was so nervous. It was this piece titled Common Value, Common Ground. Chad Smith, who was Chief of the Cherokee Nation at the time, commissioned my dad to paint a commemorative piece for the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood and what we as Cherokee people have in common. So Dad came up with sketches and presented them. Once he got final approval, he asked me if I would help with the painting. I was like, “You want me to do what? This is an important piece, Dad!” And he says, “I believe in you, Sis.” So I did the mother, child, and basket in the piece. As we were working on it, he said, “You know, it goes along with everything [Chad] is asking, the passing of traditions from one generation to the next, and that’s how we stay alive. That’s what I’m doing with you, and the reason I believe in you.”

RJ: What artists besides your dad influenced you the most?

TR: Early on, it would be Dana Tiger [Muscogee/Seminole/Cherokee], her dad Jerome [Muscogee/ Seminole, 1941–1967], and her uncle Johnny [Muscogee/Seminole, 1940–2015]. I loved Dana’s work from the first time I saw it. I loved … that she was the daughter of a painter too. I loved that she painted strong women. At the time, I had not seen a whole lot of that.

Artists like “Doc” Tate Nevaquaya [Comanche, 1932–1996].

I love the detail of his work. Ben Shoemaker [Quapaw/Shawnee/ Cherokee]. There are so many. Bert and Connie Seabourn, another father-daughter [team]. I love their watercolor technique. Ben Harjo Jr. [Absentee Shawnee/Seminole. 1945– 2023]. Uncle Ben was in my life from [when I was] about eleven years old. I FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 83

PROFILE

TR: I set aside a day to get in the creative flow. I’ve got to switch from business to painting, from the left brain to the right brain, and that’s a process for me. I have a separate area at the back of our studio, away from the production up front. I start by cleaning my space. I burn cedar, say prayers over my paint table, and have little conversations with myself.

I get out this small notebook from my purse, which I have at all times because inspiration hits me just about anywhere: driving down the road, maybe [during] a conversation …. I also have a vision board in the back with random notes on it. Then I start getting my canvases prepared. Once I am in that creative zone, that’s all I want to do. Everyone knows when I’m in that creative zone to let me have my space, and Evelyn and Johnny take care of everything up front. When you’re in that zone, it’s euphoric. You just want to stay in that flow.

“When our elders are gone, they leave good footprints through their art.”

above Traci Rabbit and Bill Rabbit (both Cherokee Nation), The Lesson, 2016, gouache on paper, 48 × 36 in.

love his use of color, his composition, and his generous, funny spirit. I may not have gotten a formal art education in school, but my art education was actually very expansive. I had all these wonderful, well-known artists who I could go to with questions or look at their work and try to figure out how they did that technique.

These were my aunts and uncles in the art world. When our elders are gone, they leave good footprints through their art.

You continue to speak their names and tell their stories. That’s what makes their art live on for future generations. That’s very important to me.

RJ: Tell me more about your creative process in painting.

84 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

RJ: What about the business side of things? How did that start and evolve?

TR: After college, a contract [between my dad and a business] came up for renewal.

Dad gave it to me and asked what I thought. The company had not given my dad an accounting of their sales in over a year, and yet they wanted to renew the contract. I read it over and told him he was only getting paid seven percent and that he needed to renegotiate. He said, “I’ll tell you what, Sis, why don’t you take care of it?” So I called the guy, who got snippy with me. I told him that we were going to start printing the reproductions ourselves, and he said we couldn’t do that.

Well, that was the wrong thing to tell me because you don’t own me. You don’t own my dad. And you don’t own this business.

Nor do you pay our electric bill. I told him we can print our own reproductions.

We own the copyright.

That was the precipice point, and I have printed [in-house] for years now.

I remember driving with my dad to the supplier’s factory to see how the process worked. I told the gentleman that I was going to take our art and put it on tiles and coffee mugs. He said, “Nobody’s doing that.” And I said, “Exactly.” I

TRACY RABBIT

researched the equipment, learned how to use it, and trained our family members.

I have strategically and on purpose built up the wholesale side for over 28 years.

The reproduction side and full gift line, that’s my baby.

Before my dad passed, we photographed every painting and created an image library of our artworks. Every year I slowly release images people have never seen. When you’re doing this full time, there’s no other income. You sell an art piece that nobody needs to survive. Having a reproduction and gift line helps us withstand the ebbs and flows of the economy, to pay the bills. My goal is to have our art in as many homes and socioeconomic strata as possible. We wanted to share our art with everyone. I would say if you want to do art full time, you need to know all the things related to this art business, especially taxes. But always chase your dreams and stay true to yourself. God already has a plan for you. God, the Great Spirit, the Creator, whatever name you want to give.

RJ: I learned that you ride a motorcycle. What else may people not know about you?

TR: I love my motorcycle. That’s my therapy and, again, my independent spirit. My husband had a motorcycle, and I didn’t want to be the girl on the back.

I wanted to be the girl on her own. So I taught myself how to ride. Besides that, people probably don’t know that I love to roller skate. I was a big roller skater from the age of eight and traveled with a group of kids doing skate shows at roller rinks all over Oklahoma. I had my little skater’s outfit and a skate partner. I still skate to this day in the same skates my dad got me.

[Indian Market]. We jury in for that every year, and we all sit on pins and needles waiting for an acceptance letter to come.

So I’ll be getting ready for Santa Fe, and then we roll right into wholesale shows in Las Vegas and Cherokee Art Market in October. Another show in Tennessee in November. And December is First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. Then we go right into the Christmas season of shipping to stores.

RJ: What’s coming up for you?

TR: I’m hoping to get into Santa Fe

Traci Rabbit will be in SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market booth LIN E 764.

BILLANDTRACIRABBIT.COM

“My husband had a motorcycle, and I didn’t want to be the girl on the back. I wanted to be the girl on her own.”

above Stands Alone, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 in., private collection.

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

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 85

PROFILE

Mitchikanibikok Inik Algonquin Birchbark, Quillwork & Beadwork Artist

CHRISTAL RATT

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD group show Living Stories: Contemporary Woodland Native American Art on view at the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum in Evanston, Illinois, through January 5, 2026.

I connected with Christal Ratt by phone and email.

MRS: You’re a multidisciplinary artist working with a variety of materials in a range of methods. Can you talk about your early teachings?

CR: We stayed at home on the rez. As a community, we try to do a lot of landbased activities. One of the first times I made a doll-size cradleboard was during one of those activities. They taught us how to cut the shapes, how to sew them together, and how to decorate it for embellishment. That’s one of the things that the kids back home get to do. It’s so important to have that connection. Even though my family moved around a lot, we were still able to have that connection.

C

HRISTAL RATT, Pidabinikwe, is a member of the Mitchikanibikok Inik (Algonquins of Barriere Lake) in Quebec, who specializes in quillwork, beadwork, and birchbark etching. From an early age, she was taught cultural protocols and historical arts by her family. She began entering her work into markets, fairs, and competitions in 2018 and has since received numerous awards and recognitions from the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, and the Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market and Festival, among others. In

2022 she rose to prominence after submitting a life-size Mandalorian suit of armor titled Shemaginish to the Santa Fe Indian Market. Created with etched birchbark, quillwork, and beading, the sculpture was featured in news outlets including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada.

Ratt’s practice has since expanded into fashion, and in 2023, she contributed designs to the inaugural Indigenous Fashion Show at the Seneca Niagara Resort and Casino in Niagara Falls, New York. Her work has also been included in several exhibitions, most recently the

86 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

MRS: The connection to your family and the land.

CR: For me, it was always a fun time going out, taking the day, getting what we need, and giving our thanks. I’m miigwetc-ful for my parents for showing us the ways.

But I learned a bit from everyone because it’s what we do. My mom taught me to sew, to bead. For birchbark work, it’s part of our culture. It’s something everyone does. We make baskets, canoes. We make a lot of items, and I took them on.

On my mother’s side, my grandparents passed before I was born. But whatever they taught her, she taught me.

Both my grandparents on my father’s side worked on canoes, so they taught my parents. There’s one memory that

CHRISTAL RATT

my dad shared with us. He was helping his mom split the roots, so they sat there … talking. They would split and prepare the roots so my grandpa could tie up the canoe. When he was younger, he was able to learn those ways. He was part of the group that made six canoes that were sent away. There’s one at the Smithsonian and another at the Eiteljorg Museum. It’s something that we did.

MRS: What would you like to learn more of?

CR: I definitely see some room for improvement [laughs]. I feel like for our baskets, there’s always room for improvement. That’s one thing I always wanted to become great at because the women back home always make such nice baskets that look perfect. There’s still part of me that’s like, “You need to get back to that.”

MRS: You still have time! Tell us about entering your work into competitions and markets for the first time.

CR: My first one was Santa Fe. I didn’t know of any other markets. In passing, different people would mention it on social media. In 2017 I went down to see and experience it. I loved it. Some of my friends were like, “You should just apply and enter. You do good work.” So I applied and got in. 2018 was my first one. I made a doll. It was based on a story from my mom’s memory where she was sitting in the canoe with her parents going hunting. They were out on the lake looking for moose … my mom was a young girl, and she sat in the front singing. So my grandfather said, “I don’t think we’re going to get anything today.”

Normally when hunting you have to be quiet, you have to be still, you have to be listening. So that’s what I brought, a work based on her memory of the three of them sitting there in the canoe.

MRS: What do you remember about that experience of the market in 2018?

CR: It was a whole new world. All this art, and I was so in love seeing everyone’s work, everyone’s style, everyone’s fashion, how they represented their culture. I’ve been going back since and thinking of new ways to represent my home. I felt so happy to be bringing wiigwas (birchbark),

some of our ways, down there. We have maybe 450 people living on the reserve, 700 total on the band list.

MRS: You were also winning awards then, no?

CR: I couldn’t believe it!

MRS: Let’s break down some of the art forms that you work in. What draws you to beadwork?

CR: Most of the beadwork I do is in the Woodland floral style. It’s what I’ve seen.

I learned a lot from my mother. She didn’t get to do a lot of beading because she has arthritis. She had to stop eventually. She couldn’t sew anymore. She taught me, so I thought, “I am going to sew for her because she can’t.” Sometimes she gives me ideas. I would ask her what kind of florals or designs my grandmothers would make.

“I was so in love seeing everyone’s work, everyone’s style, everyone’s fashion, how they represented their culture.”

above Beshhosk, 2022, wiigwas purse, birchbark, hide, porcupine quills, dyes, glass seed beads, brass hawkbells, leather strap. Photo: C. Ratt. opposite Christal Ratt. All images courtesy of the artist.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 87

PROFILE

MRS: You’re also proficient in quillworking. Can you talk about harvesting quills and the protocols involved?

CR: There [weren’t] too many people practicing. It wasn’t being passed down. Somewhere along the way it declined. I saw it, and it was something I wanted to learn since there weren’t many people doing it, so I asked around how to prepare quills and get the colors. I’m still learning the natural dyes, but I’ve used some of the synthetic ones. It’s a big learning curve on how to get the dyes right.

I do everything from start to finish. It smells kind of harsh.

I go out alone. My parents help me find [porcupines] on the road. My father says his miigwetc and puts down tobacco for me whenever we pick one up or he picks one up for me.

I do the cleaning process by myself, but I’ve tried to show the kids [that] this is how it’s done, and they say, “Ew.” I tell them this is part of the work.

My mom always says, “You can’t say it’s gross. This is just how it is.” I don’t notice the smell. It’s a learning process. You grow with it. Personally, I don’t pick all the quills. I just do a small patch every time I get one. It feels better for me in my heart. I don’t want to take everything. I divide them up into the colors I want. I do everything from start to finish.

MRS: The popularity of quillwork is growing and artists like yourself are taking it in new directions.

Where do you see it heading?

CR: I hope it comes back. The only thing I don’t want to see is it being mass produced. I don’t want it getting exploited.

As long as it comes back and people know it, and it can get passed down to other generations.

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CHRISTAL RATT

MRS: Beading and quillwork are slow, process-based customs. Can you talk about that process, about time, and its significance?

CR: It’s like therapy. You’re outside, sitting there for a couple of hours, and it doesn’t feel that long. You’re in your thoughts.

You’re picking those quills, six, seven, eight at a time. You’re cleaning them, taking off the hairs, and putting them in a basket. I’m doing that for two to three hours at a time. You get to say miigwetc.

If people could only see this process. They only see the final product, but there’s so much more to it. Hours and hours before you get to that one little piece

of quillwork. The sun is out, and you’re getting a breeze, as our people back then used to do. It always makes me feel happy when I get to work on anything because my kokom [grandma] and tcom [grandpa] used to do this, and now I am. It’s like they’re with me. That’s what it feels like when I’m working on any project. I think of them like they’re there beside me.

MRS: We have previously discussed your work with birchbark for my article on the resurgence of birchbark etching in First American Art Magazine no. 43. Can you speak more about it?

above Ayashesh Shemaginish, front and back view, 2025, soft sculpture doll, birchbark, glass seed beads, claws, fur, calico fabric, porcupine quills, sequins, shell discs, hide, miniature hawkbells, ribbon, thread, Star Wars The Child figure, toy gun, wooden base. opposite Left: Etched wiigwas and sweetgrass corset and bracelet cuff, chiffon wrap skirt by Christal Ratt, modeled by: Fern Hoover (Ojibway).

Right: Niibin collection white tank top, quilled print skirt by Christal Ratt, modeled by Kiren Hoover (Ojibway). Earrings by Kimberly Ratt (Mitchikanibikok Inik Algonquin). Bracelet cuffs by Christal Ratt. Heard Museum, Phoenix, 2025.

Photo: Will Kee (Diné), Urban Image.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 89

PROFILE

CR: When I think about birchbark and etching, I think of our feasts. We have our different feasts during the year. When we do that, we have a basket, a wekwemot. That’s where we put our offerings. My mom would make ours. That’s in my core memory of birchbark. That’s where it started for me. It was a big thing. It was offerings. It’s just a part of our culture.

That’s why I say “wiigwas ways,” birchbark ways. It’s always been there for us.

MRS: How did you start etching?

CR: That came from my parents as well. They taught me when to get bark during the seasons, the two different times to get it. For the Mandalorian piece, that was over two years. The one winter for the helmet, the next winter for the other pieces. We would make a day of it. Go out, harvest it. My mom gave me advice on how to make it work. She showed me how to put it in water, then get something to scrape, then draw on your designs, and etch it out.

MRS: Your submission of Shemaginish, the Mandalorian suit of armor, into Santa Fe Indian Market caught many people by surprise. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. What are the origins of that work?

CR: My nephews got me into Star Wars. I’ve always been drawn to the theme of resistance. During the pandemic, The Mandalorian series came out. I spent a couple of days watching the series. The nerd in me was like, “Oh my God, I need a helmet.” But how would I make it Indigenous? I was thinking, Who are my superheroes? Who are the people I look up to? Who are the people who protect? What do we protect? So I made it to honor those people I look up to. While I was working on it, all the pieces—the helmet, the armor, the armband, the etching, the quillwork, the techniques—everything about this work, these are things we were told to forget. These are things my dad’s generation, so many people, were beaten to forget. They were made to feel ashamed, abused, mistreated. So when I was making that work, I had those thoughts in my head. Here I am, an intergenerational survivor of genocide, and still maintaining what they told us to forget. This was my “FU” to that time because we’re still here. I’m still here, and I’m going to learn these ways and maintain these ways. I’m still going to etch, still going to quill, even though you didn’t want us to do it anymore.

This is for you, Dad, this is for you, Mom. I’m going to make beautiful things that they told us weren’t.

MRS: Absolutely. That’s really powerful, and as you know, Star Wars has its suffering, but there’s also a palpable sense of hope for the future.

CR: Yes. 90 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

CHRISTAL RATT

MRS: I remember you saying you recently dropped off the suit of armor near Chicago?

CR: I went to the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum a few days ago to make the delivery of Shemaginish. I went with my parents, too. We delivered it, and it’s there for the year.

MRS: I’m curious to know whose work you’re interested in. Who are some of the artists that you follow?

CR: My aunties Bella Nottaway and Cecile Ratt. They gave me some tips and tricks over the years for working with harvested items. Auntie Bella made different miniature birchbark art that was always so cute and beautiful. My Auntie Cecile was the harvesting pro for everything such as medicines to what I could use for my projects. They influenced my interest to maintain the wiigwas ways. As for other artists back home, Shannon Chief for her impressive mukluk sewing skills. Gracy Ratt for being a knowledge keeper on preparing hides, various cultural items, etc. Tina Nottaway for making beautiful etched wekwemot. Eugene Nottaway as one of the best cedar cradleboard makers.

And of course my baby sister, Kimberly Ratt, for her beautiful, beaded items. I’m miigwetc-ful to come from a community that makes so many diverse cultural works. We make tciman [canoes], aagim [snowshoes], moz ogidagin [moose horn], wekwemot, tikinagin [cradleboards], misedjiipzin [birchbark cradles]. It’s really a part of who we are. It’s who I am. It’s culture.

MRS: You’ve recently expanded your work to fashion, and I saw that your designs were featured in an Indigenous fashion show. How did that come about?

CR: I was probably five or six years old, drawing outfits. I was in the basement listening to music drawing a collection.

[Laughs.] It was a little girl’s dream of mine to start designing and creating outfits. I’ve been doing that but not for fashion. I used to dance until I had an injury. I used to make my own outfits.

I did all my beadwork. I did my sister’s.

If someone asked me to make something, I’d sew them a dress. Years ago

I decided to make my own material. I drew out some designs and used some of my designs, beadwork, and quillwork to make the prints. I thought I would give it a shot. My first fashion show was with the Akwesasne Indigenous Fashion Show, about an hour from Ottawa on the U.S. side.

MRS: What do you plan to show at Santa Fe Indian Market?

CR: I sent in pictures of a new doll I’m working on. I’ll probably have some smaller items as well. A quill medallion.

I’m trying to think of other items to diversify what I bring.

MRS: Thank you for speaking with me, Christal. It’s always good to chat with you.

CR: Miigwetc.

Christal Ratt will exhibit her artwork in Santa Fe Indian Market booth FR S 339.

“Who are my superheroes? Who are the people I look up to?”

above Pakiiganekizin, 2024, mukluks detailed with floral beadwork embroidery and quilled wiigwas, winter-tanned moose hide, beaver fur trim. opposite Appliqué vest with Shells & Quills wide-leg pants from the Pibon Winter 2023 collection. Model: Kyren Cole (Mohawk). Seneca Indigenous Fashion Show, 2024. Photo: Babes Thompson (Akwesasne Mohawk).

MIIKSAGWASIN.COM

Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, is a curator and writer based in London, Ontario, Canada.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 91

LL II LL LL II EE VV AA NN NN LILLIE VANN Cherokee Nation ceramic artist Cherokee Nation ceramic artist ceramic SantaCherokee fe indianNation market booth artist sft p 527 Cherokee Nation ceramic Santa fe indian market boothartist sft p 527 Santa fe indian market booth sft p 527 lillievannclay@gmail.com Santa fe indian market booth sft p 527 lillievannclay@gmail.com lillievannclay.com lillievannclay@gmail.com lillievannclay.com lillievannclay@gmail.com instagram @lillievannclay lillievannclay.com instagram @lillievannclay (539) lillievannclay.com 525-2740 instagram (539) 525-2740@lillievannclay instagram @lillievannclay (539) 525-2740 (539) 525-2740

NELDA SCHRUPP

Nakota Jeweler, Silversmith, Sculptor & Textile Artist | Commissions welcome

Left: NORTHERN PLAINS RIBBON SKIRT, Northern Plains Ribbon Skirt; cotton material, silk/satin ribbon, and lace.

Middle: SPIDER CUFF, sterling silver, chrysocolla, and leopard jasper.

Right: BUBBLE NECKLACE, sterling silver.

NeldaDBANakotaArts.com | (701) 740-0775 Santa Fe Indian Market booth 219-PAL S

Discover the Country’s Largest, Most Vibrant Original Native American and Tribal Art Show in Santa Fe:

Whitehawk Antique Indian & Ethnographic Art Show In its 47th year, Whitehawk will bring together more than 120 of the most knowledgeable experts and thousands of select historic art objects from Indigenous cultures throughout the world, and a few select contemporary art highlights.

Two Special Exhibitions:

• Spirit Beings in Wood: the Vibrant Tradition of Hopi Katsina Carvings, 1880 to Present – curated by Barry Walsh, PhD. • The Living Tradition of Chimayó Weaving – curated by the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, from the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum’s collection. Sponsored by HALI Magazine.

August 8–11, 2025

Santa Fe Community Convention Center MEDIA PARTNERS

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BENEFICIARY

SPOTLIGHT

NEWSPAPER ROCK

R

OCK ART PROVIDES A WAY to stay connected with the land, each other, and those who came before.1 That connection is carved into stone at Newspaper Rock in Southeast Utah, along State Route 211 close to the Canyonlands National Park entrance.

Newspaper Rock is known for having one of the largest and best preserved collections of petroglyphs in the United States, making it one of the most visited rock art sites in the American Southwest. At this site, visitors can marvel at the elaborate petroglyphs made by Native Americans over a period of 2,000 years.

Early non-Native visitors saw something familiar in how the petroglyphs clustered together and named it “Newspaper Rock.” To them, this collection of

petroglyphs appeared as a type of storytelling or recordkeeping, more like a newspaper. However, the Navajo name, Tse' Hone, which means “the rock that tells a story,” carries more weight, reflecting the cultural importance of the petroglyphs as messages left by Native people. The site was designated a Utah state historic monument in 1961 and later became part of the Indian Creek unit of Bears Ears National Monument, a landscape still deeply tied to Native peoples.

Newspaper Rock is a 200-squarefoot sandstone panel densely covered with more than 650 rock art designs. The petroglyphs vary in size and complexity, with some being small and simple, while others have detailed and complicated patterns.

The overlapping designs, which reflect

contributions from different periods and cultures, suggest that the rock is a collective storytelling canvas. Some images depicted include animals, figures riding horses, weapons, tools, symbols, and broad-shouldered figures with elaborate head decorations. According to some contemporary Native Americans, the etchings into the rock represent celestial events, spiritual information, and clan symbols.2 The panel sits beneath a natural rock overhang that offers shade and protection from extreme weather. The surface, a deep brown to black, is almost glossy in the light. Darkened by desert varnish, made of a buildup of minerals like manganese and iron,3 the rock face serves to highlight the artists' carvings, chipped through the darkened surface and revealed by the lighter stone beneath.

What stands out about Newspaper Rock is how well the carvings have held up over time. Even after being exposed

1. Kristin M. Barry, “Framing the Ancients: A Global Study in Archaeological and Historic Site Interpretation” (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University, 2014), 110–11.

2. Sarah Taylor et al., “Newspaper Rock,” Intermountain Histories, December 18, 2021, web.

3. Russell M. Potter and George R. Rossman, “The Manganese- and Iron-Oxide Mineralogy of Desert Varnish,” Chemical Geology 25, no. 1–2 (April 1979): 79–94.

94 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

SPOTLIGHT

to the weather for thousands of years, many petroglyphs are still clear and easy to see on the durable, weather-resistant sandstone. The site has also been well preserved. Today, a low railing surrounds the panel as a small barrier, keeping the rock safe from being touched or damaged.

While it can be hard to date the petroglyphs, recoloration (studying the patina covering the incised surface of the design) helps estimate their age in relation to each other. The older petroglyphs are believed to have been made by the Archaic, Basketmaker, and finally the Fremont and Ancestral Pueblo peoples, who carved the earliest designs from approximately 500 BCE to 1350 CE. Although archaeologists frequently describe these communities as lacking a formal written language, sites like Newspaper Rock indicate that they had sophisticated visual communication.

Later additions include petroglyphs by the Ute and Navajo peoples, whose descendants still reside in the Four Corners region. These more recent markings are distinguishable by their lighter color since the varnish has not built up as on the older ones.

Some petroglyphs depict riders on horses, likely dating to the historic period after the 16th century, following the arrival of the Spanish and their introduction of horses to the Southwest. Even into the 20th century, individuals continued to leave their marks on the rock, including J.P. González, son of Ramón González, whose family settled in the Indian Creek area in 1900. His inscription, “J.P. Gonzalez 1902,” still appears on the far left corner of the rock along with one left by his son just below that says “C.D. Gonsales 6/3/54.”4 Even though most petroglyphs can’t be read exactly, the images reveal clues into precontact cultures. The common animals depicted include deer, buffalo, and pronghorn antelope—species that were central to the hunting life of these Native communities. While agriculture came to this region around four thousand years ago, hunting remained important to Ancestral Pueblo peoples. The Fremont also lived in this region around the same

time as the Ancestral Pueblo, and hunting continued to be vital to their society even when they adopted agricultural techniques. When the Navajo came in the 15th century, they hunted and gathered like their forebears. One of the petroglyphs appears to be a rider shooting an arrow at an elk or deer, illustrating the role of hunting in Southwestern culture.

Paw prints and footprints are evidenced throughout the panel, suggesting that Newspaper Rock was a communication hub or marking trail for passing travelers. A close look will show images of six-toed feet representing polydactyly, in which a person has an additional toe or finger. At Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, anthropologist Patricia Crown estimates that about 3.1 percent of the population had an extra toe. Crown also noted that people with six toes were linked to high-status items, suggesting higher social standing.5 Newspaper Rock is an example of a message that no one living today can fully decode. Despite ongoing research, many petroglyphs’ meanings are still unclear and only exist in the recollections and customs of the people who made them.

The rock provides insight into how precontact peoples of Southwest Utah lived, thought, and perceived the world. What Newspaper Rock leaves behind is not an answer, but a quiet space—to observe, to reflect, and to remember.

—Florence Wanjiru

above, top Hunting scene from Newspaper Rock, featuring an archer on horseback shooting a deer, with headdressed humanoid figures, a spoked circle, big horn sheep, footprints, and elk or deer. Photo: Jiri Matousek (CC BY 2.0). above, bottom Detail of N ew s p a p e r R o c k p e t ro glyphs, featuring footprints or pawprints with four to six toes, spherical glyphs, and a humanoid figure. Photo: Phil Konstantin (Cherokee Nation), PD. opposite Ancestral Pueblo, Fremont, Ute, and Diné artists once known, Newspaper Rock, main panel. Photo: Jason Cacophony (CC BY-SA 3.0).

4. William H. González and Genaro M. Padilla, “Monticello, the Hispanic Cultural Gateway to Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 52, no. 1 (1984): 9–28.

5. Jason Daley, “Why Ancestral Puebloans Honored People with Extra Digits,” Smithsonian, July 27, 2016, web.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 95

REVIEWS

EXHIBITIONS

GALISTEO, NM

Indigenization Duende Gallery

U

NDER THE EAVES of the little adobe building in the equally small town of Galisteo deep in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico is Duende Gallery. This new gallery hosts the show Indigenization curated

by Jaime Herrell (Cherokee Nation) and Robert King (Choctaw Nation) in collaboration with the Tia Collection.

At the opening reception, parking wound around the block on both edges of the two-lane street. The floorboards are worn by years of use in the repurposed space, and the small community stage of this old dancehall remains intact. The building contrasts with the stark concrete and metal monstrosities that burn into the landscape. Artwork spanning generations include those of Jesse Littlebird (Laguna Pueblo/Kewa) and Everton Tsosie (Diné) mingled with those of the late T.C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo, 1946– 1978) and James Luna (Puyukitchum/ Ipai/Mexican-American, 1950–2018).

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In this exhibition, these works lined the walls, and full-size paintings by Indigenous artists were juxtaposed with smaller selected images by the non-Indigenous artists printed on the wall placards.

The non-Native artists whose works were represented on the labels ranged from Vincent van Gogh to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Some of these provided foils for contrasting Indigenous imagery, while others reintegrated the influences connecting to the larger movements of the art world, all the while keeping the Indigenous-made artworks prominent. This presentation was intentional by the curators who see Indigenous art not as a separate sphere that many place Indigenous art in.

Both curators noted the complexities, concerns, and background to curating a show of Indigenous artists that does not play into the “white gaze” that is so common in art about (but not by) Native American artists and which can still be present within the wider art world.

Robert, a ceramic artist himself, noted that his Indigenous background is only one facet of his identity and wished to show other facets of the artists on display in Indigenization without constraining them by stereotypes or generalizations.

Robert is on the front lines of Indigenous art in running Duende Gallery and also with his own artwork. He is a 2025 Native Arts artist in residence at the Denver Art Museum and will be in residence from September 4 to 24 in Denver.

To show the scope of Indigenous artists, Indigenization introduces some artists who are new to the Santa Fe scene such as Martine Gutierrez (Maya descent), a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow based in Brooklyn. Her Demons, Xochipilli ‘The Flower Prince,’ p91 from Indigenous Woman (2018) contrasts with Edward Curtis’s photogravure Substitute Sacred Headdress-Piegan (1910), and her Demons, Chin ‘Demon of Lust’ p93 From Indigenous Woman (2018) contrasts with Curtis’s Hopi Snake Priest (1900).

An artist whose reputation is growing, Jessie Littlebird contributed the show’s largest painting, which is framed by the old stage. Littlebird’s Points in Indian (2023) reconceptualizes JacquesLouis David’s The Death of Socrates

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(1787). Littlebird sees a parallel between David’s painting, completed less than two years before the French Revolution, and the artist who became emblematic of that time period to Indigenous perspectives in the face of colonization. Littlebird sees his painting as centering Native experience that is shaped by resilience.

Points in Indian uses a background of an abstracted flag filled with patterning and figures not neoclassical in dress but in Indigenous clothing.

Another painting that stood out was the entry piece. Everton Tsosie’s The Native American Warrior (2021) confronts the viewer with its bold, almost color-blocked, background and expressive figure complete with a Plains-style warbonnet which makes it instantly recognizable as an Indigenous man. The composition itself is restrained in its own way with the figure being accented and set apart from this background which puts him in limited and also unrestrained space. There are no elements that place the figure in relation to the canvas, only the viewer and the pieces outside of the painting.

The exhibition also features mainstays in the Santa Fe art scene such as David Bradley (White Earth Ojibwe), whose acrylic painting Hopi Maiden, Homage to Warhol (2007) is directly inspired by Andy Warhol’s serigraph series Marilyn Monroe (1967). Pop Art is a recurring theme for Bradley. Also wellknown is the late James Luna whose The End of the Frail (1993) is one of the older pieces in the show and one that appropriates the common image The End of the Trail (1908) by James Earl Frasier.

Superimposed over a photocopy of Frasier’s sculpture is a photograph of Luna slumped on a sawhorse and with a bottle of alcohol, not the noble savage stereotype of the sculpture, and brings to light the confrontation with the realities of alcoholism in Indigenous communities.

When interviewed, Robert and Jaime both shared their intentions in exhibiting Indigenous art at Duende.

Jamie remarked, “As far as in this political climate—Indigenous art is inherently political, especially in the last 50 years. It is about the reclaiming of culture.” The curators see Native American art as part

of a wider global Indigenous movement for self-expression and self-identity not separate or dissociated from the wider art world. According to the curators, Indigenization shows how these Indigenous artists have asserted their vision and voices despite a world that seeks to place them in a box and continues to marginalize them. They hope that small galleries like Duende can be part of the solution to bringing Indigenous artwork to broader audiences.

In their next show, Herrell and King will feature a smaller number of artists with more pieces by each. While the focus will still be on Indigenous art, they will seek to include non-Native art alongside the Indigenous pieces to foster dialogue across cultures and not perpetuate the “othering” of Indigenous art in gallery spaces.

I cannot overstate how the exhibition space shows off the works in a fresh way. The warmth of the gallery’s previous use, as the century-old community center La Sala de San José, the oldest dance hall in New Mexico, lends to this feeling. This show is a must-see for those interested in Indigenous artwork and who want to see two of the up-and-coming Indigenous curators in Northern New Mexico. Indigenization runs until July 27, 2025.

—Kateri Smith (Blackfoot/Métis)

“Indigenous art is inherently political, especially in the last 50 years.”

above Jesse Littlebird (Laguna Pueblo/Kewa), Points in Indian, 2023, mixed media on canvas.

Photo: K. Smith. opposite Martine Gutierrez (Maya descent), Demons, Xochipilli ‘The Flower Prince,’ p91 from Indigenous Woman, 2018, chromogenic print with artist frame, 42 1/2 × 30 1/4 in.

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JUNEAU, AK

above Evelyn Vanderhoop (Haida), My Favorite Raven, 1993, print on paper, collection of the Sealaska Heritage Institute 2018.034.001. Photo: MB Commercial Photography + Video. Both images courtesy of the Sealaska Heritage Institute. opposite David A. Boxley and Zach Boxley (both Tsimshian), Box Drum, red cedar wood, paint, collection of the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Photo: MB Commercial Photography + Video.

Át Kawdiyaayi Yéil, Raven in Motion Nathan Jackson Gallery, Sealaska Heritage Institute

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AVEN STORIES ABOUND along the Northwest Coast. Equal parts culture hero and trickster, his antics continue to inspire artists in the present, just as he did in the past, and as he will in the future.

Independent curator Shkík Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Tlingit/Zuni) engages with this multifaceted being and creates clever moments of humor throughout Át Kawdiyaayi Yéil, Raven in Motion. Her attention to detail brings this exhibition to

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life. Shiny black raven tracks, for example, guide the visitor from case to case within the one-room gallery. A visual face-off between versions of the classic story of Raven Stealing the Sun, Moon, and Stars, Rico Lanáat' Worl (Tlingit/Athabascan) and David A. Boxley (Tsimshian) illustrate the expansiveness of formline design and perhaps speak to generational change. These subtle, humorous gestures embody Raven’s character in ways that can’t be captured in text panels alone.

Belarde-Lewis, who spent childhood summers with her maternal T'akdeintaan clan, carefully walks a fineline (a little formline humor here) to present Raven the culture hero without violating Yéil moiety and clan prerogatives to crests and associated songs, dances, and oral histories. As she noted in her lecture given on the evening of the exhibition’s

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opening, curating at home is a complex undertaking. Belarde-Lewis rises to the challenge, exploring Raven’s character and exploits through time. Themes include how stories about him provide a moral framework for living; how coastal Alaskan place names indicate his formative role in shaping the land; and how his love for shiny things has made him both the original influencer and a current fashionista.

Malibu Raven, a print by Alison Bremner (Tlingit), for example, depicts a preening Yéil wearing high heels and sunglasses acquired during a trading trip to California. We can imagine that he’ll return to the Southeast Alaskan uniform of Xtratufs and a baseball cap when he needs to get into some good trouble at home.

The late renowned poet and linguist Keixwnéi Nora Dauenhauer (Tlingit, 1927–2017) once stated that Yéil “is timeless and today.” Incorporated into the

introductory text panel, this perspective provides visitors—many of whom arrive on cruise ships with little local knowledge—a way to understand Yéil’s ancient origins and ongoing influences. In her curatorial talk, Belarde-Lewis mentioned the significance of the much-anticipated book of Yéil Kutláakw (Raven Stories) recorded by Tlingit elders over several decades. Excerpts from these precious oral histories are incorporated throughout, grounding the exhibition in deep, community-based knowledge. Dauenhauer’s words also remind us of Raven’s ability to move with the times, wittily embodied by paired canoe paddles and skateboard decks in one display case.

The lack of a canoe to paddle or wheels to skate seems just about right for an exhibition about Raven, a being who regularly finds himself in trouble of his own making.

Tlingit language and cultural belongings predominate within the exhibition. Exceptions include a Ravenadorned box drum by David A. Boxley and his son Zach (Tsimshian) as well as Haida artist Evelyn Vanderhoop’s 1993 print, My Favorite Raven, which depicts Tlingit master carver Nathan Jackson adorned in woven, carved, and appliqued regalia. Including artworks from these renowned artists supports the mandate of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, which dedicates itself to sustaining and sharing the rich heritage of these three cultural groups in Southeast Alaska.

Two examples of Raven created

by Indigenous communities beyond Southeast Alaska are also on display. A case filled with Yéil-catching bling (silver and gold bracelets) visually connected by tiny gold Raven tracks also incorporates a small carved and painted Raven wearing mismatched red and blue high-top sneakers. Created by Utah-based artist Matthew Yellowman (Diné), this Raven reminds us that tricksters in various guises exist throughout North America. This might also be a nod to the Southwest where Belarde-Lewis grew up with her father’s Zuni people. Perhaps too, this Raven is an acknowledgment of one of Belarde-Lewis’s many other hats, that of a self-described basketball mom. The second example, a large Kwakwaka'wakw-style Raven mask from British Columbia, stands out for both its large scale and seeming incongruity. For many visitors, the nuance of including this powerful mask to indicate that Raven exists all along the Northwest Coast is likely to be missed.

In this small, jewel box of an exhibition on display until early 2026, Belarde-Lewis expands on the work she undertook for Preston Singletary: Raven Steals the Light. This nationally recognized and still touring show explores the iconic story of Raven and the Box of Daylight using glass, light, and sound to create an immersive experience. Though constrained by the small, but growing permanent collection of artworks cared for by the Sealaska Heritage Institute, in Át Kawdiyaayi Yéil, Raven in Motion, Belarde-Lewis effectively incorporates the significant Raven story, moves beyond it, and thoughtfully explores ideas both timeless and of today.

—Megan A. Smetzer, PhD

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RENO, NV

The Art of Judith Lowry Nevada Museum of Art

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O INAUGURATE their new expansion, the Nevada Museum of Art is showing The Art of Judith Lowry, a retrospective exhibition with accompanying catalogue encompassing more than 30 years of painting. It’s a continuation of the ongoing support the museum has given to contemporary Indigenous artists—and it allows the museum to start things off with a bang.

Lowry’s work has an accessibility, scope, and vibrancy that immediately commands the space. Lowry’s father was a citizen of the Pit River Tribe of Mountain Maidu, Hammawi, Washoe, and Scots-Irish descent, and her mother was an immigrant from Australia. That richly compounded ancestry is the engine for most of the paintings, which have to be seen face-toface to be properly absorbed. Lowry works on a large scale, and the figures she materializes on her canvases have nearly human dimensions. You don’t feel that you’re viewing her subjects at a distance; rather, you’re encountering them in person.

A good portion of Lowry’s work is family history, monumentalized, mythologized, and complicated by a host of ironies. Some of them are comical, some of them bitter, and some an indivisible mixture of both. With her mixed heritage, her family history is also a history of Native resilience, resistance, negotiation, and assimilation. The most haunting painting in the exhibition directly addresses the murderous toll of the residential school system. Going Home (1992) is a tribute to Lowry’s great-aunt Molly Lowry. At the age of eleven, Molly ran away from the Greenville Indian Industrial School in Northern California, in the middle of winter. She perished from exposure in the attempt; two other girls were recovered, but died shortly afterward, in the wake of frostbite injuries. Another two girls survived the unsuccessful escape.1 In the painting, Molly in brown-and-white school attire has her hands extended at her sides as she

stands in a snowdrift. The gesture recalls saintly icons, palms open in a suggestion of welcome or radical acceptance.

The dominant color of the picture is an icy blue, suffusing the frozen sea of snowy hills receding into the distance, and Molly’s exposed skin as well, as though she had absorbed the element, drawing it up the entire length of her body through her toes. Her feet are invisible, buried in a hillock of snow, perhaps in sympathetic echo of her fellow runaways Edith Buckskin and Elweza Stonecoal, whose frostbitten extremities were amputated after they were returned to the school. Molly’s face exhibits no suffering, in the kind of delimited grace that can be extended by the artist. Her irises are two yellow marbles gleaming out against the blue, and the color is reflected in the crescent eye of an owl,

swooping down towards her. Its wings are splayed open like Molly’s arms, suggesting, if not a mutual embrace, perhaps a mutual recognition. Behind them both stands the school at a distance, the cross at its rooftop looking puny against the purple mountains beyond it.

The encounter with childhood death finds a different outcome in two paintings of Lowry’s paternal great-grandmother, Wilis-Kol-Kold. Lowry’s family told the story of her apparent death as a child. She was overtaken with fever and fell into a coma. Wilis-Kol-Kold was laid out on a burial scaffold, but her family was shocked to later find her sitting up atop it, calling out for her mother. The painting Awakening (1994) depicts that astonishing moment, with Wilis-Kol-Kold elevated on her bier of wood and skins, high above the ground. In the perspective of the

1. Kate Mook, “The Greenville Investigation: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Boarding School Runaways” (master’s thesis, California State University–San Bernardino, 2020), 9, 16, 62–63.

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above Judith Lowry (Pit River Mountain Maidu/Hammawi/Washoe), The Obedient Wives, 2001, acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 in., collection of John and Susan Horseman Collection, courtesy of the Horseman Foundation. © Judith Lowry. Both images courtesy of the Nevada Museum of Art. opposite Judith Lowry (Pit River Mountain Maidu/Hammawi/Washoe), Going Home, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 64 × 52 in., collection of the Heard Museum, gift of Kathleen L. and William G. Howard, 4933-1. Photo: Craig Smith. © Judith Lowry.

painting, Wilis-Kol-Kold floats above her village, framed by the legs of the scaffold. We see two surprised women, and several roundhouses releasing plumes of firewood smoke, distributed to one side of a winding river. The mountains in the far distance—among whose peaks WilisKol-Kold’s seated form rests, in similar pyramidal stasis—are mantled with the yellow glow of sunset, a mantle that also settles around the girl’s hair and shoulders, an auspicious aura.

We get to meet Wilis-Kol-Kold toward the other end of her life in another painting, executed in the same year, which simply takes her name as its title. Referenced from a photograph, it depicts her as an elder standing tall, firmly planted in the landscape, in a yellow dress and with a yellow hat. The large scale of this painting, like most of the paintings on display, is a clear reference to European history paintings, or paintings of royalty, whose scale was designed to amplify the importance of their subjects. And like those subjects, there are objects of symbolic significance assembled around the figure. In German-Swiss painter Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533), for instance, there is a table full of portentous articles—astronomical tools, religious

books—meant to allude to the qualities of the sitters and the significance of their times. In the portrait of Wilis Kol-Kold, the objects are at once more humble and charged with a spiritual potency. Two feathers are set standing among rocks by Wilis Kol-Kold’s feet, glowing talismans of the healing power she possessed, which was partly attributed to her childhood encounter with the “other side.” By her left foot is a metal tin holding a white flower. With her left hand, she balances a small basin against her hip. In it curls a two-headed snake, representing a premonition she had of her own death. Most significant to the mood of the painting, perhaps, is the bag slung behind her back, secured by a rope strung across her chest. There is no indolence or rest in her pose. She hasn’t appeared standing here for the patient, obsequious gaze of a court painter. She has been caught on her way to a task. We see her situated solidly among her cultural practices and engaged in meaningful work.

Another rich resource for her paintings is the Maidu stories that Lowry’s grandmother and father passed down to her. The Obedient Wives (2001) is drawn from a tale of conflict between Rat (Joombom) and Weasel (Weh-bo-sim). Lowry

outlined the story in an artist’s talk at the museum. Rat had three wives—blind owls—and to feed them all, he’d fight smaller animals on top of a boulder, from whose height he could toss his victims into a fiery pit. His wives, hearing the commotion, could then sweep down to cook and devour them. Weasel challenged Rat to a wrestling match, and—weasels being adept at wrestling—he triumphed, sending Rat down into his own cooking-pit. The owls, being blind, didn’t realize they were about to eat their own husband, until his panicked cries alerted them to his identity. By then Rat’s bushy tale had been consumed by the flames, leaving it bare. It’s in this state of terror and denuded humiliation that Lowry paints him. His wives are positioned above him, their wings twirling like robes swept up in dance; their sightless eyes bright with reflected flame.

All stories are expressions of a worldview. The chain of cause and effect that constitutes a plot is also, in a way, a declaration of values. Even a story that urges you to turn your brain off and just let yourself be entertained demonstrates the implicit value (or the lack thereof) of thinking. This Maidu story is explicitly a teaching story, an attempt to create a reciprocal relation with the natural world and to embed, in the world’s details, important and useful lessons. In this case, every time a listener might see the flash of a rat’s tail, the story (with its cautions against hubris) would be called up. And in this way, the world is made into part of a storytelling machine.

Lowry is very conscious that these oral tales—and the ethics, and imaginative virtuosity encoded in them—are in danger of erosion and outright evaporation. If the tales disappear, the world would be made more empty, less charged with meaning. Lowry’s canvases aren’t just exercises in representing figures; they are zones of preservation, making spaces for characters like Weh-bo-sim and Joom-bom to continue to exist (and this is also true, in a parallel way, of the portraits of her family and friends).

Their frames are built fast against the erosions of assimilation, erasure, and overstimulation that today’s culture has arrayed against them. The beauty of their surfaces lies atop a fierce, and affectionate, necessity. —Chris Lanier

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SANTA FE

Dakota Mace: DAHODIYINII— SACRED PLACES SITE Santa Fe

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INÉ ARTIST Dakota Mace’s first solo exhibition, DAHODIYINII—SACRED PLACES, weaves viewers through layers of memory in the land and stars, and its title associates a Diné concept with its approximated English meaning. On view from February 28 through May 19, 2025, Mace’s exhibition brought together several media including photography, textiles, printmaking, and hide. She also collaborated on two pigment-painted walls with a former student, Keyah Henry (Diné). The exhibition offered a series of overlaid moments that willingly became reciprocal dialogues between artworks and viewers.

With her home base in Madison, Wisconsin, Mace serves as a faculty member for the low-residency master of fine arts in studio arts program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, her alma mater where she received a bachelor of fine arts in photography. In her graduate education, the artist earned both master of arts and master of fine arts degrees in photography and textile design at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

From both Albuquerque and Torreon in New Mexico, she’s become known for her interdisciplinary practice rooted in photographic processes, place-based knowledge, and inquiries of materiality.

DAHODIYINII—SACRED PLACES began in the lobby with a largescale wall painted in cochineal, Halchíí (Red area) (2024), one of the collaborations with Henry. The dense application of pigment immediately emphasized the central concept of stacked knowledge in the exhibition. The swirls of red suggested pathways and invoked an emotional response from those in its presence. The visual weight of this

painting at floor-to-ceiling scale set the tone of history constantly being created through experience and the depth of the stories shared in the forthcoming galleries. The cochineal suggested a global exchange of trade, and for the Diné, “red as medicine.”1 Upon entering the exhibition galleries, two mixed-media sculptures made of sheep hide with jingle cone adornments brought together intertribal notions of warmth and song. Chahash'oh (Shadow) and Adinídíín (Light), both made in 2024, spanned across the floor of one room through each of their groups of elongated strings that angled outward. These works embodied the exhibition’s primary themes of stars, memory, and land.

Their forms held an upright presence of strength while their ends gestured outwards, suggesting far-reaching networks of relationships.

The next gallery provided a deep sense of the artist’s grounding in both family and Diné culture. Installations along the walls and in the center of the room functioned as windows into an array of memories. Several photographic images of Diné elders, made between 2022 and 2024, brought the viewer into a space of wisdom and intergenerational teaching of stories from elders to younger family members. This grouping of portraits resonated as a Diné community, with portraits along the side walls and suspended from the ceiling. The various levels in height nodded to the themes of land and stars. The prints above suggested a hogan, or Diné home, from their angled installation. The positioning of these photographs—archival reproductions of paired photo-portraits and cochineal-dyed cyanotypes—alluded to a geometric roof construction. In these close-up photographs, the detailed faces of the community members commemorated them as living archives of stories.

As the exhibition’s namesake, the Dahodiyinii (Sacred Places) series (2021–2024), a wall-size installation of more than 1,600 cochineal-dyed cyanotypes, remembered the thousands of Diné who marched on the Long Walk

to Bosque Redondo in the U.S. federal government’s forced removal and relocation (1864–1868). The magnitude of this collective of seven-by-five-inch prints suggested the enduring strength of the Diné community. It served as a reminder of this painful history as a wall of beauty that, at once, honors Diné persistence and vibrancy into the future. The immense swath of this wall of red infused a sense of healing into the gallery. With a lens-free process, Mace created these abstracted prints in sacred locations at Bosque Redondo.

Placing an emphasis on stars, the concluding gallery shared layers of stories, land, and the cosmos. At the front of the gallery, a large-scale wall painted floor-to-ceiling with indigo dye honored the centrality of this plant to Diné weaving. Its swirled patterns looked like overlapping areas of clouds in the night sky. The brushstrokes in the middle of the wall resembled a plant form, with roots below and flowers above.

At the back of the gallery, a series of four archival prints of scanned cyanotypes anchored the upper section of the wall. The stars represented by crosses and the storm pattern in an “x” formation— Diné textile motifs—alluded to their creation stories. They called attention to the continued importance of these symbols that convey Diné knowledge of the cosmos that remain vital to the present and future of the people.

This series combined the concepts of imprinting stories and weaving ancestral narratives, methods of passing on cultural knowledge. These prints honored Diné holy ancestors, like Spider Woman (Na'ashé'jíí Asdzáá) and Spider Man (Na'ashjé'íí Hastiin). By the instruction of the Holy People (Diyin Dine'é), the sacred beings who created the world, Spider Woman taught the Diné the art of weaving beauty, harmony, and balance into textile forms, and Spider Man gave the people a set of weaving tools and the loom.2 Adjacent to the back wall, an installation of two sets of 40 chemigram prints,

1. Heidi K. Brandow, “Diné Interdisciplinary Artist: Dakota Mace,” First American Art Magazine no. 46 (Spring 2025): 62.

2. Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas, Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today (Loveland, CO: Thrums Books, 2018), 10–15.

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So' II (Stars II) (2022) and Béésh Łigai I (Silver I) (2022), portrayed the glow of starlight in a dark sky in their imprinted lines on paper. The sparkling texture and the slight differences of similar shapes in the prints expressed the variance of the sky on any given night as well as the changes in the stories of the cosmos as different community members carry those on to the next generations.

The depth of the prints, presented as nocturnes or artistic expressions of night, portray the richness of knowledge held in the cosmos. The abstraction of this series spoke to the cultural specificity of understandings of Diné star stories that continue to be circulated within the community. The beauty of these prints sparks a desire to learn more about celestial happenings through a variety of cultural worldviews.

Three groups of cyanotypes in this room forged another connection for

Diné stories to move between the land and the sky. Tse (Stones), Tsin Bigaan (Branches), and Níłtsą́ Bi'áád (Gentle Rain), all made in 2023, honored the reciprocal power and potential of ecosystems. In these relationships, nourishment can be given and received between all beings that cohabitate.

This grouping intertwined the themes of growth, longevity, and temporality, concepts that unified all of the areas of Mace’s exhibition. She wove together a space of Diné stories with materialities that represented many aspects of the earth and sky. As artist-narrator between those two realms, she invited viewers to join in her story circles. In this spirit of global exchange, Mace carries on Diné customs of trade through stacks of visual narratives that layer the past, present, and future as a continuous, interconnected flow of knowledge.

—Michelle J. Lanteri, PhD

above Installation view of DAHODIYINII—SACRED PLACES. The installation Dahodiyinii (Sacred Places) series (2021– 2024) by Dakota Mace (Diné) is in the background. Photo: SITE Santa Fe.

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TELEVISION North of North Produced by Northwood Entertainment and Red Marrow Media

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HE EIGHT-EPISODE SERIES from APTN, CBC, and Netflix North of North dropped in Canada in January, and those of us in the U.S. were envious! After a torturous three months, Netflix graced us with Siaja and her village life in the fictional Ice Cove, Nunavut, Canada. The half-hour, single-camera comedy has remained as an “Only on Netflix” promo since its debut.

The first scene of the first episode shows us why: the scenery, the fashions.

And Siaja and the wacky villagers—they immediately catch our hearts and sweep us into their world, one that few are familiar with.

Anna Lambe (Inuk), who we first met in The Grizzlies, shines as Siaja, an Inuk woman in her mid-20s who is just realizing she wants more out of life than being a wife and a mother. Lambe was born in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, where principal shooting takes place. She also

acted in Trickster and True Detective: Night Country before landing the lead in North of North. To watch her interact with her Ice Cove neighbors on screen, we get the sense this is really where she grew up and how important village life is to her.

Like so many of us, Siaja went straight from high school into marriage (in this case with the most popular boy in school), then to motherhood. And like so many of us, she realizes that there is more to be experienced in life, even in little Ice Cove. As Siaja navigates a budding career at the community center, we get to experience her successes and failures and enjoy her optimism for what is yet to be.

Produced by Northwood Entertainment and Red Marrow Media, creators Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (both Inuuk) bring us another look into their world. Their previous work includes Reel Indigenous podcast favorites Throat Song, Twice Colonized, Slash/Back, Angry Inuk, and Tunniit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos, the documentary that helped spark the revitalization of customary markings in the Arctic. The two creators brought in some heavy hitters for directing, including Danis Goulet (Cree/Métis) of Night Raiders, Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Heiltsuk/ Mohawk) of Little Bird, Aleysa Young of Kim’s Convenience, Anya Adams of

Yellowjackets, and Renuka Jeyapalan of Kim’s Convenience.

The directors have a lot of talent to work with. In addition to Anna Lambe, Inuk goddess Tanya Tagaq appears throughout the series to whet our appetite. Maika Harper (Inuk), one of the stars of podcast-favorite, TV series Mohawk Girls, plays Siaja’s nuanced mother Neevee, who is fighting her own demons yet provides a home to her daughter and granddaughter. Mary Lynn Rajskub, costar of 24, is cast as the white lady who moved to Ice Cove to run the community center nearly 20 years ago who begrudgingly gives Siaja the opportunity she is craving. Zorga Qaunaq (Inuk), renowned graphic artist, jeweler, and tattooist, steps in as Millie, one of the wacky coworkers, along with Bailey Poching (Māori) as an Arctic transplant from New Zealand, with a shout-out to Indigenous radio stations.

Fan-favorite Doreen Nutaaq Simmonds (Iñupiaq) as Elisapee brings the judgy aana energy to the cast, providing a worthy foil to Siaja and Neevee’s shenanigans. This talented cast knows comedy, their communities, and how to keep us laughing.

The men of Ice Cove bring plenty of intrigue and comedy to the show. Kelly William (Secwépemc), who grew up in Xatśūll First Nation, as Siaja’s husband, Ting, makes you want to smack him on

above Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds (Iñupiaq) as Elisapee, left, and Zorga Qaunaq (Inuk) as Millie, right. Photo: Jasper Savage/Netflix.

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the head and give him a hug. His ego knows no bounds, but his love for his daughter shines through in their scenes together. But it’s the invasion of outsiders Kuuk and Alistair, played by Braeden Clarke (Mikisew Cree) and Jay Ryan respectively, that throws off the balance of Siaja’s and Neevee’s lives. Both are surprised to see Alistair because, turns out, he is Siaja’s father.

The fashions of Ice Cove are stunning. The parkas, furs, atikluks, and jewelry stand out. Inuit and First Nations artists lovingly create each piece. During Siaja’s romance dream in episode 6, the Regency-inspired Arctic dress is the stuff fantasies are made of. Viewers have sought out the exhaustive list of fashion artists, which the production team has shared on their social media channels.

Also of note is the soundtrack. Inuit artists such as Riit, Angela Amarualik, and Elisapie help set the tone of each episode with their songs and covers of pop hits such as “Levitating” and “Dreams,” all in Inuktitut. The music seamlessly combines with the art direction, wardrobe, and locations to build what creators call the best of the North, all in one place.

Each episode helps to highlight various issues that Native communities face,

but with a dash of humor and heart. It’s got Northern Exposure, Sex in the City, and I Love Lucy vibes, and we love it.

Seeing Siaja’s life as a literal dumpster fire was funny and poignant, but for me, the best episode was the fourth one, “Joy to the Effing World.” In this episode, our enthusiastic hero volunteers to help with Elders’ Night, which should be calm and peaceful. Instead, seeing how they react to her daughter visiting, she decides to mix it up a little for the next time. Siaja bribes the local kids with sugar and slushies, and they agree to go. While Siaja is working the slushie con on the kids, Neevee and Alistair reignite their physical relationship with an iconic line from him: “I like your earrings.”

Chaos reigns with the promised slushies and traditional games, and Elders’ Night ends with the death of one of the most beloved men of the village.

What happens next has remained in my heart ever since seeing it the first time.

Instead of being fired, Siaja gets a visit from another elder, Lazarus,1 who, with Millie as interpreter, shares what a gift that evening was to the community and how good it felt to be back to the old ways of having all of the generations together, sharing games, stories, and community.

Hearing his words in Inuktitut about joy and community from him and Millie, while washed in the golden glow of the Arctic summer sun, heals the soul.

The potential of a love triangle between Ting, Siaja, and Kuuk takes a turn in the other stand-out episode “Carnivore,” which begins with that stunning dress, travels to an unexpected place with sled dogs (yes, sled dogs), and screeches to an abrupt halt when Kuuk’s influencer-not-quite-girlfriend Alexis appears.

We have been gifted a second season, which hopefully will answer these questions: What will the influx of researchers bring? Will Neevee add the lost someone to the family? Will Alexis usurp Siaja in Helen’s eyes? Will Kuuk continue to successfully reconnect with the village? Will Ting continue to work on himself and win back Siaja? And are Siaja and Neevee actually the problem?

North of North is the rom-com we’ve been waiting for. The will-theywon’t-they of both mother and daughter keeps us guessing, and seeing Siaja growing up in front of the entire village keeps us cheering her on.

—Angela Startz (Iñupiaq), Reel Indigenous

1. Solomon Awa (Inuk) plays Lazarus. He is the mayor of Iqaluit where the show is filmed.

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MUSIC Only a Dream acbo Dylan Tenorio, 2024

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YLAN TENORIO (Kewa/ Diné) is a visual and sonic artist, as well as the co-executive director of Little Globe in Santa Fe. Dylan recently self-released Only a Dream on his Bandcamp account, created in collaboration with five local musicians: Ehren “KeeNatay” Natay (Kewa/Diné), Sienna “SXQ” Prillaman, Edie Tsong, Chris Jonas, and Nadiné Nizhoni (Diné).

Dylan is credited as producer, composer, and recording engineer. The result is a deep and uplifting sonic and conceptual experience. As I’m listening, I have the overwhelming thought that this is what the world needs to hear right now. acbo is Dylan’s moniker for his work as a musician and producer. “The core idea behind acbo is flipping a>b>c thinking to a>c>b, representing the use of dreams and imaginings,” he says. The moniker and explanation serve as a key for unlocking further nuanced understanding of his approach to this project.

The feeling throughout this album is that reality is elusive and we continue waking up over and over again. Forgetting and remembering who we are, who we’re becoming, being continuously reborn.

The album therefore becomes a sonic apparatus guiding the listener toward a beginner’s mind. Leaning into his drum and bass, jungle,1 and video game influences, this is high-quality DIY pop production. It sounds of this time and simultaneously any time, grounding us in the infinite now. A world inside unfurls, a mysterious and welcoming environment for introspection and reverence.

The album begins with river sounds and bird calls followed by long tones from a synthesizer. This provides an ecosystem

for SXQ’s dreamy voice to summon us, “Wake up, wake up from this tired dream / We are changing like the falling leaves / this is not the end but it’s the closest we’ve ever been.” SXQ is an artist, musician, vocalist, and writer as well as an arts and community organizer. The two artists met at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

“Wake,” track 2, is a continuation of track 1. SXQ sings “Brace Yourself, Embrace Yourself,” then a beat drops, and the album begins to move through space. SXQ provided the lyrics for the

of the world. Though the music is very dreamy, the intention and vision come through clearly.

The third track, “The Stones that Weep,” features saxophonist Chris Jonas.

Jonas is a cofounder of Little Globe and is an internationally renowned improviser and composer.

I spoke with Dylan about his intentions and the process of making this album.2 “The album is both a reflection of what’s happening in the world today and a personal reflection of my own

songs she sings, as did KeeNatay, Nadiné, and Edie for their respective songs. There is cohesion, however. The group seems to be of one mind as they navigate this terrain, making their entrance at varying moments along the way. There is a direct connection to each of their own personal experiences as well as their communal response to the dynamics

experience,” Dylan says. “When I was young, I nearly died. I drank lighter fluid at age four. I was lucky. I was rushed to the hospital in Santa Fe thanks to a local EMT station from the tribe. Ever since then, I’ve carried this feeling that life is somehow not quite real. Like I’ve been living in a dream. The album represents being in a liminal space—right before the

1. Jungle music is a genre of electronica with Jamaican influences that emerged from the United Kingdom in the 1990s.

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end of a dream—and almost being stuck between being awake and asleep at the same time. That idea sits at the core of how I composed these songs.”

Dylan continues: “Growing up in Kewa, there wasn’t really a way for me to hear that kind of music other than through video games. So video games have always had a big effect on my art in general. It’s also why I am a visual artist and designer as well! My dad got a dark sci-fi cyberpunk game called Forsaken for our family Nintendo 64 console, and the music on that features a lot of what I know of as techno when I was a kid. I later learned a lot of it was actually jungle and drum and bass influenced. For me that kind of music represented the future and growing up on the rez with the music of my people. I felt like I was both in ancient times and the far future at the same time. Through this type of music, I was able to express deep feelings of swift joy or reveal pain. Also, my grandparents on my mother’s side, Grandpa Esquipula and Grandma Mazie, are jewelers,

and they first taught me the methods of producing necklaces, all the way from the concept, stringing the pattern, to polishing, adding silver, and finishing.

This has always been something that has affected the way I see creating any art, including my music production. When I make beats, I often feel I am crafting songs in the same way my grandparents crafted necklaces.”

He reflects on his audience. “I want the listeners, especially Gen Z, to know that they are not alone, that there are so many voices behind you, and that despite the dire circumstances, we all need to wake up and realize that we can make this world a far better place than our current leaders are building for us right now.

We need people to stand up, but that applies to all the kids of all generations.

We need you too! I hope for my Indigenous youth, that they hear this album and see it as a soundtrack for right now.

I hope this is a gentle reminder that we are in this together, and that there is still good worth fighting for.”

—Thollem

“I hope this is a gentle reminder that we are in this together, and that there is still good worth fighting for.”

above Dylan Tenorio (Kewa/ Diné) of acbo and co-executive director of Little Globe. Photo: Little Globe. opposite Cover of Only a Dream cover, by acbo, 2024.

2. My full interview with Dylan Tenorio is available on the FAAM website at firstamerican.art/dylan-tenorio.

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BOOKS From the Rez to the Runway: Forging My Path in Fashion Christian Allaire HarperCollins Publishers, 2025

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HIS VIVID MEMOIR follows Ojibwe fashion journalist Christian Allaire’s journey from the Nipissing First Nation’s reserve to the hallways of Vogue magazine.

Allaire’s earlier book, The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures (Annick Press, 2021), analyzes the importance of cultural influences within the fashion industry and focuses on the contributions of others.

From the Rez to the Runway puts a warm spotlight directly on Allaire.

Written in a distinctly different voice from his previous works, Allaire takes the reader back to his childhood among piles of his mother’s fashion magazines, Jeanne Beker’s Fashion Television, and Ojibwe dance regalia.

Allaire’s use of language and imagery creates a narrative that sucks the reader into a world of luxury highlighted by descriptions of silken fabrics and colorful ribbons firmly punctuated by long nights behind a keyboard and tight publishing deadlines.

Allaire recounts a version of himself throughout his early childhood and into adulthood in which he is absolutely smitten with the world of fashion and design.

He presents a vignette of a little Native boy who spends his days dodging nosey aunties and poring over stacks upon stacks of fashion magazines, all their covers reading VOGUE over glamorous images of the hottest models of the season. This

image morphs into a teenager obsessed with creating the perfect outfits for school, only to face bullying and intimidation from classmates who take shots at his admitted effeminate style. The teen grows into a young adult, side-stepping tyrannical bosses while climbing the corporate ladder to, hopefully, become the fashion journalist he had always wanted to be. He struggles with poor self-image, impostor syndrome, and chemical dependency, all while grappling with his own

sexuality and the pitfalls of dating in a crowded city.

The narrative hooks the reader immediately in Maadkamgad (The Beginning). The prologue recounts Allaire’s first visit to the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2019. There, the runway bursts with color, patterns, and texture impacted by centuries of tribal influence worn by Natives from all over North America.

Models flood the streets, decked out in their tribal couture. It’s here where Allaire asks himself, “Bro, are you even Native?”

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The lack of Native-made clothing within his own wardrobe stirs his insecurity of “not Native enough,” which is a recurring sentiment throughout the memoir. His early concept of fashion didn’t include his Indigenous heritage and instead focused on the distinctly white styles; the rez didn’t quite look like the runways he saw in magazines. “Growing up, I’ve always struggled with my Native identity,” Allaire writes on page six. “My mother is Ojibwe, and my father is French Canadian and Italian. I inherited Dad’s fair complexion, so all my life, I’ve been told I don’t ‘look Native.’”

Working past his insecurities, Allaire starts to use his platform as a writer to pave the way for Indigenous artists in the designer scene.

He describes several direct messages and emails from skeptical Native models and designers alike, surprised to find themselves featured in Vogue articles.

Allaire’s determination pushes aside any speculation of where Natives stand in fashion. As he writes on page 91, “If nobody else [in the mainstream press] was going to write about Native fashion, then I’d simply have to do it myself.” Spurred on by the Black Lives Matter movement, Allaire is inspired to not only write features and promote Indigenous fashion but also encourage and advance lesserknown designers of color. He takes his anxiety of being a Native in a historically white space and reworks it into an entryway into the industry for all.

In a throwback to the beginning of the book (Maadkamgad), Allaire uses Aanji Nake-Bmoseyan (Changing Directions) at the end of the book to reintroduce the Santa Fe Indian Market. Unlike in 2019, Allaire does not question his place as a fashion journalist at the 2022 market. Instead, he uses it as an opportunity to show how far he’s come. His impostor syndrome and jealousy are still present, but rather than let

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them crush him, he uses them as fuel to continue including undiscovered artists.

He recounts stories of powwows full of fancy dancers and jingle dresses, and how their elaborate clothing is just as (if not more) regal and magnificent than any of the designer pieces he’s seen on predominantly white runways.

Because of this passion, designers, models, and other Indigenous creatives are now seeing their admission into the mainstream world of couture and luxury.

From overbearing aunties and awkward first dates to difficult bosses and unglamorous internships, Allaire is proof that you can chase your dreams without forgetting your culture. Allaire’s memoir uses clear, concise language to describe the esoteric fashion world, making From the Rez to the Runway a must-read. His story serves as a reminder to stay true to your authentic self, from start to finish.

—Isabella Fuller (Seminole Nation/Creek)

styles and subject matter appear in artistic vocabulary throughout the globe, but without their Indigenous context. Particularly since the “New Tribalism” wave of tattooing went mainstream in the 1980s, many tattooing styles and motifs are in the public eye but without their context.

While the spirals and curls of Polynesian creation are universally recognized, Lars Krutak laments the mostly forgotten meaning behind them. Māori designs held personal and political authority; so much so, that many first-contact era

Skin and Ink, Krutak offers a new perspective on global Indigenous body art: “Tattooing, as a medium of traditional knowledge transmission, broadcast essential Indigenous values … [and tattooing itself] bound the tattoo recipient to a deeply felt collective history. In turn, tattooing traced a pathway through the world that individuals navigated in their attempts to acquire new knowledge of themselves and their positions in the world.” Krutak provides several exam-

Māori authorities would draw their tattoos in lieu of a written signature.

Krutak is certainly the expert to speak internationally on the meaning of tattoos. Having done graduate scholarship on Indigenous Unangan tattoos and research in the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, Krutak has traveled the globe as a lifelong anthropologist. His most recent publication is but a slice of his international research.

In the introduction to Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through

ples of Indigenous languages whose word for “tattoo” translates more accurately to “writing,” or “memory.” In oral cultures, tattoos are a form of heraldry and writing whose meaning is fully realized through the living context of Indigenous society.

As a reader uninformed about tattoo culture, Krutak’s introduction provided a meaningful foundation. Then as a FAAM reviewer, I flipped straight to the chapters on North and South America (1 and 2, respectively). Krutak covers the

Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through Skin and Ink Lars Krutak Princeton University Press, 2025

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HE ARTISTIC MEDIUM of tattoos is widespread and ancient.

Much like war, marriage, and taxes, most societies on earth developed some form or another of tattooing to decorate the human body.

Motifs and meanings varied between men and women and across cultures, but worldwide, individuals have used tattoos to identify themselves within their community. In the words of Lars Krutak, “For more than 5,000 years, Indigenous or tribal tattoos have chronicled human history, one painful mark at a time. Spanning numerous ancestral lands, cultures and continents, tattooing has adorned ancient Europeans, Native Americans, Polynesians, Southeast Asians, Africans, and seemingly everyone in between.”

Like many art forms in the contemporary world, Indigenous tattoo

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peoples of Canada, Greenland, and the comparison to other parts of the world Grosso, Brazil) all provide explanations of their work in living context.

United States in “North America,” and for a neutral reader.

One minor concern, inevitable with Latin America from Mexico to ArgenHe follows a similar pattern for his tina in “South America.” While readers chapter on South America. In addition a survey of such breadth, is the occamay take issue with this geographical to simultaneously examining pre- and sional blur of past and present practices error, the discussion of global indigene- post-Hispanic contact, he also tackles and beliefs. Certain assertions in Krutak’s ity including Polynesians, Arabic peoples, three broad regions (the Amazon, Andes, text feel “floaty” without a clear context Tuaregs, North and South American and Pampas of the Gran Chaco) in 20 in chronology. This is not a flaw in KruIndigenous peoples, and East Asians is pages. He selects his case studies to be tak’s research but rather a challenge in the intriguing, particularly with his explo- simultaneous exploration of past history enlightening.

One of Krutak’s most laudable ration of golden figures that bear tattoos and present-day communities.

Krutak’s goal is ambitious and achievements is the impact he leaves on shared with their human makers. brisk. Obviously any coverthe reader through his careage of an art form, its history, fully chosen, visual layout. ceremonial meaning, and Historical and contemporary existing continuity across painted portraits, paintings all of the Americas can’t be from non-Indigenous natcovered in a single book, uralists, and photographs never mind two chapters. all provide tangible, picHowever, Krutak’s goal is not tural roots to Krutak’s story. to comprehensively exhaust Through scientific illustraall details and controversies tions, Krutak’s artistic team around tattoo. Rather, he are able to clearly reconaims to explore Indigenous struct tattoo designs partially tattooing within Indigenous obscured through limited contexts, as opposed to just photography or concealexamining the roots of “New ing portrait postures. The Tribalism” mainstream tatcombination of artistic, histoos. The wide breadth of his torical, and anthropological examples, the artworks from presentation demonstrates across centuries, and his due Krutak’s breadth of visual diligence with living Native anthropology. tattooers are admirable.

Krutak’s many jourKrutak’s work is not neys, through historical groundbreaking, but it is collections and the geoexemplary. Indigenous Tattoo graphic world, present a Traditions is a good survey, collection of case studies and well-reinforced cabinet of show-stopping photographs specimens and sources, and and artwork. Because of the a respectful and responsible sheer scale and variety of above Qom woman of Argentina with facial tattooing, ca. 1905, from Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through Skin and Ink. Her tattoos engagement with contemnorthern Native America, were drawn over in the original photograph. porary Indigenous artists his selections are anecdotal by necessity. On one and communities.

Both as a story of Indigenous art page, he explains the spiritual weight of In addition to Krutak’s broad Mojave women’s tattoos, and on the next visual curation, the greatest strength of within Indigenous context and as an he details the tattooing process of the Indigenous Tattoo Traditions is the deep introduction to ethical and comprehenAkimel O'odham and their cactus nee- interaction with living tattoo artists. sive current research, this book earns dle tools. For an experienced scholar of Through detailed interviews, Indige- a recommendation for newly interNorth American Indigenous topics, the nous tattooists speak for themselves and ested readers of culture and history, brief descriptions of potlatches that host explain the meaning of tattoos in their particularly those drawn to powerful tattooists or of ceremonies that connect contemporary communities. Dion Kaszas photography and visually compelling to symbols will not bring new revelations. (Nlaka'pamux, British Columbia) and artwork. Among tattoo enthusiasts espeHowever, Krutak’s summaries as part Paninnguaq Pikilak (Kalaaleq, Green- cially, Krutak will certainly leave a mark. of a global primer on tattoos give solid land) and several Kayabí artists (Mato —James Bland, PhD 110 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

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Reenvisioning Histories of American Art: Transforming Museum Practice Edited by Jami C. Powell and Michael W. Hartman University of Washington Press, 2025

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DITORS Jami C. Powell (Osage) and Michael W. Hartman curated a collection of essays and articles by various contributors that brings focus to an area in the museum world that has recently become more prominent. Museums face decisions on how to address racism, violence, human rights, and complex histories which cannot be avoided when accurately teaching American art. Native American, African-American, Asian American, Latine, LGBTQ+, and women’s art are all integral parts of American culture, and as the book points out, “Past versions of American art were not wrong but, rather, incomplete.” By approaching the compilation of the book as a cohort of authors, it is analogous to a literary “gallery” where many different perspectives, issues, and solutions are offered to the reader. An apt thought, as the idea for the book stemmed from an exhibition titled This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World (2022). The contributors’ disciplines range from art history, anthropology, gender and sexuality, and ethnic studies, and along with curators and general scholars, they present their experiences and journeys in bridging the gaps. This anthology was written with the intention of being a starting point and a seed for continued progress in rethinking how stories are told to museum patrons.

While the book covers African-American and Asian-American art, the focus is on Native American art.

Right from the start, the book addresses land acknowledgments, which have become commonplace at museums

and academic institutions. The question of whether the land acknowledgment has become performative or obligatory is one that is answered by how well the institution or facility backs up the statement with action. The suggestion is made that instead of inserting artists into preexist-

ing histories, new methods for curating, exhibiting, and teaching need to be developed. While many museums venture into their first Native American art exhibition as a result of writing their land acknowledgment statement, they often stop there. Many challenges are faced when developing such an exhibition when not organized within the context of tribal consultation, and the context is often much different than European-American art. The complexity of hundreds of different cultures, languages, and histories is difficult for an outsider to understand

without proper consultation with the communities represented. History is also told not just by the imagery but by other facets of the art, such as materials and techniques used.

The essays draw from a range of disciplines as well. Involving living culture bearers in storage, care, conservation, interpretation, and other important parts of curation is becoming more commonplace and is also an integral part of new thinking. As Janet Dees and Alisa Swindell point out: “Transforming decades-old ways of working is not always an easy process, and those leading these transitions sometimes face pushback from within and outside the institutions, but their work is necessary to support expanding definitions of American art. Collaborative curating can become a model of mentorship on both sides—a push-pull as well as a system of mutual support.

Collaborative curating can also give opportunity for authentic collaterals for public outreach and classroom use.”

Collaboration is a theme that is repeated over and over in this book. In fact, one of the essays is the transcription of a Zoom conference to discuss the possibilities for expanding curatorial practice within the field of American art. The discussion presented challenges and possibilities facing projects that were aimed at making American art more inclusive, accessible, and relevant while also dealing with histories and practices rooted in colonialism, exclusion, and dispossession. The conversation also touched on pushback from superiors.

Mestiza/Tohono O'odham descendant and curator Anya Montiel’s essay begins by quoting Lee-Ann Martin (Bay of Quinte Mohawk) from her contribution, “Negotiating Space for Aboriginal Art:” “Art galleries must engage in a self-critical process that recognizes the historical reasons for the underrepresentation, misrepresentation, and exclusion

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of Aboriginal art.” This directive is explored more throughout the essay, which documents the Native art acquisitions for the 50th anniversary of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.

The exhibition gave the museum the opportunity to take on an aggressive acquisitions campaign and add more work by Native artists to the permanent collection. This was part of the mission of not only celebrating the history of the museum but envisioning the future while reflecting on that past. Montiel’s chapter not only addresses how this challenge transpired and was resolved (with 219 new acquisitions) but also shares some of the history of the other Smithsonian museums, such as the National Museum of the American Indian. Acquisition importance was highlighted by a quote from secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch III, “The job of a museum is not just to look back. It’s to collect today for tomorrow.”

An essay by Mindy N. Besaw may particularly speak to curators who have shown non-Native work that touches on Native topics as representation of the Native histories and cultures, such as paintings by Frederic Remington. An iconic American artist who does not fit into the classic European art mold, he is often referenced and his work is included in exhibitions and literature, becoming a pseudo-representation of the Native world and history of the 19th-century American West. The author cites Remington’s personal history, including his strong negative opinions on the influx of immigrants to the United States and denigration of women, and asks the question, “How do we find relevance for Remington and his artwork, today?” Does the curator downplay the artwork as out of fashion? Just what is the best approach?

Does one pair the work with Native work and use the opportunity to tell a complete story? This is where collaboration shines and has the unique challenge of helping the public to unlearn and learn. One such suggestion is asking the viewer questions such as who is hunting on whose land, or whose land is this cowboy on?

Not every example cited by the scholars requires huge policy changes, grants, or blatant moves. Subtle but impactful measures are suggested, such as bilingual labels which may give better interpretations to the art. Different approaches to label writing are just as effective. For example, “Rather than devoting the label to the central figure, we hoped to draw attention to the landscape at which he points, using a local Indigenous language to describe its significance.”

The general message of this book can be summed up in the foreword where John R. Stromberg writes that “it hardly seems reasonable to start the art historical record of this land with the arrival of European explorers in the sixteenth-century CE or to focus on the cultural output of those new arrivals and their successors. And yet that is what the field of American art history has typically done—begun with the onset of colonizers from abroad and focused almost exclusively on their culture in isolation from rich Indigenous traditions.”

—Lisa LaRue-Baker (Cherokee Nation)

LISA BAKER ᏩᏚᎵᏏ ᏗᎦᏚᎲᏍᎩ

Citizen of the Cherokee Nation Contemporary Cherokee Basketry Available inventory and accepting commissions 785arts@gmail.com 785arts.com

ART+LIT

Inuk Poet & Author

JAMESIE FOURNIER

By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD More recently, Fournier expanded his creative practice to include film scripts and voice acting and has contributed to the Audible Indigenous Writers’ Circle and the NBC IDA Indigenous Screenwriter Program. His debut children’s book, Lemming’s First Christmas, was released during the 2024 holiday season.

I communicated with Fournier through a series of email exchanges.

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AISED IN DENENDEH in Northwest Territories, Jamesie Fournier is currently based in Iqaluit, Nunavut. An Inuit writer and poet, he is recognized for his work in the speculative fiction genre Inuit Horror.

Influenced by authors such as Margaret Laurence, Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), and Richard Van Camp (Tłı̨ chǫ Dene), Fournier uses generational storytelling to explore themes of fear, mortality, monsters, and suspense.

His debut book, The Other Ones, was published in 2022 by Inhabit Media and received critical acclaim, earning a Silver

Award in the Horror category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

His second release, Elements, a bilingual poetry collection written in Inuktitut and English, delves into trauma and recovery. The collection was shortlisted for the 2024 Indigenous Voices Award and won the 2024 NorthWords NWT Book Award. Fournier’s writing has also appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including Northern Public Affairs, Inuit Art Quarterly, Up Here, Material Journal, Literary Review of Canada, and the edited volumes Coming Home: Stories from the Northwest Territories and Ndè Sı̀ı̀ Wet'aɂà: Northern Indigenous Voices on Land, Life & Art.

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MRS: What attracts you to horror?

Something about its relationship to the human experience is so fascinating.

JF: Yes, let’s dive in! In the beginning there was the word—and that word was fear. Fear is our primary instinct.

Our well-being seems to have evolved around it. It drives survivalism, kicks in our flight or fright or freeze response, and implores our anxieties to take action. It is our greatest source of strength. We are hardwired to be afraid. We are startled into action when we jump scare in the theater or when the plane suddenly dips beneath our feet and our souls drop.

Our instincts kick in, and we struggle to keep ourselves together. It is a beneficial, intelligent reaction to be weary and take precautions. Only fools venture out fearlessly, and they are usually the first to die.

You cannot be brave if you do not know what you are afraid of.

That universality is what attracts me to horror. We all experience it in one way or another. I think from a young age I saw there was power in fear, not shying away from what would naturally bid us to turn away. Not to say that I do not get afraid; lots of things scare me. Grey aliens and abductions switch me right out. Fingernail wounds make me really squeamish. And yet nothing compares to a piece of seaweed brushing against your foot mid-swim to remind you that you are imminently going to die. Fear is

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fun. I like to believe there are monsters lurking in the deep.

MRS: What are the origins of Inuit horror, and how does it connect to themes and tropes in historical Inuit storytelling and legends?

JF: I enjoy our Inuit mythos. To me, Inuit storytelling has always held a degree of horror. My introduction to our lore was cautionary as a child. What not to do, which I see the logic in. When you are afraid, you are alert. When you are afraid, you are aware of your surroundings. You do as you’re told. Our stories were meant to scare but to ultimately keep us safe.

Youth yields to experience, something trauma is well-suited for, which our stories are chock-full of. Yet our stories are not all doom and gloom.

There is brightness, beauty, and laughter in our stories. And as with any culture, our storytelling serves a purpose. There is a reason. A point. And, as jagged as it may be, stories are a great vehicle for passing along knowledge, and the genre of that knowledge in Inuit culture is usually one of fear.

MRS: The best horror films can arguably dig into the marrow of our instinctive traits as human beings and prompt us to reflect on universal fears. Take The Shining for instance.

It speaks to fears of isolation, confinement, murder, and, at the end of the film, the overwhelming power of nature. So what do you see as the value of feeling scared?

JF: Being scared shows you, by force if necessary, what it is you hold dear by immediately throwing it in danger. The Tłı̨ chǫ writer Richard Van Camp speaks beautifully about the stakes of horror and how it manifests this sense of selfrealization that forces you to look at yourself and what you want in life. What makes being scared work is when it hits home and becomes personal—when it has invaded your sense of reality, and you relate and identify with the dawning horror of what is happening. It shakes your sense of security about who you are as a person.

I’m glad you brought up The Shining because that is a great example of a story that hits home because, as I get older, it becomes harder and harder to watch.

You have a father who is a writer and an educator whose grip with reality becomes more and more unhinged and haunted as he falls into alcoholism and abuse. He hurts the ones who love him best. All themes I struggle with. So now when I watch that film, I just get depressed and disturbed at how much I identify with Jack Torrance, which is not a good thing!

The sequel is also magnificent for this and equally, horribly relatable. So, that is a sign of a good horror tale: when the bullet has hit the bone and the vicariousness becomes too real.

MRS: Do you remember the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books? That was my first introduction to horror, and it still makes my skin crawl. There are very often moral teachings even in the darkest of tales. What do you

You cannot be brave if you do not know what you are afraid of.

a b ov e Le m m i n g ' s F i r s t Christmas (Inhabit Media, 2024), cover art by Tim Mack.

Image courtesy of the author. opposite Jamesie Fournier. Both images courtesy of the artist.

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rule. Then that rule is broken to which there are consequences. A reckoning is had before our character finally returns home to see what their new normal is (after having been sufficiently, beautifully traumatized).

I do not remember reading any of those Scary Stories books, but I do remember seeing their ghastly covers in the school libraries as a child. I did read a couple Goosebumps and watched Are You Afraid of the Dark? As a kid, I enjoyed going to the mystery section in the nonfiction aisles and getting creeped out reading about cryptids, aliens, ghosts, bigfoot, Mothman, the Bermuda Triangle, Flatwoods Monster, you name it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is the same dreadful, fantastic fascination I shared with Inuit storytelling as well.

Horror helps us appreciate what we have in life by pressing a knife against the throat.

above The Other Ones (Inhabit Media, 2023), cover art by Toma Feizo Gas. opposite Erica Jacque (Inuk), Untitled, pen and ink, graphite and acrylic on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

think the morals of Inuit stories have in common?

JF: Inuit storytelling loves cautionary tales. A rule or taboo is presented, consequences explained, and, like any individual, our knee-jerk reaction at being told what to do forces our hand and we do exactly the opposite. The characters have the choice to honor what they have been told. And do they? Unfortunately— or perhaps, for our sake, gratefully—they do not. For if they hadn’t done what we had told them not to do there would be no story. A workshop I facilitate on creative writing sets up a simple horror premise: begin with a standard day in the life of your character that leads into the character being cautioned with a

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MRS: What is your favorite Inuit story that relates to horror in some capacity?

JF: There are so many! The Qallupilluit I think many Inuit can identify as being among our most favorite. They live under the ocean and steal children who get too close to the cracks in the ice. You can hear them knocking underneath as they search for children along the winter shore.

Another story that sticks out is one about our great hero Kiviuq and his many foolish trials. In one story he meets a mother and a daughter and is soon wed to the daughter. However, the mother becomes jealous and murders her daughter while Kiviuq is away. The mother then wears her daughter’s skin as a disguise.

Kiviuq returns, then lets this charade continue for some time before he finally decides to do something about it and runs away. So, I think about that a lot: the waiting, Kiviuq feigning belief, contemplating what to do as he keeps polite conversation with the mother as she smiles sweetly behind her daughter’s face.

MRS: I’ve thought quite a bit about the emotional toll of engaging with horrific subject matter since my early academic work dealt with the representation of trauma. Do you find this to be true? If so, how do you balance

ART+LIT

your work in horror with more positive, affirming activities?

JF: Trauma makes knowledge memorable, unfortunately. When we are traumatized, we pick at our scars constantly like an open wound, no matter how much we wish we could let it be. Horror makes a spectacle of trauma; some delight in the violence, others sympathize or identify with its pain. It seems to hit empathy the hardest, which I think is what horror aspires to do—the part of us that cares for one another is either enflamed or bruised. Traumatized.

We become sad, nauseous, or rejoice in its violent, graphic splendor.

The Anishinaabe writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler [Lac des Mille Lacs Saulteaux] spoke of how a fortunate aspect of horror is that it builds and releases tension and allows us to cathartically process frustrations, traumas, and heartbreak. We feel it all as we are pulled into a bleak singularity. Also, Van Camp taught me that another aspect of horror is that it shows you what you value by putting it in danger. In that respect, you

focus on the positive aspects in your life, the things you want to cherish. Horror helps us appreciate what we have in life by pressing a knife against the throat.

MRS: How do we get more Inuit stories out into the world? How do we, especially in the South, support Inuit writers and poets?

JF: There is honestly so much happening out there—it’s exciting! Inuit content is becoming more and more widespread and accessible. Films, TV series, music, theatre, literature, jewelry, art. Inuit are immensely talented and creative. It is beautiful to witness. Nyla Innuksuk came out with Slash/Back in 2022. North of North by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril starring Anna Lambe, is wildly, hilariously successful, features Inuit music and actors, and is filmed in Nunavut! The award-winning True Detective: Night Country features Inupiat actors, stories, and highlights silenced voices. Inhabit Media, an Inuitowned publishing company, offers a host of Inuit writers and artists from all across

the North. Ashley Qilavaq-Savard, filmmaker and poet, published her own book of poetry, Where the Sea Kuniks the Land, in 2022, and released her own horror film short, Reclaim, in 2024. Also in 2024, Emily Laurent-Henderson, associate curator of Indigenous Art and Culture at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, released her own book of poetry, Hold Steady My Vision. Qaggiavuut’s theater troupe Takannaaluk performed Sandi Vincent’s play in Ottawa and Greenland.

Taqralik Partridge has won countless accolades for her art and poetry. Reneltta Arluk, celebrated actor and playwright, has a book of her own poetry as well.

The list goes on; this is just a glimpse of what I have come across in my narrow field of vision, but it just goes to show there is a lot happening out there and a lot to be excited about.

MRS: What projects are you currently working on? I read that you’re writing a screenplay based on Mad Max but set in the Arctic, which sounds incredible.

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RAVENS It smells like Ravens dressed in corpses.

Like powdered bleach and sterile hospitals sick with laughter.

Children run amok in cathedral wards Chapels - they’re called chapels, Jamesie.

How hard it hits, enough to raise a bruise.

Blood weeping through pores.

Scabbing like sandpaper.

Wear your wounds with pride, son.

Marvel at their complexity.

Return to soil smelling of burnt matchsticks.

Like fish in frozen lakewater - you’ll survive an age.

Palms open to the sky like satellite dishes praying to distant galaxies. hoping that comfort stolen from us and replaced with intolerable burden will return in the morning sun.

Taaq!

Oh how the weather changes when we steal from the grave.

—Jamesie Fournier (Inuk)

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above Elements (Inhabit Media, 2024). Image courtesy of the author. left Erica Jacque (Inuk), Untitled (Still Life), 2025, illustration on paper.

Image courtesy of the artist.

JF: Hah, there’s lots! I keep telling myself I’m going to start saying no to projects, but they all sound so irresistible! However, I cannot complain, these are good problems to have. I’m working on a short story collection that has been an incredible journey of its own. We just finished an interactive exhibit at the Montréal Science Centre. We are making a stop-motion adaptation of The Other Ones and an animated short of Lemming’s First Christmas. We’re organizing the Nunavut International Film Festival. I teach online with schools across Canada through Connected North.

I just finished a talk with CBC Ideas on the intersectionality of Inuit storytelling and horror narratives and performed a poem with the amazing musician Sean Robson out of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. And this past year I have been trying my hand at screenwriting with Taqqut Productions, an Inuit-owned production company, in developing a number of projects, one of which is about Arctic Indigenous retro-futurism dealing with this same idea on the survivalism of culture: how it has evolved and how it remains true to its timeless self.

I’ve been trying to keep busy, and, in that regard, I have not failed. However, the quality of work is another story entirely.

But I should not be so self-critical. Only time will tell!

ART+LIT

ERICA JACQUE THIS EMERGING ARTIST, culture bearer, and activist is originally from KipukKak (Postville), Nunatsiavut in Newfoundland and Labrador, near the Kaipokok Bay. When Erica Jaque (Inuk) was featured in Art+Lit in FAAM No. 37, Winter 2023, she was primarily working in embroidery, which remains her medium of choice. Lately she’s been experimenting more with acrylic, watercolor, and digital painting. Her painting practice recently culminated in designing and painting an original mural at Aqsarniit Middle School with assistance from her brother James Jacque (Inuk), a digital illustrator and animator.

The school is in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, where Erica currently lives.

She served as a student support assistant at the school for two years, providing guidance for students and faculty.

Erica continues honing her skills in tunniit, or customary women’s tattoos, and has been exploring digital design and animation. In April 2025 she was a featured artist with Big Land, Bold Voices: Labrador Artists.

A language activist, Erica is a founding member of LOVE Inuktut, a grassroots organization seeking to sustain and promote all 11 dialects of the Inuktut language spoken in Canada. Nine Inuit youths formed the organization, and LOVE is an acronym for “learn, observe, vocalize, and empower.” LOVE Inuktut won a $100,000 grant from the Arctic Inspiration Prize in May 2025. They want to collaborate with elders and fluent speakers to create an app with resources for all Canadian Inuktut dialects.

Erica Jacque’s artwork can be seen on Instagram @erica_jacque.embroidery.

—America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

right, above Erica Jacque (Inuk), Hunt seal. Eat seal. Be seal., 2023, Procreate digital illustration, dimensions variable. right Erica Jacque (Inuk), Berry Patch, 2023, watercolor on paper, 9 × 12 in., private collection. Both images courtesy of the artist.

FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 119

MEMORIAL

JENNY IRENE March 14, 1988–April 28, 2025

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LASKA IS MOURNIn the photographic project Dear ING THE LOSS of Kin, she and filmmaker Alexis Jenny Irene (Inupiaq), Sallee (Inupiaq/Mexican-Ameriwho left this world on can) created portraits of LGBTQ+ April 28, 2025, while traveling Alaska Native community memto teach a photography workbers to claim space and celebrate shop for youth in the village of these identities. Jenny wrote that Nanwalek, Alaska. “being grounded in my Inupiaq Jenny, also known by her culture has given me strength and Inupiaq name Wiagañmiu, propelled me into my work around was born in Sitŋasuaq (Nome) decolonizing gender and sexualand had family roots in Wales, ity.”1 She hoped that her work Alaska. She grew up between would create an archive so that Nome and Fairbanks and had “future generations will have peospent the past few years living ple in their community to perhaps in Anchorage with her spouse, look up to and to learn from.”2 Nora. Jenny came from a family Jenny’s recent accomof well-known artists, and her plishments include serving as a grandfather, Willie Senungetuk, photographer for the Smithsowas a whaling captain. nian-sponsored project “Woven She started using cameras Together: Taperrnaq Research as a child to document her life and Art” (2024–25). She was an and the landscapes around her April 2025 resident artist at Bunon the shores of the Bering Sea. nell Street Arts Center, where Jenny attended the University of Jenny Irene (Inupiaq), Self Portrait, photograph. Image courtesy her solo exhibition, On this sand of the family of Jenny Irene.

Washington, where she received (together), focused on images of her BFA in photography and later climate change and her family’s earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico. Along with beloved fish camp outside of Nome. Also in April, the Anchorher work in photography, Jenny experimented with installation, age Museum exhibited her work in a pop-up installation for the video, and sound sculpture, and worked with cyanotype on fish project “Chitl’ idghalnen (The snow has melted).” Her contribuskin and fabric garments. Her work sometimes incorporated tion, We attempt to hold onto our memories, at the water’s edge, archival photographs of her family. She loved teaching and shar- even after the land is gone, displayed a Bering Sea landscape ing her work with others. She led photography workshops for partially obscured by a printed silk.

Her work was exhibited internationally at the Winnipeg youth in rural Alaska and was scheduled to teach a photography course this fall at the University of Alaska–Anchorage. Jenny Art Gallery, Haus Kunst Mitte, Portland Art Museum, SITE appreciated creating work that engaged audiences to interact, Santa Fe, and IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. sometimes concealing details through layering or placing work Jenny received many awards including those from the Alaska Humanities Forum, National Geographic, and Fulbright Canso that viewers would have to bend down to experience it.

Jenny’s work centered around family, community, and place ada. Her work was published in Inuit Art Quarterly, The New as well as Indigenous joy, identity, and memory. She considered York Times, National Geographic, Canadian Art, Fifth Wheel her photography as a way to reflect, as she wrote, “quiet conver- Press, Forum Magazine, and Lenscratch. She was a cherished sations with individuals and with place.” In a recent exchange, board member at Native Movement and a steering committee she shared with me that she saw connections between her pho- member at the Alaska Native Arts Foundation.

Jenny was a precious friend, a mentor to many, and a lovtographic practice and Inupiaq hunting culture. She explained, “Hunters have to know how to read a landscape with patience, ing spouse to Nora. In a recent essay Jenny shared, “My work fills in a space of loss and keeps me connected to loved ones.”3 paying attention to subtle changes in light to read weather.”

Jenny was a role model and mentor for LGBTQ+ commu- Jenny, you will be greatly missed and long remembered.

—Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) nities, especially Alaska Native trans and two-spirit communities.

1. Jenny Irene Miller, “The Many Ways We Love,” Canadian Art, April 19, 2019, web.

2. Jenny Irene Miller, “A moving love letter to queer Indigenous folks,” Xtra*, September 30, 2019, web.

3. Jenny Irene, “On this sand (together),” in How to Survive: Practicing Care in a Changing Climate, ed. Francesca Du Brock (Munich: Hirmer, 2025), 119.

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MEMORIAL

ABEL RODRÍGUEZ 1941–April 9, 2025

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EEP IN THE COLOMBIAN AMAZON, near the border with Peru, a child named Mogaje Guihu (“Resplendent Hawk Feather” in the Nonuya language) grew up surrounded by towering trees, medicinal plants, and ancestral stories. Years later, the world would come to know him as Abel Rodríguez (Nonuya), an artist, botanist, and one of the most important Indigenous voices in contemporary art.

Rodríguez dedicated his life to preserving the ecological, spiritual, and cultural knowledge of his community through meticulous drawings of the rainforest.

Rodríguez’s trajectory as an artist didn’t begin in nature but in the concrete jungle of Bogotá. In the 1990s, violence forced him to abandon his territory. Arriving in the capital with nearly empty pockets, he approached the Dutch NGO Tropenbos International, which promotes forest conservation. Having previously worked with them as a guide identifying plants in his territory, he began translating his encyclopedic knowledge into visual form. “I draw by remembering but also by guessing,” he once said. “Just as the palm tree is in my mind, I begin to extract the roots, the trunk, the bark, the crown, and the branches, pulling them out into the air and onto the paper.”1 His drawings—delicate renderings of trees, leaves, rivers, and entire ecosystems—became a way to transmit untranslatable knowledge in a form accessible across cultures. Throughout his career, Abel Rodríguez drew more than 400 species of trees from memory, his mind traveling back through smells, sounds, and sensations to the forest that had shaped him. His works function as maps, documenting not only physical appearances but complex ecological relationships and medicinal properties.

To many in the international art world, Rodríguez’s rise may have seemed sudden, but it was the result of decades of patient work. His drawings were shown

above Abel Rodríguez (Nonuya) receives Prince Claus Prize in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2014. Photo: Patrick van Katwijk. © dpa / Alamy Live News.

in Documenta 14 in Kassel (2017), the 34th São Paulo Biennial (2021), the Toronto Biennial (2022), the 23rd Biennale of Sydney (2022), the 14th Gwangju Biennale in Korea (2023), and the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). His work resides in the collections of the Tate Modern, Cornell University, and KADIST. In 2014 he received the Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, recognizing his contribution to the global understanding of the deep interconnection between culture and nature.

In Colombia, Rodríguez’s legacy extends beyond exhibitions and awards.

Known as the “nombrador de plantas” (namer of plants), his work is valued not only for its artistic merit but also for its contribution to ethnobotanical knowledge and cultural preservation. The National Museum of Colombia called his drawings “a vivid testimony of the intimate relationship between human beings and the forest, and a form of re-

sistance against forgetting and cultural disappearance.”2 His most renowned piece, El árbol de la vida y la abundancia (2016), is a visual telling of the Nonuya creation story, of one tree’s abundant canopy nourishing an entire ecosystem. Other works like Lugar de la Maloca (2014) and Figura Tierra Centro (2014) transmit a vision of nature as living memory, each drawing a portal to the worldview of the Nonuya.

Though Rodríguez is gone, his trees will cast long shadows. His legacy lives on through his son, Aycoobo, who has also embraced art as a way to preserve and share Indigenous knowledge.

In the words of Colombia’s former Minister of Culture, “His trees will give us shade for many years.” His art shows us that even in exile, it is possible to carry a forest within you and to draw it forth, leaf by leaf, for the world to remember.3 —Clara Jaeger

1. Juaniko Moreno, “Abel Rodríguez: entre plantar y pintar,” MoMA Magazine, April 29, 2024, web.

2. Greace Vanegas, “Colombia despide a Abel Rodríguez, el sabio indígena ‘nombrador de plantas,’” El País, April 12, 2025, web.

3. Vanegas, “Colombia despide a Abel Rodríguez.”

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MEMORIAL

MARY E. SMITH August 26, 1950–April 30, 2025

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SLIGHT FIGURE, Mar y E d w ard s Smith (Muscogee) was often seen in her signature denim jacket and always with a big smile on her face. She was warm, funny, generous, and genuine.

Mary was a basket maker and a lifelong resident of Bixby, Oklahoma. Though skilled in many arts, basketry was her passion. Many artists and acquaintances have expressed their appreciation for what Mary had taught, shared, and gifted them.

In 2001, Ted Isham (Muscogee), director of Creek Council House Museum, encouraged Mary to learn and teach basketmaking because the only Muscogee basket maker he knew of was elderly and no longer teaching. At that time, she was primarily making pottery and teaching pottery classes at the museum.

So, Mary began studying basketmaking and talking to elders with knowledge of basketry. A self-taught basket maker, she soon mastered the art. Her revival and mastery of the Creek double false braid rim in 2005 was a significant contribution to Muscogee basket makers, as it was unique to Muscogee weavers and had not been practiced in at least a century. She learned by studying an antique basket until she figured it out.

Michael Dart (Cherokee Nation), a Cherokee National Treasure and basket maker, says: “The contributions that Mary Smith made to the revival of Southeastern tribal basketry are priceless. She researched and taught Mvskoke utilitarian baskets and is one of the few contemporary weavers who mastered a full-size double woven mat. In fact,

above Mary Smith, 1979.

she made several. Her presence in the Southeastern basketry community will be greatly missed.”

The materials she used include binding cane and commercial materials, but she also used honeysuckle and rivercane, which she harvested and prepared herself. Mary’s specialty was the 3-footby-5-foot rivercane mats. Each took her more than 400 hours to weave. Mary often said, “When I get to 400 hours, I stop counting because I know I’m on the downhill side!”

Sadie Counts, a curator at the McClung Museum in Knoxville, Tennessee, recalls traveling in Oklahoma during Cherokee Art Market in 2023 to visit

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with artists who were to be part of the McClung’s exhibition Homelands: Connecting to Mounds through Native Art (2025–27). “Since Mary wasn’t participating in the art market, she invited us to her home. We spent a few hours with her, talking about her craft, seeing her workspace, and sharing stories. She gave me two small cornhusk dolls as a gift. Later, I would find out that she was known for classes on teaching folks to make the dolls. One of them sits on the bookshelf in my office at the museum, so that I am reminded of Mary often.”

One of four Muscogee artists selected for this exhibition, Mary created a beautiful rivercane mat that is on display in the Homelands exhibition at the McClung Museum.

Reportedly, Mar y’s favorite art piece that she made was the feather cloak at the centerpiece of the permanent exhibit at Jones Archaeological Museum at Moundville Archaeological Park in Moundville, Alabama. She worked along with Jay McGirt (Muscogee descent, 1953–2018), beadwork and clothing artist, on the stunning cloak featuring colored feathers woven into a twined textile base.

Mary’s weaving won numerous awards at Native art markets, including Best of Class at the Cherokee Art Market in Catoosa, Oklahoma, and Best of Show at the Five Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation named her Artist of the Year in 2016 and Muscogee Creek Nation Living Legend in 2023. She was a friend and teacher to many.

—Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation)

CALENDAR July 3–July 31: Seattle, WA Raven Skyriver and Kelly O’Dell at the Stonington Gallery, 125 S. Jackson Street | (206) 405-4040 | stoningtongallery.com July 4, 2025–January 4, 2026: Manchester, UK Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge at the Whitworth, University of Manchester, Oxford Road | whitworth.manchester.ac.uk July 10–September 26: Oklahoma City, OK Through Her Eyes at the Red Earth Center, 100 N. Broadway Avenue #110. Women’s show curated by Chelsea Curry (Tlingit) | redearth.org July 11–13: Albuquerque, NM Pueblo Pottery Arts Celebration & Gathering Weekend at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th Street NW | indianpueblo.org July 12 & 13: Bar Harbor, ME Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas at the College of the Atlantic, 105 Eden Street. Hosted by the Abbe Museum | dawnlandfestival.org

REFLECTIONS OF OUR PEOPLE, OUR WAYS, OUR LAND An art exhibition featuring 25 Otoe-Missouria artists reflecting on identity, healing, reconciliation, and reconnecting.

July 12–September 14: Tacoma, WA In the Spirit Contemporary Native Arts Exhibition at the Washington State Historical Society, 1911 Pacific Avenue | washingtonhistory.org

September 5–December 20, 2025 Great Plains Art Museum, Lincoln, NE

July 12–October 4: Albuquerque, NM Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts at 516 Arts, 516 Central SW. Cohosted by the Poeh Cultural Center & Museum | 516arts.org

Opening Reception: September 19, 2025 5–7 p.m.

July 12–October 4: Pojoaque, NM Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts at the Poeh Cultural Center & Museum, 78 Cities of Gold Road. Cohosted by the 516 Arts poehcenter.org

go.unl.edu/plainsart

July 12, 2025–January 10, 2026: Chicago, IL Sight of Resistance at the Center for Native Futures, 56 W. Adams Street #102 | centerfornativefutures.org July 12, 2025–June 20, 2026: Salem, OR Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, 700 State Street hfma.willamette.edu July 15–August 24: Vancouver, BC 1:1 Artists Select: Paul Wong | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets'lo:tseltun at Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street vanartgallery.bc.ca July 17–December 12: Stonybrook, NY Weaving Words, Weaving Worlds: The Power of Indigenous Language in Contemporary Art at the Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Staller Center for the Arts, Stonybrook University | zuccairegallery.stonybrook.edu July 17, 2025–May 31, 2026: New York, NY The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Avenue | metmuseum.org July 19: Rapid City, SD Racing Magpie Ten-Year Anniversary Celebration at Racing Magpie, 801 E. St. Andrew Street | racingmagpie.org July 19 & 20: Newburyport, MA Cultural Survival Bazaar at Market Square at Inn Street. 10:00 am–6:00 pm. Free | bazaar.culturalsurvival.org

Maggie Thompson: Interactions July 25, 2025–February 8, 2026 IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts 108 Cathedral Place, Santa Fe, NM 8750 Reception: August 15, 5–7pm Artist Talk: August 16

July 25–27: Tiverton, RI Cultural Survival Bazaar at Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center, 3852 Main Road. 10:00 am–6:00 pm. Free | bazaar.culturalsurvival.org FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 123

June 7 - August 10th, 2025

July 25 & 26: Akwesasne, NY Fourth Annual Akwesasne Art Market & Juried Art Show at Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort, 873 NY-37, and Generations Park, 559 NY-37. Juried Art Show: Friday, 6:00–9:00 pm at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort. Market: Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm at Generations Parks. Free admission | (518) 358-4238 | akwesasne.travel July 25–27: Tahoma, CA 2025 Waší∙šiw ɁitdéɁ Festival at Meeks Bay Resort, 7941 Emerald Bay Road. The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California’s 33rd annual Indigenous arts festival and basket competition | washoetribe.us July 25, 2025–February 8, 2026: Santa Fe, NM Maggie Thompson: Interactions at IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place | iaia.edu/mocna July 26 & 27: Victor, NY Ganondagan Indigenous Music & Arts Festival at the Ganondagan State Historic Site, 7000 County Road 41 | ganondagan.org July 26–November 15: Topeka, KS Reinstate at Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn University, 1700 SW Jewell Avenue. Part of the DoPiKa Project, curated by Lisa LaRueBaker (Cherokee Nation) and Sara Stepp | mulvaneartmuseum.org August 1: Cherokee, NC ᏄᏍᏛ ᎢᏗᎪᏩᏘᏍᎬ ᎡᎶᎯ / The Way We See the World: Spotlighting Indigenous Pop Culture at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, Council Fire Ballroom, 777 Casino Drive | motcp.org August 1 & 2: Norman, OK 12th Annual Central Oklahoma Native American Art Sale at the McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church, 419 S. University Boulevard. Dealers and artists | okcindianart.wordpress.com August 1–11: Gallup, NM 103rd Annual Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at Red Rock Park, 825 Outlaw Road, and more | gallupceremonial.com August 1–September 1: Santa Fe, NM Daniel McCoy: Scenes Along the Rio Grande at Hecho a Mano, 129 W. Palace Avenue. Reception: Friday, August 1, 5:00–7:00 pm hechoamano.org August 1–October 31: Topeka, KS Camp To-Sha-Ka at the 785 Arts, NOTO Arts Center, 935 N. Kansas Avenue. Part of the DoPiKa Project, in partnership with NOTO Arts, Humanities Kansas, and the Americans initiative | explorenoto.org August 2: Second Mesa, AZ First Annual Art Festival on the Mesas at the Hopi Cultural Center, Milepost 379 on Hwy 264. 9:00 am–5:00 pm | hopiculturalcenter.com August 2, 2025–January 2026: Durham, NC Native American Pop Art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2001 Campus Drive | (919) 684-5135 | nasher.duke.edu

More info at REDCLOUDART.SHOW Pine Ridge SD, 57770 • 605.867.8257 Gene Swallow (Oglala Lakota), Wade, fiber arts, geneswallow@gmail.com 124 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

August 7–30: Seattle, WA Pacific Northwest Coast Native Art at the Stonington Gallery, 125 S. Jackson Street | (206) 405-4040 | stoningtongallery.com August 8–11: Santa Fe, NM 47th Annual Whitehawk Antique Indian & Ethnographic Art Show at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 W. Marcy Street.

Preview: Friday, August 8, 6:00–9:00 pm | whitehawkshows.com

August 9: Tacoma, WA In the Spirit Northwest Native Festival 2025 at the Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Avenue. In collaboration with the Washington State History Museum. Native art, music, dance, and fashion | tacomaartmuseum.org August 9–September 6: Tahlequah, OK 30th Annual Cherokee Homecoming Art Show at Gallery at Cherokee Springs Plaza, 3377 Cherokee Springs Road. Hosted by the Cherokee Nation, open to all three Cherokee tribes | homecomingartshow.com

Explore the Plains art collection of Benjamin “Ben” Reifel, the first Sičháŋǧu Lakota elected to the U.S. Congress. Originally loaned to the South Dakota Art Museum in 1977 and later gifted by his family, this founding gift shaped the Museum’s Indigenous art collections. The exhibition showcases artworks from Reifel’s personal collection, alongside Oscar Howe paintings he helped bring to the Museum.

August 9–November 2: Albuquerque, NM Sentient Structures: The Art of Skye Tafoya + SABA at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th Street NW | indianpueblo.org August 9, 2025–January 11, 2026: Fresno, CA Linda Lomahaftewa, Hopi/Choctaw Artist: The San Francisco Years 1965 through 1972 at the Fresno Art Museum, 2233 N. First Street.

Curated by Michele Ellis Pracy | fresnoartmuseum.org August 9, 2025–January 11, 2026: Eugene, OR James Lavadour: Land of Origin at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane. National retrospective celebrating more than 50 years of this Walla Walla artist’s career | jsma.uoregon.edu August 9, 2025–June 28, 2026: Albuquerque, NM Mural Exhibition: Arrowsoul Art Collective at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th Street NW | indianpueblo.org

Oscar Howe, Yanktonai Dakota The Singer, c. 1955 casein on paper

August 10, 2025–January 11, 2026: Santa Fe, NM Gestural in Form at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo. Work by Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti) | wheelwright.org

SouthDakotaArtMuseum.com Get Inspired.

August 13–15: Santa Fe, NM 50th Annual Wheelwright Annual Benefit Event at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo. Wednesday, early bird preview: ticketed. Thursday and Friday: free | wheelwright.org August 14: Santa Fe, NM “Judging Native Art: Challenges and Rewards” talk at the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, 1590-B Pacheco Street. Moderated by Rachel Wixom.

10:00–11:00 am. Free | firstamerican.art/judging | coeartscenter.org August 14–17: Santa Fe, NM Kim and Krystal Obrzut Gallery Show at La Fonda on the Plaza, Lobby, 100 E. San Francisco Street | (623) 570-3398 | seyesnembronze.com August 14–31: Santa Fe, NM Pueblo Revolt at the Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E. De Vargas Street.

Comedic play by Dillon Christopher Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw/Isleta/ Laguna Pueblo), directed by Tara Moses | santafeplayhouse.org August 14–September 19: Santa Fe, NM New Mythos at Cara Romero Gallery, 333 Montezuma Avenue #5.

Opening reception: Thursday, August 14, 4:00–8:00 pm | cararomero.com August 15 & 16: Santa Fe, NM 5th Annual Case Trading Post Artists Market at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo, 8:00 am–4:00 pm wheelwright.org August 15–17: Santa Fe, NM Pathways Indigenous Arts Festival at the Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino, 30 Buffalo Thunder Trail. Hosted by Poeh Cultural Center.

Featuring more than 300 Native artists | poehcenter.org/pathways FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 125

Photo: Callie Chunestudy (Cherokee Nation)

Judging Native Art

Challenges & Rewards Roundtable discussion Thursday, August 14, 2025 | 10–11 AM

Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts 1590 B Pacheco St., Santa Fe, NM Free & open to the public

firstamerican.art/judging

August 15–17: Santa Fe, NM 7th Annual Sovereign Santa Fe: Keepers of the Land at La Fonda on the Plaza, Lumpkins Ballroom and Mezzanine, 100 E. San Francisco Street.

Organized by FarahNHeight Fine Art. 10:00 am–7:00 pm farahnheight.com/sovereign

August 29–November 30: Belém, PA, Brazil Amazon Biennial: Verde-distância, 2nd Edition, at various locations.

Curated by Manuela Moscoso, with the collaboration of Sara Garzón and Jean da Silva | +55 91 99282-9518 | bienalamazonias.com.br

August 16 & 17: Santa Fe, NM 103rd Annual SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market in the Santa Fe Plaza and downtown. More than 1,000 Native artists. 8:00 am–5:00 pm | swaia.org

August 30, 2025–August 2, 2026: San Francisco, CA Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON at de Young, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden.

Curated by Hillary C. Olcott | famsf.org

August 16 & 17: Santa Fe, NM Free Indian Market Show at the Federal Park, 100 S. Federal Place.

8:00 am–5:00 pm | freeindianmarket.org

September 2–October 11: Kingston, ON 4th Annual Indigenous Art Exhibition at the Union Gallery, 101 Union Street. Katarokwi/Kingston area Indigenous art | uniongallery.ca

August 16 & 17: Santa Fe, NM IAIA Student and Recent Graduate Art Market in the portale and courtyards of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place. 8:00 am–5:00 pm | iaia.edu/events August 16–September 14: Bonavista Peninsula, NL 2025 Bonavista Biennale: String Games, fifth edition, at various locations. Curated by Heather Igloliorte (Inuk) | bonavistabiennale.com August 16–TBA: Toronto, ON Faye HeavyShield at the Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street.

Curated by Georgiana Uhlyarik | +1 (877) 225-4246 | ago.ca August 21–December 7: Emory, GA Continuum: Johnnie Diacon and Hotvlkvce Harjo at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, 571 South Kilgo Circle NE | carlos.emory.edu August 23–October 5: Lawrence, KS Americans at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum, 2411 Barker Avenue. Traveling NMAI exhibition curated by Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche/Choctaw) and Cécile R. Ganteaume | haskellhistory.com 126 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

September 3–December 7: Providence, RI ojo|-|ólǫ́ at the Bell, Brown University, 64 College Street. Solo exhibition for Eric-Paul Riege (Diné). Reception/performance: Thursday, September 18 | bell.brown.edu September 5–7: Ignacio, CO Pino Nuche Indigenous Art Market and Juried Show at the Sky Ute Casino and Resort, 14324 CO-172 | southernutemuseum.org September 5–December 20: Lincoln, NE Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street. Otoe-Missouria group show, curated by Jessica Moore Harjo, PhD (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Pawnee). Opening reception: September 19, 5:00–7:00 pm | plains.unl.edu/great-plains-art-museum September 6 & 7: Lawrence, KS Haskell Indian Art Market on the Haskell Indian Nations University Campus, 155 Indian Avenue at Massachusetts Street | haskell.edu/hiam

September 8–12: Reno, NV 25th Annual National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO) Conference & Sacred Places Summit at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, 2500 E. Second Street, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony | nathpo.org September 12, 2025–June 9, 2026: New York, NY The Genesis Facade Commission: Jeffrey Gibson, The Animal That Therefore I am at the Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue. Four figurative sculptures | metmuseum.org September 13, 2025–February 1, 2026: Alajärvi, Finland Contemporary Native American and First Nations Art at the Nelimarkka Museum, Pekkolantie 115 | nelimarkka-museo.fi September 13, 2025–August 30, 2026: Seattle, WA Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, UW Campus, 4303 Memorial Way NE | (206) 543-5590 | burkemuseum.org September 18: Vermillion, SD 36th Annual Oscar Howe Memorial Lecture: “The Teachings of Shell Face: Oral Tradition in Oscar Howe’s Art” by Dr. Delphine Red Shirt (Oglala Lakota) at the University of South Dakota, 414 E. Clark Street.

Reception: 5:30 pm. Lecture: 7:00 pm | red.library.usd.edu/oscarhowe September 20 & 21: Prescott, AZ 27th Annual Prescott Indian Art Market at the Sharlot Hall Museum, 415 W. Gurley Street | (928) 445-3122 | sharlothallmuseum.org/piam September 27: Gallup, NM Fall Friends of Hubbell Auction at the Gallup Community Service Center, 410 Bataan Veterans Street | friendsofhubbell.org

KESHI is honored to host the Nahohai family, August 16 and 17 Corn Meal Bowl, Milford Nahohai, Zuni Pueblo

Since 1981 Jewelry Carvings Pottery 227 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe Keshi.com 505.989.8728

September 27, 2025–March 8, 2026: Montreal, QC Kent Monkman: History Is Painted by the Victors at the Montreal Museum of Art, 1380 Sherbrooke Street West | mbam.qc.ca September 28, 2025–April 5, 2026: Detroit, MI Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation at the Detroit Institute of Art, 5200 Woodward Avenue. Regional survey featuring approximately 100 artworks by 60 Anishinaabe artists | dia.org October 3 & 4: Tishomingo, OK Southeastern Art Show and Market (SEASAM), hosted by the Chickasaw Nation, at the Chickasaw National Capitol, 411 W. 9th Street. 9:00 am–5:00 pm | (580) 272-5520 | seasam.net October 4 & 5: Santa Ynez, CA 19th Annual Santa Ynez Chumash Culture Day and Powwow at CA Highway 246 and Meadowvale Road | chumash.gov October 7–9: Cherokee, NC International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort, 777 Casino Drive.

Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums | atalm.org

NAAAINC.COM | (855) NAAA-INC

October 9–11: Moundville, AL Moundville Native American Festival at Moundville Archaeological Park, 634 Mound State Parkway | festival.museums.ua.edu October 9–December 13: Minneapolis, MN Matrilineal Memory at All My Relations Arts, 1414 E. Franklin Avenue. Solo exhibition of paintings, poetry, and textile installations

by Mikaela Shafer (Hopi) | allmyrelationsarts.org October 9, 2025–March 8, 2026: Boston, MA An Indigenous Present at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive. Co-organized by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee) and Jenelle Porter | icaboston.org FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025 | 127

K.W. Fernstrom & Assoc.

Appraising Native American & Pacific Island Art Made for the Market

October 10, 2025–February 13, 2026: New York, NY Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center, 1 Bowling Green | (212) 514-3750 | americanindian.si.edu October 11 & 12: Catoosa, OK 20th Annual Cherokee Art Market at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Tulsa, Sequoyah Convention Center, 777 Cherokee Boulevard. Hosted by the Cherokee Nation, open to all tribes | cherokeeartmarket.com October 11–November 16: White Cloud, KS Americans at the Iowa and Sac and Fox Mission Museum, 3345-B Thrasher Road. Traveling NMAI exhibition curated by Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche/Choctaw) and Cécile R. Ganteaume iowatribeofkansasandnebraska.com October 18: Oklahoma City, OK Red Earth Fallfest at Myriad Gardens, Devon Lawn, 301 W. Reno Avenue. Art market and youth powwow. 10:00 am–5:00 pm | redearth.org October 18, 2025–February 15, 2026: Minneapolis, MN Dyani White Hawk: Love Language at the Walker Art Center, 725 Vineland Place | (612) 375 7600 | walkerart.org

PO Box 50185 Baltimore, MD 21211

410-243-2757 kwfappraising@gmail.com

kwfernstromandassociatesappraising.com

October 24 & 25: Mendocino, CA Native Arts Expo 9 at the Mendocino Art Center, 45200 Little Lake Street | (707) 937-5818 | mendocinoartcenter.org October 24, 2025–January 2027: Washington, DC Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe at the National Museum of the American Indian, Fourth Street and Independence Avenue SW. First major retrospective of the acclaimed Ho-Chunk sculptor americanindian.si.edu October 25: Dragoon, AZ Amerind Autumn Fest at Amerind Museum, 2100 N. Amerind Road.

Celebrating the history, culture, and arts of Jemez Pueblo, with artists, public talks, singers, and dancers. 10:00 am–4:00 pm. $10 per vehicle (520) 586-3666 | amerind.org October 25: Marksville, LA 9th Annual Intertribal Basketry Summit at the Tunica-Biloxi Gym, 171 Melacon Road | (800) 272-9767 x7430 | tunicabiloxi.org October 29–31: Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico 1st International Congress on Indigenous Architecture in the Americas at the Centro Cultural Universitario de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Edificio central de la UADY, C. 60 57, Parque Santa Lucia | arqa.com

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November 1, 2025–February 8, 2026: Albuquerque, NM Cara and Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past at the Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain Road NW. Organized by the Figge Art Museum | cabq.gov/artsculture/albuquerque-museum November 5–7: Indianapolis, IN NAASA Conference, hosted by the Native American Art Studies Association and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 W. Washington Street | nativearts.org November 7 & 8: Clewiston, FL American Indian Arts Celebration at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, 34725 W. Boundary Road, Big Cypress Seminole Reservation. Arts, dance, music, alligator wrestling. 9:00 am–5:00 pm | ahtahthiki.com November 12–16: Saskatoon and Regina, SK 20th Anniversary Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones (ICCA) Gathering at Remai Modern, 102 Spadina Crescent E, and MacKenzie Art Gallery, 3475 Albert Street icca.art/gathering

For more events, visit our online calendar at

FIRSTAMERICAN.ART/CALENDAR 128 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE NO. 47, SUMMER 2025

AUGUST 15,16 & 17, 2025

BUFFALO THUNDER RESORT & CASINO NATIVE ARTS MARKET LIVE MUSIC TRADITIONAL DANCES REGALIA SHOWCASE FOOD TRUCKS INDIGENOUS FILM FESTIVAL PATHWAYS IS ORGANIZED BY THE POEH CULTURAL CENTER, A TRIBALLY LED VALUE BASED ENTITY OF THE PUEBLO OF POJOAQUE.

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