Innholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2020 / No. 26 i Native American Art Magazine

Heard Museum Hoop Dance Contest PHOENIX, AZ Arizona hoop dancer Scott Sixkiller-Sinquah won his first adult title at the 30th Annual Hoop Dance Contest on February 8 to 9, taking home a $4,000 reward. The 26-year-old winner, of Gila River Pima and Hopi descent, has participated in the last three years of the contest. Sixkiller-Sinquah faced 22 of the best hoop dancers in his division including past champions Dallas Arcand (Cree/Sioux/Metis), Tyrese Jensen (Diné/Pima-Maricopa) and Tony Duncan (San Carlos Apache/Arikara/Hidasta). Sixkiller-Sinquah was awarded the grand title based on his precision, timing, rhythm, showmanship, creativity and speed. Trail of Tears Art Show and Sale PARK HILL, OK The Cherokee Heritage Center holds its 49th annual Trail of Tears Art Show and Sale from April 4 through May 2. The longest-running Native American…

Yeibichai weavings constitute a small but highly collectible category of Navajo textiles. These weavings evoke scenes from the ninth and final night of the Nightway healing ceremony during which a succession of teams of masked dancers appear, impersonating male and female Yeis. In executing the carefully prescribed ritual dance movements, they call upon the Holy People to bestow good health on the patient and, by extension, on all those hundreds in attendance. The Yeibichai dance is performed in front of a ceremonial hogan that has been built in a remote location near the patient’s home. At some distance away is a brush enclosure where the dancers don the sacred masks which have been ritually prepared by the medicine man. The ceremonially attired dance teams enter the firelit area in front…

In the late 1970s, Pat and Rex Lucke walked into an Arizona showroom and fell in love with a Navajo pictorial weaving, which they happily took home with them. Their collection of Navajo textiles eventually grew to more than two dozen weavings. That collection is now on view at Colonial Williamsburg’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in the exhibition Navajo Weavings: Tradition and Trade. “The pictorial weavings collection represents a part of the country and a group of people that we rarely have the opportunity to show in our museum,” says Kimberly Smith Ivey, senior curator of textiles at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. The earliest Navajo weavings were mainly functional, created to provide warmth and had a distinctive horizontally striped design. But as the railroad began to…

Liza Siegel relates the story of her husband Don looking through a book in a Denver bookstore when a typed manuscript fell out of the book. It had been written by Dr. Joe Medicine Crow. As he read the text he thought, “I’ve got to find out who he is and return the piece.” When his research didn’t lead very far, he said to his 13-year-old son, “Let’s rent a mobile home and go find him.” They traveled through Montana and Wyoming and ended up in the archives of a museum in Cody, Wyoming. As they were looking at an original Edward S. Curtis photograph of Joe’s grandfather, Medicine Crow, Joe walked in! Although he lived more than 100 miles away, the two were destined to meet. The spirits of…

SANTA FE, NM Twice a year Randy Chitto’s Red Clay Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, becomes a gallery for his work and for another artist he invites to join him. On May 9 and 10 his guest will be Baje Whitethorne, the well-known Navajo painter and book illustrator. Chitto (Mississippi Choctaw) had been participating in the Young Artist Studios at the Art Institute of Chicago when he learned about the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe through his tribe. He went there hoping to study painting. Unable to sign up for painting he took a course in clay with Otellie Loloma. He fell in love with the medium and the rest, they say, is history. Chitto’s playful figures include turtles, storytellers or story keepers to the Choctaw.…

CHICAGO, IL In a time when museums across the globe are struggling to reimagine antiquated and colonial approaches to exhibition making around Indigenous cultures, a collaboration between the Field Museum, the University of Chicago and the Apsáalooke Nation, has produced a groundbreaking exhibition that finally invites a Native nation and their curator to tell the story of their people. In an effort to avoid continuous colonial approaches to curation, museum collections care and conservation, as well as public education surrounding Indigenous material, the Field Museum partnered with the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago to tackle the issues head-on to lay out a vision for the future that includes robust consultation from Native peoples. Together the institutions hosted a remarkable series of conversations with tribal…

INDIANAPOLIS, IN In 1992 the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis became the first to present an art exhibition where visitors could reach out and touch the works. The show was for Santa Clara sculptor Michael Naranjo, who lost his vision and the use of his right hand during combat in 1968 in the Vietnam War. During his convalescence, Naranjo, who always had an interest in art, began to sculpt. “So much of it came from trial and error of my own and using live models,” explains the artist, who says anything goes in terms of subject matter—fantasy to wildlife to Native dancers. He adds that a lot of his inspiration comes from memories of what he saw during his youth, what he has read in…

The art market is fabulous. We’re selling pottery, paintings and jewelry of course—it’s been really strong with jewelry sales. This is mostly contemporary because that’s really my focus. Jewelry wise, we’ve been doing really well with Don Supplee, Sonwai and Carl Clark. Don did an 8-karat gold Katsina necklace with coral, turquoise and sugilite. We didn’t have that very long at all. Sonwai did a really beautiful pair of earrings—normally people do symmetrical pairs and these were asymmetrical, so one dangle was 8 inches so it went all the way down to your shoulder, and then the other ear had one that was 3½ inches long. So it gives that real regal look. They were mostly coral and 18-karat gold. They were killer. We recently did Andrea Vargas’ show, and…

DENVER ART MUSEUM The Denver Art Museum is expanding the depth and volume of its collection through a variety of new acquisitions which started in 2019 and remains an ongoing project. Among these is a pigment print on archival paper by Crow artist Wendy Red Star, contributing to the museum’s collection of Native American art. When Red Star was an artist in residence at the Denver Art Museum in 2016 and 2017, the Native arts department provided her with scans of catalog cards documenting works in the Crow collection. On the backs of many of the cards are drawings and paintings done by artists during the Works Progress Administration era of 1935 to 1943. Red Star used these cards as reference during the Crow Nation’s annual Crow Fair in Montana,…

Many people, from tourists to collectors to scholars, have enjoyed visiting Southwestern trading posts over the years. One of the most vibrant arts to be found there are Navajo woven textiles. These weavings are the work of largely modest and unassuming women (with the occasional man at times) who pursue their creativity with the sales assistance of traders. This relationship is the offshoot of the trading post as a business serving local Navajos, dating back to late 19th-century frontier commerce. While many trading posts have closed over the years, the visitor to the select few still active can experience fine textiles rendered in historical regional styles. While Indian arts dealers in urban locales also carry such weavings, the would-be collector and enthusiast encounters real history when visiting these posts. We…

The Dancing Rabbit Gallery was founded in 1980 by Pat and Jo McClain, the parents of current owner Katie McClain Richarme. Though headquartered in Southlake, Texas, the gallery itself is located “on the cloud”—online, that is. The Southlake, Texas-based operation’s entire collection of Native American art and artifacts can be viewed and purchased over the computer, a business model that grew with the changing times as more people shift toward the internet for their shopping. “As a young girl, I remember that every summer we spent part of our family vacations in and around Santa Fe, and I learned very early about the different cultures and beliefs represented in the different Pueblo peoples,” says Richarme. “I think those trips ignited a lifelong passion for Native American culture and art from…

SANTA FE The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Native Treasures Art Market brings to Santa Fe a massive celebration of Native art. Elevating more than 200 artists from tribes across the country, the yearly Memorial Day Weekend event presents jewelry, pottery, sculpture, two-dimensional art, fashion, carvings, basketry, beadwork and textiles. Seasoned collectors and casual visitors can explore works from artists like Terran Last Gun, Angie Yazzie, Randy Chitto, Autumn Borts-Medlock, Sean Rising Sun Flanagan, Del Curfman, Upton Greyshoes Ethelbah Jr. and many others. “The MIAC 2020 Native Treasures Art Market is going to be one of the best years so far,” says MIAC director Della Warrior. “Because the show focuses on featuring the work of outstanding artists in a relatively small setting, visitors will have the opportunity to engage…

CHICAGO, IL In early 2019 I was asked to be the co-curator of Apsáalooke Women and Warriors by Apsáalooke scholar Nina Sanders. At this point I had only been at the Field Museum for about nine months as a postdoctoral researcher for the renovation and reimaging of the museum’s Native American Hall. I was assigned the curatorial duty of contemporary art curator, a completely new territory for me, considering my background in history and anthropology. Though I was a fan and follower of many wonderfully talented artists on social media I was a tad concerned that I could do the job justice. However, after I expressed my worry to Sanders, she simply replied, “You got this.” Together we created a roster of artists that embodied the Apsáalooke spirit of art…

WASHINGTON, D.C. In 2013, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, unveiled a major exhibition examining the work of artist-adventurer George Catlin, who traveled to the West five times in the 1830s and documented the land, the buffalo and Native Americans. That popular exhibition has returned, this time to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and with an important new perspective, that of more contemporary Native American artists who explored similar themes as Catlin. Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists is now open at the Smithsonian, where works by Catlin will hang near works by historic and contemporary Native American artists such as Woody Crumbo, Paul J. Goodbear, Awa Tsireh, Thomas Vigil, Julián Martínez, Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith and Allan Houser. All…

MARCH 13, 2020-MARCH, 2021 CHICAGO, IL Apsáalooke Women and WarriorsField Museum(312) 922-9410www.fieldmuseum.org APRIL 3 PHOENIX, AZ First Fridays at the HeardHeard Museum(602) 252-8840www.heard.org APRIL 4 SCOTTSDALE, AZ Scottsdale Art AuctionScottsdale Art Auction(480) 945-0225www.scottsdaleartauction.com THROUGH APRIL 5 INDIANAPOLIS, IN For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace PoolawEiteljorg Museum(317) 636-9378www.eiteljorg.org THROUGH APRIL 5 OTTAWA, ON Àbadakone | Continuous Fire | Feu continuelNational Gallery of Canada(613) 990-1985www.gallery.ca APRIL 5 SANTA FE, NM Kathleen Wall: A Place in ClayMuseum of Indian Arts and Culture(505) 476-1269www.indianartsandculture.org APRIL 10-MAY 3 SANTA FE, NM Upton Ethelbah & Nocona BurgessManitou Galleries(505) 986-9833www.manitougalleries.com APRIL 10-MAY 10 SOUTHLAKE, TX 40 Days of GiveawaysThe Dancing Rabbit Gallery(817) 337-8576www.thedancingrabbitgallery.com THROUGH APRIL 12 WASHINGTON, DC Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American ArtistsSmithsonian American Art Museum(202) 633-7970www.americanart.si.edu…

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK Steeped in history and culture, Exhibit C Native Gallery & Gifts continues to examine the narrative between artist and land. More specifically, 20 Native American artists have been asked by the gallery to “create their own rendition of what the buffalo means to their Native tribe.” Gallery visitors can expect a similar setup from last year’s show Blazing a Trail, that invites the viewer to enjoy the artwork as it’s produced. This means the artists, over the course of the exhibit dates, will be actively painting in a demo-style format. This makes for a rewarding, interactive experience. This year will celebrate the symbolic relationship the artist has with the buffalo. “Our participating artists understand and recognize what the buffalo meant and continues to mean to their respective…

BOSTON, MA On May 2, at 10 a.m., Skinner Inc. will host its first American Indian & Ethnographic Art sale of the year. Featuring approximately 500 lots, the auction consists primarily of Native American art offerings, with a smattering of Pre-Columbian, Oceanic and Tribal art. As with the majority of their sales in this category, there will be a strong Plains section, a number of Woodlands and Northwest Coast items, as well as artwork from tribes around the Southwest. The Plains segment of the sale is highlighted by beadwork that will include moccasins, pipe bags, cradles and more. Among the pieces is an 1880s Lakota beaded doctor’s bag that is beautifully decorated and graphic. The work is expected to sell between $4,000 and $6,000. Another highlight is a Plains beaded…