Innholdsfortegnelse for April-May 2021/ No. 32 i Native American Art Magazine

As we write our letter for this issue, on March 5, I would like to chronicle my day: It is 83 degrees in downtown Phoenix. We are sitting at our official Native American Art booth at the 63rd annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. We weren’t sure what to expect being a virtual/in-person mix, but now that we’re here there is excitement all around. Are things different? Yes, the market is virtual, however, the museum tour is live and there are lots of collectors here to celebrate the work of more than 300 artists. The serious collectors were here at 10 a.m. this morning and they were purchasing their favorite pieces from the top Native American artists. We heard numbers—$30,000, $15,000 and $19,000—from purchases within the first minutes…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND GET ALL 18 MAGAZINES EVERY YEAR 6 Issues of (Bimonthly) Native American Art PLUS 12 Issues (Monthly) Western Art Collector Discover New Art Available For Sale The art of major historic and contemporary Native artists is in demand, and if you’re serious about acquiring new works, you need to know when they become available. When you subscribe to Native American Art magazine you’ll be the first to know about new works because each month we’ll email you the link to the latest issue online. You’ll have instant access to the latest issue when it is published. You’ll see art coming available for sale before the shows even open. Coast-To-Coast Coverage See new art being created by major Native artists coast to coast. Many readers travel across the…

Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey recently announced the appointment of Laura J. Allen, as its new curator of Native American art. Allen brings 16 years of museum experience to this role, having served as curatorial associate for the Northwest Coast Hall renovation at the American Museum of Natural History from 2017 to 2018, where she facilitated the project’s Indigenous partnerships, among other endeavors.…

Eugene Tapahe (Diné) www.tapahe.com During the first years of his life on the Navajo Nation, Eugene Tapahe and his grandmother lived off the land and practiced the traditional ways of life. This instilled in him “the importance of respecting, preserving and protecting that which is sacred, the land, water and nature.” Tapahe, who has an educational background in graphic design, journalism and photography, combines his love for nature and culture in his artwork. His imagery tells beautiful and impactful stories, and he has the desire to continue photographing the lands his ancestors once walked. Tapahe has received Best of Show awards for his photography at the Cherokee Art Market and from the Museum of Northern Arizona. Leah Rose (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Michigan/Odawa) www.instagram.com/leahrosephoto Leah Rose, an enrolled member of the…

SANTA FE, NM Jody Naranjo (Santa Clara) recalls her grandfather incising designs on his clay pots with a nail. Today, she uses an X-Acto knife for the fine detail on her own work. Naranjo has recently finished her third collaboration with Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary. The X-Acto knife played a key role. Once the artists had decided on the color and shape of the vessel, Naranjo used it to cut her designs into the vinyl resist that was applied to the glass. The areas she cut out were sandblasted by Singletary to reveal her design cut through the surface layer of color to reveal another color beneath. Singletary helped her adjust the way she held the knife to make the cuts more precise for sharp edges to be maintained…

SANTA FE, NM Lummi glassblower Dan Friday’s great-grandfather was Joseph R. Hillaire, a renowned Lummi totem pole carver. His father was a mechanic and Friday seemed ordained to follow in his footsteps. When he was 20, however, he walked into a glass hot shop and knew immediately that blowing glass was something he could devote his life to. One of the great influences in his development was the late Lummi basket maker Fran James who advised him, “You’ve got to be making your own work,” giving him permission follow his own inspiration. While creating his own unique work, Friday says, “I want to bring my ancestors forward and the story of our people. I’m thinking about the best way that glass can represent my idea.” His series of glass totems…

If you’ve followed along with Native American Art magazine since our first issue in 2016, you’ll know we’ve had issues dedicated to many of the big categories of Native American art: pottery, beadwork, basketry, Pueblo carvings, weavings, fashion, jewelry and even two issues devoted to turquoise. But we had never done an issue focused on two-dimensional work. Never, until now. The magazine in your hands is our first-ever issue dedicated to two-dimensional flatwork. We’re calling it the Paint, Paper & Photography issue, and we’re thrilled to shine a bright spotlight on all the artists who are working in these mediums. The artists work on canvas, paper and board, and they use oil and acrylic paint, colored pencil and charcoal, pastels and watercolor, as well as film and digital cameras. One…

From the Limitations of Now showcases the works of both local artists and artists working across the country, providing a lens through which to examine the country’s past and future. Held at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, the show draws upon the words of famed Oklahoma author Ralph Ellison: “We are able to free ourselves from the limitations of today.” The show includes a wide range of works, from tapestries and beadwork, to paintings, photography and video, and will be on view through September 5.…

“My newest collection is called Bohemian Navajo that reflects a carefree style that is flowy and bold in colors.”– Jolonzo Guy-Goldtooth A Native to New Mexico, Jolonzo Guy-Goldtooth is of Diné (Navajo) descent from the Southwest region of the United States. Goldtooth is the creative fashion director of the design line JG-Indie, a Native American urban fashion collection. He grew up in an urban setting and his fashion reflects the American Indian urban lifestyle. A self-taught designer, Goldtooth pays tribute to the strong Navajo women and elders in his life who have guided him in a positive direction. These women and elders have influenced him to develop and achieve his dreams of personal creativity. “My newest collection is called Bohemian Navajo, which reflects a carefree style that is flowy and…

The transcendent artwork of Navajo neo-impressionist Shonto Begay is showcased in an autobiographical exhibition at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, drawing upon the artist’s personal experiences and visions, and through a broader lens, the Native experience. “The idea behind the exhibition is art’s power to heal and balancing a lot of the content in the exhibit that has to deal with trauma and the dark history of the Native experience. It’s really about sharing the beauty of Shonto’s work, using his style of mark making and the content of his paintings as a metaphor for how art has helped him heal in a personal way,” says Zachary Miller (Chickasaw), the Wheelwright Museum 2019-2021 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Curatorial Fellow. “[We wanted] to give a very broad perspective of…

Monte Yellow Bird (Arikara/Hidatsa) www.blackpintohorsefinearts.com Monte Yellow Bird is hard to miss at events. He frequently shows up in full traditional regalia, including beaded shirt with feathers and intricate jewelry. His clothing gets curious questions from visitors and collectors, and he answers them all, each one an opportunity to bring people closer to his Arikara and Hidatsa culture. Yellow Bird—who signs his name Black Pinto Horse, a name he was given through ceremony—was inspired to create art from his grandfathers, Strikes Enemy and Bears Teeth. Today his works, all done on antique ledger paper, are collected around the country. His style and subject ranges from more traditional pictographs to very contemporary pieces that push the boundaries of what ledger can be. Dolores Purdy (Caddo/Winnebago) www.dolorespurdy.com While ledger art has been…

SANTA FE, NM David K. John absorbed the spiritual tradition of the Diné from his great grandfather who was a medicine man. It was more than a teaching/learning experience. Although he received formal education at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Brigham Young University and Southern Utah University, it was what he heard and saw with his great-grandfather that informed him and animates his life and art. “My creations on paper or canvas do not come from a place of preconception,” he says. “They come from the innermost chamber of my soul. The essence of what I am is a spiritual being. I am a Diné (Navajo) man of the Tl’a’a’shchi’I’ clan and born for the Kiiya’’aannii clan. Even as I write it, it feels like I am saying a…

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK On a bend in the Arkansas River in Oklahoma lie the Spiro Mounds, the remains of a sophisticated culture active between about 900 and 1650. It is one of the most important, but nearly forgotten, Native American sites in the country. The mounds were platforms on which the Spiro people built wood structures, long since rotted away. The mounds lay undisturbed for centuries and were preserved by Choctaw and Chickasaw freedmen who began clearing the rest of the site for farming in 1832. During the Great Depression they granted a lease to the Picola Mining Company, a group of men who were, in fact, looters, who tore into the mounds looking for saleable artifacts, trampling more delicate textiles and feather robes under their feet. In 1935, they…

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART As part of its 2020 Vision initiative, a commitment made in 2020 to purchase only works by female-identifying artists that calendar year, the Baltimore Museum of Art recently acquired a phenomenal work by contemporary Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star. According to the museum, 2020 Vision “builds on the museum’s efforts over the last several years to expand its presentations of female-identifying artists and artists of color to more accurately reflect the community in which it lives.” Red Star’s artwork, titled 1880 Crow Peace Delegation, is a series made up of 10 historic portraits with text written by the artist over each photograph that explain various cultural elements within them. The photographs depict five of the six Crow members who traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss a…

TSAILE, AZ After a year-long postponement due to the devastating onset of Covid-19, Diné College’s Navajo Cultural Art Program resumes preparation for its Navajo Cultural Arts Week—this time in a virtual format. Events will include student-led workshops, a Best of Show Panel featuring the top award winners from all previous NCAP exhibits, and the return of the Ned Hatathli Navajo Cultural Arts Exhibit. The online exhibit will feature 40 student pieces, spotlighting work from the 2021 Navajo Cultural Arts Certificate graduating cohort: Triston Black, Ryan Dodson, Valene Hatathlie and Willis Tsosie. Work from current NCAP students and alumni will also be included, demonstrating the self-determination of students, faculty and staff to perpetuate cultural arts teachings even while battling a global pandemic. The exhibit will run from April 19 to May…

Five Native American and First Nations artists have been selected for the 2021 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship: Anita Fields, Catherine Blackburn, Sonny Assu, Steven Yazzie and Athena LaTocha. Their works will be on view at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art during an exhibition beginning this November. Each Fellowship artist receives a $25,000 unrestricted grant, and the museum expects to purchase more than $100,000 of their artworks to add to its collection of contemporary Native American art.…

This is our inaugural issue dedicated to two-dimensional artworks, and we are ecstatic to bring you this collection of features and their accompanying images. We’ve had issues devoted to weavings, pottery, beadwork and quillwork, Pueblo carvings and multiple issues related to jewelry, but never an issue devoted to flatwork. It’s long overdue. These artists deserve the spotlight and we are happy to shine it on them as they create paintings and artworks on canvas; works on paper, including drawings, pastels and ledger art pieces; and fine art photography. As we’ve interviewed the artists and peeked inside their lives and studios, we’ve uncovered a vast array of new stories and amazing new artwork. This is the first issue devoted to two-dimensional work, and it certainly won’t be the last.…

The key concepts at the heart of contemporary ledger art are narrating a story, recording history and insubordination, drawing over material records of the invading cultures, on maps, old checks and legal documents from more than 100 years ago. We have commissioned artists to do them on Italian, French and other European correspondence, as well as family heirloom documents and maps, going back 400 years. Instead of relegating Native art ledgers to museums, these artists carry on a great tradition that would otherwise disappear in the onslaught of contemporary American non-culture. Tribal histories derive from migrations that used hides and war shirts to record images, so the advent of paper from the American soldiers’ presence provided a new medium on which to create their art, which from the beginning of…

Tony Abeyta (Navajo) www.tonyabeyta.com Tony Abeyta’s work is treasured by collectors and museums around the world. The artist is a graduate of New York University with an honorary doctorate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’s also been awarded the New Mexico Governor’s Excellence in the Arts award, and recognized as a Native Treasure by the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. He has pieces in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Heard Museum, Denver Art Museum, Autry Muesum of the American West and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His newest pieces are highly stylized and abstracted views of the Southwest, as well as increasingly modern figures, including wildlife. Marla Allison (Laguna) www.marlaallison.com Marla Allison’s contemporary work has frequently embraced realistic…

Doris Meyer, then a professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College, first visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early 1970s to research Spanish language newspapers. At the time, she bought an RC Gorman pastel. Her husband, Richard Hertz, a builder and real estate developer, had visited Santa Fe before they married in 1980. “I was in the Air Force and when I came back to New York I was young and single, and fell in with a group of art-oriented guys. We spent much of our time going to museums and to artists’ studios in SoHo. I still have the first piece I bought in Provincetown in 1957. I met a lot of artists, including Fernando Botero, who was a struggling artist down on 14th Street. I saw a painting…

SANTA FE, NM Santa Clara potter Autumn Borts-Medlock doesn’t see a creative payoff in her work until nearly the very end, in that last sprint to the finish line. “It all comes down to that last part, the firing,” she says. “I hand-coil my pots, so I’m not throwing them on a wheel and it takes a lot longer. Then I draw onto the surface in multiple layers to create those depths. It’s only much later, from several months to even 12 months, when they get fired and I see what I have. Sometimes they come out perfect, and sometimes not. But that’s the beauty of the process.” For Borts-Medlock, who lives and works outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, the fire can be revealing—“Compared to other mediums, pottery is certainly labor…

BENTONVILLE, AR The concept of craft as a widespread, diverse mode of creative expression is explored during an exhibition currently on view at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The large-scale exhibition, featuring more than 120 objects by 100 artists—in materials such as wood, glass, fiber, ceramics, metal and more—spans the 1940s to present day, telling a unique story of American creativity. “We wanted to highlight what a vibrant, diverse and creative area of production this has been and that craft is not separated from art,” says Jen Padgett, associate curator at Crystal Bridges, who co-curated the show with art scholar and guest curator Glenn Adamson. “It’s not a dichotomy of craft versus art, but rather, craft is a lens to look through to understand a broad…