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

FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE

KARIN WALKINGSTICK LIZ WALLACE DAVID GARNEAU VENANCIO ARAGON

TALKING EARTH TULE DUCK DECOYS SALMON CULTURE & MUSEUM SOVEREIGNTY ART GALLERIES LEADING THE WAY

NO. 37, WINTER 2023

DISPLAY UNTIL APRIL 4, 2023

ANNUAL

CALL FOR ARTISTS Open to artists from federally recognized tribes. Apply now to compete in the juried art show and market. Awards for adults in 21 categories.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: JAN. 27 • 5 P.M. A R T E S I A N A R T S F E S T I VA L . C O M

Artesian Arts Festival April 22, 9 A.M. - 5 P.M., Sulphur, OK (580) 272-5520 • ArtistInfo@Chickasaw.net PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP REQUIRED

Bill Anoatubby, Governor

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Untitled, 2022, Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger paper, 17 3/8 x 11 3/8 inches

MARCH 4-5

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YOUTH ART SHOW & SALE MARCH 4-5

issue no. 37, winter 2023

FEATURES Galleries’ Roles in the Native Art World: Educating and Advocating for Indigenous Artists By Chadd Scott

DEPARTMENTS 18

Salmon Culture: Exploring 28 Museum Sovereignty Through an Exhibition Project By Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) Ducks from the Deep: The Lovelock Cave Tule Ducks and the Art of the Decoy By James G. Bland

Generations through Clay: Santee Smith’s Talking Earth Artwork By Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/ Tohono O'odham descent)

Recent Developments

Seven Directions Joe Stahlman, PhD (Tuscarora descent)

Collections Brooklyn Museum By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD

Art+Lit Norma Dunning: Inuk Writer, Educator & Poet By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

Erica Jacque (Inuk) By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

Calendar By Nicole Emmons (Citizen Potawatomi)

ARTIST PROFILES Venancio Aragon: Navajo Textile Artist By Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

David Garneau: Métis Painter, Curator & Critic By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD

Karin Walkingstick: Cherokee Nation Ceramic Artist By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

Liz Wallace: Navajo/Nisenan Maidu/Washoe Jeweler By Staci Golar

REVIEWS 76

Book Review

MEMORIALS

cover Liz Wallace (Navajo/Nisenan Maidu/ Washoe), Sunset Dive, 2018, plique-à-jour dragonfly pin with stand; pin: sterling silver, 24K gold, vitreous enamel, Morenci turquoise, peridot, garnet; stand: sterling silver, garnet, South Sea pearl. Photo: The Photography Studio, Santa Fe. Image courtesy of the artist.

Exhibition Reviews

Mary Holiday Black (Navajo, 1936–2022) By America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

Shirley Brauker, PhD (Little Traverse Odawa, 1950–2022) By Kelly Church (Gun Lake Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe)

Dora Tse-Pe (Zia/Jemez/ 92 San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1939–2022) By Kenneth Williams Jr. (Northern Arapaho/Seneca)

Mervin Windsor (Haisla/Heiltsuk, 1964–2022) By Christopher W. Smith

NO. 37, WINTER 2023 | 5

issue no. 37, winter 2023 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Online) Publishing Editor: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) Literary Editor: Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD (Euro-Canadian) Contributing Editor: Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke) Advertising Representative: Barbara Harjo Operations Manager: James G. Bland Circulation Manager: Nicole Emmons (Citizen Potawatomi) Copy Editors: Rosa Cays (Chicana) and Jo Ann Reece Proofreaders: Travis D. Day, Staci Golar, Jo Ann Reece, and Angela C. Villa (Chicana) Layout and Design: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) and Corey Yazzie (Navajo) Social Media: Staci Golar, America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho), and Stacy Pratt, PhD (Mvskoke)

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

come experience the

First Friday open houses the first Friday of each month Private tours available Indigenous art from regions around the world In Midtown Santa Fe No admission fees

coeartscenter.org

1590 B Pacheco Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505 Email. info@coeartscenter.org Tel. 505-983-6372

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

Advertising Representatives West and International: Barbara Harjo, barbara@firstamericanartmagazine.com East: Katherine Smith, katherine@firstamericanartmagazine.com International distribution by Disticor Magazine Distribution Services First American Art Magazine, LLC, is not responsible for the content of any article or for the statements of any advertiser. First American Art Magazine welcomes queries about editorial submissions. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, or artwork. Copyright ©2023 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 US Patent and Trademark Office.

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EDITOR’S GREETING

above America Meredith. Photo: Kristina James, Shine A Light Photography, Norman, Oklahoma.

N THIS GREY, OVERCAST WINTER MORNING on the Southern Plains, I’m daydreaming of the citrus-scented sunny weekend in Phoenix, Arizona, during the Heard Fair. A friend called about planning a road trip to Texas to see a major exhibition of Maya artwork this spring. The promise of travel, adventures, connections, and engaging with great Indigenous art lifts the dreariness of the day. Better things are to come. In this issue, authors and artists reflect on the movements and developments within our Indigenous art community that aren’t always immediately apparent. We are scattered across vast geographical regions. We are linked by ideas, and concepts that artists manifest whether in visual, literary, media, performing arts, or combinations of these. While galleries are a cornerstone in the lives of mainstream artists, proportionally far fewer Native artists have gallery representation. However, galleries play an active role in the market for art by Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The more influential galleries participate in major art fairs and provide visibility for 21st-century Native art in an arena where it has often been missing. Because of longstanding taboos against discussing the economics of the art world, the influence of gallerists on museum collections and ultimately art history is often ignored. Author Chadd

Scott checked in with four galleries that represent Native artists to learn about their views on the shifting place of Indigenous art within the broader art world today. Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Alutiiq) illustrates Museum Sovereignty, which is Indigenous peoples deciding how their cultures are represented in museum spaces, through the curation of Salmon Culture at the Pratt Museum in Homer, Alaska. Sparked by a poorly worded social media post, this exhibition shows how museums can listen to local communities and open their doors to Indigenous people to the benefit of everyone. The Alaska Native–led curatorial team even invited non-Native community members to curate a sister exhibition Salmon Culture: Kachemak Bay Connections, because representation is not a zero-sum game. Instead we all benefit from being able to honestly tell our own stories, no matter what our political and cultural backgrounds are. In his introduction to the oldest known surviving duck decoys in the world, found in Lovelock Cave, and their historical and 21st-century counterparts, James G. Bland shows how the flora and fauna of a region have always played a central role in Indigenous art forms. Artists continue to create this utilitarian art form, a hunting decoy, that takes on different conceptual meanings through time and a changing environment in the Great Basin. The tule reed sculptors are a testament to the artists’ connection to their lands and waterways and ongoing commitment to sustaining cultural connections between humans, animals, plants, earth, and water. Santee Smith (Kahnyen'kehàka) combines dance, ceramics, and multimedia images, lights, and sound in her art piece, Talking Earth (2022), which she and her dance troupe, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, performed at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. Anya Montiel (Mestiza/ Tohono O’odham descent) discusses the performance and its background and inspiration. Smith’s monumental public sculpture Talking Earth pays homage to her parents’ and paternal grandmother’s efforts to revive Haudenosaunee pottery. Her multimedia performance doesn’t juxtapose customary and historical art forms against electronic or conceptual art forms but rather shows the possibilities when they are combined into one. Talking Earth speaks to continuum, not categorization. The clouds have parted, and the sun is shining through the evergreen leaves of the cedar tree in my backyard. An Eastern grey squirrel nibbles on sunflower seeds. A blank basswood panel and acrylic paints beckon. Time to get going, get out, and reconnect. —America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)

NO. 37, WINTER 2023 | 7

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs hired Polly Nordstrand to serve as the executive director of the MUSEUM OF INDIAN ARTS AND CULTURE in Santa Fe, as well as manage the Laboratory of Anthropology, the Center for New Mexico Archaeology, Museum Hill Café, and other public spaces on Museum Hill. Previously Nordstrand was the inaugural curator of Native American art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and curator of Southwest art at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. She was a curator at the Denver Art Museum, the National Park Service, and the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum and taught at the University of Denver. The MUSEUM OF INDIANS ARTS AND CULTURE selected Marita Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) to serve as its educational director. Previously she served as a school administrator for the Te Tsu Geh Oweenge School at Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico, and has worked at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts. She earned her AFA degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts and her bachelor’s degree from the College of Santa Fe. NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA (NGC) in Ottawa fired four of its senior staff members, including Greg A. Hill (Mohawk), who was the Audain senior curator of Indigenous Art. Hill was part of the NGC’s Department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, created in February 2022, led by the museum’s vice-president Steven Loft (Mohawk) and department director Michelle LaVallee (Neyaashiinigmiing Ojibway). NGC’s interim CEO Angela Cassie is implementing a strategic plan created under her predecessor in 2021. Hill had worked at the gallery for 22 years.

ORGANIZATIONS The RALPH T. COE CENTER FOR THE ARTS in Santa Fe hired Alex J. Peña (Comanche/Pawnee/San Ildefonso 8 | FIRST AMERICAN ART MAGAZINE

Classes for the two-year residency program will begin in Fall 2023. Donations from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation provide full tuition waivers for all accepted students.

ART SHOWS

above Polly Nordstrand (Hopi), newly hired executive director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe. ©2022 Polly Nordstrand. Image courtesy of Polly Nordstrand and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Pueblo) as its deputy director and chief curator. Peña is a printmaker and educator who previously taught at the Santa Fe Preparatory School. Before that, he taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He earned his BFA from Cameron University and his MA and MFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS, a land conservation nonprofit organization based in Boston, hired Tess Lukey (Aquinnah Wampanoag) as its inaugural associate curator of Native American art. She will be based at the Fruitlands Museum and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Lukey was the lead horticulture interpreter at Old Sturbridge Village and a curatorial research associate at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She earned her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her MA in art history and museum studies from the University of New Mexico.

SCHOOLS The UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, Fayetteville, partnered with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to create a new art history master’s degree program on the arts of the Americas.

Samantha Jacobs (Seneca) and Hayden Haynes (Seneca) won best of show at the 2022 HODINÖHSÖ:NI' ART SHOW at the Ganondagan State Historic Site located in Victor, New York. Classifications winners were Ronni-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) and Stonehorse Goeman (Tonawanda Seneca), basketry; Jessica Hernandez (Mohawk), beadwork; Luanne Redeye (Seneca), fine art 2D; Natasha Smoke Santiago (Mohawk), fine art, 3D; Hayden Haynes, photography; and Natasha Smoke Santiago, traditional art.

MARKETS NORTHERN PLAINS INDIAN ART MARKET, hosted by Sinte Gleska University, took place at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Angela Babby (Oglala Lakota) won best of show. Janyce Trask (Oglala Lakota) won Best of Tribal Arts, while Kevin and Valerie Pourier (both Oglala Lakota) won Best of Fine Arts. Division winners were Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota), oil and acrylic paintings; Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota), drawing; Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho), printmaking; Dwayne Wilcox, 3D–additional process; Alfred Decoteau (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), 3D–subtractive process; Kevin Pourier, jewelry and decorative metalwork; Henry Payer (Winnebago), mixed media, fine arts; Marlena Myles (Dakota/Mohegan/Muscogee), digital and computer-generated; Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), traditional-style beadwork; Patricia Belgarde (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), contemporary beadwork; Carol Wilcox (Oglala Lakota), quilts; Nelda Schrupp (Pheasant Rump Nakota), textile and fabric items; Molina Jo Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota), handmade dolls; Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), traditional painting; Jackie Sevier, mixed-media, tribal arts; and Dwayne Wilcox, mixed-media, 3D.

Troy Jackson (Cherokee Nation) won best of show at the CHEROKEE ART MARKET. Hosted by the Cherokee Nation, this intertribal art market was in-person at the Hard Rock Casino and Resort in Catoosa, Oklahoma. Classification winners were Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole) and Kenneth Williams Jr. (Northern Arapaho/Seneca), painting, drawing, graphics, and photography; Troy Jackson, sculpture; Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), beadwork/ quillwork; Mike Dart (Cherokee Nation), basketry; Karin Walkingstick (Cherokee Nation), pottery; Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee Nation), textiles; Matagi Sorensen (Yavapai-Apache), jewelry; and Katrina Mitten (Miami), diverse art forms. Lisa Rutherford won the Culture Keeper Award, Matagi Sorensen won the Innovator Award, and Bryan Waytula (Cherokee Nation) won the Jesse Hummingbird Award. Marcella Yepa (Jemez/Chickasaw) and Troy Jackson tied for the Anna Mitchell Award.

AWARDS & HONORS The EITELJORG MUSEUM OF AMERICAN INDIANS AND WESTERN ART in Indianapolis named its 2023 EITELJORG CONTEMPORARY ART FELLOWS. They are Natalie Ball (Klamath/Modoc), Sean Chandler (A'aninin), Ruth Cuthand (Plains Cree), Mercedes Dorame (Gabrielino Tongva), and Raven Halfmoon (Caddo/Choctaw/ Delaware). The museum provides each fellow with $50,000 and will purchase artwork to place in its collection. In 2022, ANONYMOUS WAS A WOMAN gave out its $25,000 awards to 15 women artists over 40. These include Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (Salish/Métis/ Shoshone), the printmaker, painter, and curator, and Wendy Red Star (Crow), the photographer and mixed-media artist. The MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS in San Diego gave its LOU STOUMEN PRIZE IN PHOTOGRAPHY to Cara Romero (Chemehuevi).

Since its 1996 inception, seven artists have received this award. The museum provides the winner with $20,000 and acquires her photographs for its permanent collection. The Alberta Association of Architects, the Saskatchewan Association of Architects, and the Manitoba Association of Architects awarded a 2022 PRAIRIE DESIGN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE to Qaumajuq, the Inuit Art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in its recent work category. Cibinel Architecture and Michael Maltzan Architecture designed the building, and HTFC Planning and Design was the landscape architect for the new art center. The ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION gave a 2022 ARTS WRITERS GRANT in short-form writing to Stacy Pratt (Mvskoke), contributing editor to First American Art Magazine and freelance writer. Pratt will write about artists from Southern Woodlands tribes as part of a larger effort to indigenize art criticism.

NO. 37, WINTER 2023 | 9