TEN YEARS of CELEBRATING ART by INDIGENOUS PEOPLES of the AMERICAS
FırstAmericanArt MAGAZINE
NO. 40, FALL 2023
DISPLAY UNTIL JAN. 9, 2024
CHILKAT WEAVING
JULIE BUFFALOHEAD
CENTER FOR NATIVE FUTURES
BONNIE DEVINE
SOUTHWOLD EARTHWORKS
DAN FRIDAY
DIQUÍS STONE SPHERES
PORFIRIO GUTIÉRREZ
ON DIS PL AY T IL L JANUARY 2024
ON DISPLAY TILL OCTOBER 2023
Always in Relation: artworks from the Schultz collection
Tue—Sat, 10 am—5 pm • wheelwright.org California Stars: Huivaniūs Pütsiv installation showing works Jacob Meders, Jamie Okuma, Rick Bartow, Fritz Scholder, Frank Day; loaned by Jacob Meders, Tia Collection, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art. Photo courtesy of the Tia Collection; Photography by Addison Doty.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION IN NOVEMBER 2023
Master Glass: the collaborative spirit of Tony Jojola
Wheelwright Museum
OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe NM 87505
July 16, 2023 – June 2, 2024
Artist once known (Diné), women’s shoulder blanket, ca 1860–1890, handspun wool, vegetal dye, indigo dye, aniline dye, sinew, plant matter. Gift of Mrs. Philip B. Stewart, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology 9100/12. Rapheal Begay, Spider Rock (Tseyi—Canyon de Chelly, Chinle, AZ) (detail), 2021, digital photograph.
Horizons is made possible through support from France A. Córdova and Christian J. Foster; the Terra Foundation for American Art; Tom and Mary James; Shiprock Santa Fe; the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs; and the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.
through April 7, 2024
on MuseuM hill in santa Fe, new Mexico internationalFolkart.org · (505) 476-1200 photo: St. Lawrence Island Yupik ancestor artist, Sanightaaq (ceremonial seal gut parka) (detail), early 20th century, Museum of International Folk Art, gift of Lloyd E. Cotsen, Neutrogena Corp., A.1995.93.986. Photo by Addison Doty. Ghhúunayúkata is made possible through funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art. It is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the International Folk Art Foundation, The CIRI Foundation, and the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s Exhibition Development Fund.
MoIFA-ANP+MIAC-HZ_FAAMsummer2023.indd 1
5/23/23 11:56 AM
“Before here was here, Raven was only named Yéil. He was a white bird and the world was in darkness…”
ONLY AT
ORGANIZED BY THE ARTIST AND
LEARN MORE
PRESENTED BY
Preston Singletary (American Tlingit, born 1963). Dleit Yéil (White Raven), 2018. Blown, hot-sculpted, and sand-carved glass; steel stand; 19 1/4 x 9 x 14 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Russell Johnson.
S PECIALIZING IN T HE SALE OF ESTATE & PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Double-sided Dagger depicting the Chinook Creation Story by Greg A. Robinson, Chinook Nation
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issue no. 40, fall 2023
DEPARTMENTS Recent Developments By Staci Golar and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
FEATURES 9
At Kasné Aa: A Brief History 21 of Chilkat Weaving among the Tlingit Among the world's most complex forms of weaving, Chilkat textiles enliven Tlingit ceremonial life today By Zachary R. Jones, PhD
Seven Directions 15 By Traci L. Morris, PhD (Chickasaw) Spotlight: Charlene Holy Bear (Standing Rock Sioux), Jingle Dress Dancer By Michelle J. Lanteri, PhD
72
Art+Lit Jim Terry: Ho-Chunk Graphic Novelist By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD
90
Calendar
94
48
REVIEWS Exhibition Reviews
74
Report
83
Book Reviews
85
54
Unsettling the Southwold 28 Earthworks For decades, could archaeologists have gotten the purpose of the site wrong? By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD Native Artists Lead the Way at the Center for Native Futures An Indigenous artist–led collective shares an exciting new vision for downtown Chicago By Sheila Regan
34
The Diquís Spheres of Costa Rica: A Recently Recognized National Symbol Ancient spherical stone sculptures hold layered meanings in their homelands and abroad By Maria Fernanda Calderon
40
ARTIST PROFILES
60
cover Sydney Akagi (Tlingit), Dancing of the Robes, 2023, photograph, dimensions variable. @sydneyakagiphotography. Young Tlingit boy participates in the Dancing of the Robes at the Sealaska Heritage Institute, organized by Lily Hope (Tlingit), featuring 30 newly woven Chilkat robes, Juneau, Alaska. Image courtesy of the artist.
66
Julie Buffalohead: Ponca Draftsperson, Painter, and Printmaker By Sheila Regan
48
Bonnie Devine: Serpent River Ojibwa Installation Artist, Painter, and Sculptor By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD
54
Dan Friday: Lummi Glass Artist By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD
60
Porfirio Gutiérrez: Zapotec Textile Artist By Staci Golar
66
NO. 40, FALL 2023 | 5
issue no. 40, fall 2023 ISSN 2333-5548 (Print) • ISSN 2333-5556 (Digital)
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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: Nicole Emmons (Citizen Potawatomi) Copy Editor: Rosa Cays (Chicana) Proofreaders: Travis D. Day, Staci Golar, 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)
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Great Basin: Melissa Melero-Moose (Northern Paiute/Modoc) Great Plains: Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho) Northeast: Kelly Church (Gun Lake Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe) Northwest: Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq) Southeast: Michole Eldred (Catawba/Eastern Cherokee descent) Southwest: Holly Coonsis (Zuni) and RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Pueblo)
Advisory Council
Miranda Belarde-Lewis, PhD (Zuni/Tlingit) Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation) Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache) Linda Lomahaftewa, Hon. DHum (Hopi/Choctaw) Leah Mata Fragua (Coastal Chumash) Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/Tohono O'odham descent) Denise Neil, PhD (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation) Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa) Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole Nation) India Rael Young, PhD
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EDITOR’S GREETING
below America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Rabbit Gets Long Ears, 2010, pen and ink on Bristol board, 14 × 11 in., private collection.
O
UR BRAINS, we are told, are hardwired for story, but what does this mean? We may want to make rational decisions based on observed information, but our brain craves more. Logic is “data-driven decision-making, evidence-based reasoning, and critical thinking,” but “in life, there is never enough data, the rules are always evolving, and logic can never completely impose its will.”1 To fill these gaps, our brains create narratives by imagining cause-and-effect relationships, assigning motives, and focusing in on some data while ignoring others. We can readily remember these streamlined scenarios charged with emotion and generate meaning. “Stories are a mechanism that humans evolved to help us package information about who we are, how we survive, what we care about, and then spread those ideas through time and space,” says biologist Liz Neeley.2 Part of our pleasure in storytelling is speculating what will happen next. This helps us predict possible scenarios. Brain activity of storytellers and listeners can sync up what is called speaker-listener neural coupling, which can increase our capacity for empathy. Narrative art is simply art that tells stories. Even the most seemingly nonobjective abstract Indigenous art is often metaphorical. Even the most stripped down, most minimal Indigenous art form I know of, the Diquís spheres of Costa Rica, is still symbolic. These stone sculptures are not Platonic ideal forms of pure geometry, but public works that speak to the status of communities and their leaders and may allude to cosmological bodies. Likewise the Southwold Earthworks in Ontario are not just utilitarian embankments. Filtered through the Eurocentric lenses of their stories, archaeologists interpreted them as defensive structures. Only when they were reinterpreted through Oneida oral histories could a more accurate meaning be understood. Chilkat blankets feature clan and related iconography drawn from deeply
entrenched cultural stories. Brought back from the precipice of extinction, this weaving style not only relays stories through its visuals but also with sound and motion. In Chicago, Native stories have too often been distorted through a Eurocentric lens of mainstream art institutions. Now Native artists have banded together to open the Center for Native Futures in that city to be able to tell their own stories on their own terms.
All of these stories that we create are working models of complex realities. What models are too simple? Which models serve us best? What stories need updating and changing? Which obscure realities on the ground or are outdated and should be abandoned? We need better stories that are close to the sources—sometimes competing and conflicting—to create narratives that better serve us. —America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
1. Angus Fletcher and Tom Gaines, "The Limits of Logic: Why Narrative Thinking Is Better Suited to the Demands of Modern Combat," Modern War Institute at West Point, October 19, 2021, web. 2. “Your Brain on Storytelling,” NPR: Short Wave, January 14, 2020, podcast, audio, 14.26, web.
NO. 40, FALL 2023 | 7
GREAT BASIN NATIVE ARTISTS GALLERY
CREATING STORIES: Artwork of the Stewart Alumni The Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum serves as a living legacy to educate visitors about the Native children who were removed from their homelands and brought to the federal boarding school. Learn about their stories in a new exhibition featuring paintings, drawings, baskets, and other artwork created by former students.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2023 – FEBRUARY 2, 2024 10am–5pm | Monday–Friday Closed Weekends, State and Federal Holidays 1 Jacobsen Way, Carson City, Nevada
(775) 687-7608 StewartIndianSchool.com
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MUSEUMS The AGUA CALIENTE CULTURAL PLAZA AND MUSEUM opens on November 3, 2023, in downtown Palm Springs, California. The 48,000-squarefoot space will feature a gallery, educational classroom, teaching garden, event space, and more. The HERITAGE CENTER AT RED CLOUD INDIAN SCHOOL in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, hired Tawa Ducheneaux (Cherokee Nation). Previously she directed Oglala Lakota College’s Woksape Tipi Library and Archives. The center will become an independent museum, MAȞPÍYA LÚTA.
ART SHOWS The Washington State Historical Society, based in Tacoma, hosted its 18th Annual IN THE SPIRIT CONTEMPORARY NATIVE ARTS exhibition. Carly Feddersen (Colville Okanagan/Sinixt)
won best of show, Timothy O’Connell III (Jamestown S’Klallam) won the Spirit of the Northwest award, and Denise Emerson (Skokomish/Navajo) won the Honoring the Ancestors award. Alison Bremner (Tlingit) received both the Honoring Innovation and the Purchase Prize awards. Carolyn Pallett (Cherokee Nation) won the grand prize at the 28th annual CHEROKEE HOMECOMING ART SHOW, hosted by the Cherokee Nation, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Categories winners were Richard Fields, traditional arts; Richard Graham, traditional pottery; Troy Jackson, contemporary pottery; Ronda Moss, traditional basketry; Hattie Lee Mendoza, contemporary basketry; Garry Martin, visual arts; Charlie Nichols, sculpture; Cathy Abercrombie, textiles; Tiffany Reiter, jewelry; Carolyn Pallett, beadwork. Special award winners were Makiya Deerinwater, Bill Rabbit Legacy Award; Cathy Abercrombie, Betty Scraper-Gardner
Elder Award; and Adrienne Keene, Emerging Artist Award. All winners are citizens of the Cherokee Nation. The Jacobson House Native Art Center in Norman, Oklahoma, hosted TWENTYFIRST CENTURY, a competitive juried art show. Jeff Yellowhair (Kiowa) won best of show. Jesse Howell (Pawnee) won first place, Janae Grass (Sac & Fox) won second place, and August Walker (Sac & Fox) won third place.
ART FAIRS Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish), director and chief curator of the Forge Project, curated the Focus section of the 2023 ARMORY SHOW held this September in New York. Focus included 17 Indigenous artists of the Americas: Seba Calfuqueo (Mapuche), Brus Rubio Churay (Murui/Bora), Renée Condo (Mi'gmaw descent), Sara Flores (Shipibo-Conibo), Beau Dick (Kwakwaka'wakw, 1955–2017), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂ ), Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee), Patrick
NO. 40, FALL 2023 | 9