A couple of the larger Navajo rugs cover a number of seats during the rug preview for the rug auction at the Museum of Northern Arizona on Saturday. (Rick Wacha/Arizona Daily Sun)
We’re just catching up with this story from the (Flagstaff) Arizona Daily Sun about the weekend’s Navajo Rug Auction at the Museum of Northern Arizona. It was, as Diandra Markgraf makes clear, wildly successful.
She describes the crowd roaring in appreciation as each of the 300 rugs made its appearance at the event held twice yearly and sponsored by the Flagstaff Cultural Partners and the Coconino Center for the Arts. And she gives readers who might not be familiar with the tradition some background information:
Concentrated in the Four Corners region of the Rez in places with names like Teec Nos Pos, Ganado, Klagetoh, Shiprock, Two Grey Hills, Ye’ii, hundreds of Navajo women are at home, tediously weaving rugs out of the landscape. These women are also weaving pieces of themselves into long-lasting tradition.
Originally, Navajo weavings were forged mainly for utilitarian purposes. The wool for these rugs was hand-carded, hand-spun, hand-dyed and woven into something useful and durable, like a saddle blanket or sitting pad.
If a woman spun her own yarn, she would also most likely hand-dye it using organic pigments from whatever she could find that would stay color-fast. These “vegetal” dyes are preferred by purists — they are made from Navajo tea for a rust color, sagebrush and plant roots for greens and berries for shades of blue.
Jennifer McLerran, an art history and museum studies professor at Northern Arizona University, says that “you can tell one style from the other by the designs, quality of yarn and color patterns. The look of each piece is influenced by its area of origin, the personal touches of the designer and the interests of the trader.”
Not to start your weekend on a downer, but here’s the entire story from the Bismarck Tribune’s Kay Kemmett via Associated Press:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The broken pieces of the Rising Eagle sculpture are finally back together, almost a year after vandals reduced the American Indian art to rubble last July.
Just north of the Pioneer Park sand volleyball courts, the Rising Eagle seating area is fixed but the space for the sculpture is bare. The sculpture, created by United Tribes Technical College students, will be restored within the next couple of weeks.
Steve White Mountain - or Heska, as he prefers to be called - stands in front of a sculpture in Bismarck, N.D.'s Pioneer Park that needs to be repaired. (AP Photo/Bismarck Tribune, Tom Stromme)
“It is scary when you think that someone would want to do something like that,” said Paul Quist, president of the Bismarck Park Board, about the vandalism.
Heska, a former student of UTTC, approached the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District about reconstructing the art and has been a staple in the UTTC maintenance shop working to recreate Rising Eagle since August.
“I think it’s important that someone step up and try to rectify a wrong,” Heska said.
Heska, of the Standing Rock Reservation, prefers to be called by his American Indian name rather than Steven White Mountain.
“It’s important to me that I’m known by Heska,” he said.
Navajo comedian Vincent “Muttonman” Craig dies
Family members posted a note on Vincent Craig’s Facebook page thanking friends and family for their support as the legendary Dine comedian and singer-songwriter battled cancer, according to the Navajo Times, here. He was only 59. The note was posted late last night and the Times promises updates.
Supreme Court nominee Kagan falls short on Native issues
That’s the assessment by the legal experts quoted in this story by Indian Country Today’s Rob Capriccioso. He writes that “her positions on tribal and Indian legal issues are unknown, and she has lacked engagement on some major Native topics.” And, he reports, that when Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, she failed to hire a permanent scholar to fill the Harvard Law School’s Oneida chair, largely funded by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York.
Tohono O’odham police arrest 10 in huge bust of alleged coke smuggling ring
Anonymous law enforcement photo of law enforcement officers from Tohono O'odham Police, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the FBI executing warrants at homes in Sells on Saturday morning that resulted in the arrest of 10 people in connection with a cocaine smuggling ring.
It was, according to this Tucson Arizona Star report, the largest drug enforcement operation in the history of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Nine tribal members and one other person were arrested yesterday in an early-morning sweep in Sells, Ariz.
U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle tells the Star that the arrests marked the culmination of a five-month, multi-agency investigation led by the Tohono O’odham Police Department.
And, it marked the first time tribal police officers have executed federal warrants on the Tohono O’odham Nation. It was part of an effort that saw tribal officers trained by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs so they could makes arrest on federal charges, which carry more severe penalties than tribal ones.
Pine Ridge principal on tap for Obama administration post
Robert Cook, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who is principal of Pine Ridge High School, is expected to be appointed to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education, according to this Rapid City Journal story. Cook recently completed a term as president of the National Indian Education Association.
POPcorn No. 5 by Stephen Wood (Heard Museum photo)
Native pop art in new Heard Museum show
Not just niche art is how the Heard Museum is describing its new exhibit by Native American and other pop artists. ” ‘Pop! Popular Culture in American Indian Art,’ ” reminds us, if we need reminding, that Indians also are participants in the culture at large, and that Native American art is not merely a niche art: It is part of the global art conversation,” writes Richard Nilson of the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic, here.
The show features work by iconic pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, but also works by Native artists such as Fritz Scholder and T.C. Cannon.
In fact, Ryan Singer has a riff on Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup can, with is painting, “Sheep Is Good Food,” of a mutton stew can.
As painter Jaune Quick-to-See Smith says in the exhibit, “I appropriate Pop Art because it is symbolic of the American mainstream culture.”
Report – Indigenous languages at serious risk on Canada’s Pacific Coast
Only a few people still speak the indigenous languages of the First Nations on the Pacific Coast of Canada. As detailed in this story, and the video above, a report by The First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council says eight of the 32 languages of British Columbia are endangered and 22 nearly extinct. Only about 5 percent of the indigenous population is considered fluent, and most of those people are older than 65.
Federal judge rules Wyoming county voting system hurts Indians
A federal judge in Wyoming has ruled that the system of electing county commissioners in Fremont County dilutes American Indian votes and must be changed. This Casper (Wyo.) Star Tribune reports says U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson gave the county until June 30 to submit a new plan. The county is home to the Wind River Indian Reservation, with its Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. The Star Tribune praises the ruling in this editorial, which says that Johnson’s strongly worded ruling should lead to fairer representation for voters on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Tucson Symphony Orchestra performs at Tohono O’odham Nation
Tohono O'odham elder Lucyann Joaquin watches the Tucson Symphony Orchestra String Quartet perform at Archie Hendricks Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility on the Tohono O'oodham reservation near Sells, Ariz., Saturday May 1, 2010. (Greg Bryan/Arizona Daily Star)
The strains of Dvorák’s String Quartet wafted through the Archie Hendricks skilled Nursing Facility on the Tohono O’odham Nation yesterday, thank to members of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. The group traveled there to perform for the center’s two dozen elders, a performance that nearly brought Gordon Francisco to tears.
It was the first time he and the majority of those attending the recital – the first of three the TSO performed on the nation Saturday – had ever seen an orchestra concert, the Greg Bryan of the Arizona Daily Star writes here.
“As far as the adults, it feels like their lives are just (about) working, and they never seek it out,” said Allison Francisco, the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center & Museum artist liaison. She was responsible for bringing the TSO to the nation for three concerts.
Denver Art Museum to renovate historic American Indian, Northwest Coast galleries
The Denver Art Museum opened in 1925, becoming the first American museum to collect Native American objects as art rather than artifact. This summer, the museum reports here, it’s renovating and reinstalling its American Indian and Northwest Coast art galleries. They’ll be open to the public through June 13, then will close until early 2011, when they’ll reopen in a 23,000-square-foot gallery that includes new interactive, artist-centric displays.
New book contrasts Sitting Bull and Custer
Just when you think nothing new can possibly be written about the Little Bighorn, along comes “The Last Stand,” by Nathaniel Philbrick. The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger says of it, here, that “the latest retelling of the iconic confrontation between whites and Native Americans is written not so much for battle buffs as it is for a more general audience interested in learning about clashing cultures and warring ways of life.” And, he says, it contrasts the “womanizing, publicity-seeking George Armstrong Custer against Sitting Bull, the stoic and contemplative leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota.”
Navajo heroine Ellen Tsosie returns in new book aimed at young readers
Arizona author Seth Muller has written a new book featuring a young Navajo girl, Ellie Tsosie, who made her debut in “The Mockingbird’s Manual,” a 2009 novel about how she learns to talk to birds. Now, according to this Arizona Daily Sun report, Ellie Tsosie is back in “The Day of Storms.” It’s all part of the “Keepers of the Windclaw Chronicles” series aimed at readers ages 8 to 12.
Recession? Not in Albuquerque, where Gathering of Nations pumps millions into economy
As many as 200,000 people were expected to have attended the Gathering of Nations that ended last night in Albuquerque. TV station KOB reports here that the event, which bills itself as the world’s largest powwow, will bring in $22 million to $35 million for the local economy.
Early Inuit art commands very high prices
Inuit art from the 1950s and 1960s brings impressive prices, as Jane George of the Nunatsiaq News, who attended a recent auction of Inuit art in Toronto, writes here. A carving called “Hooded figure,” by the late John Pangnark of Arviat, went for $14,000, and a 1959 Cape Dorset print, “Polar bear and cub in ice,” by Niviaxie, who died that same year, sold for $22,800.
Art by Native inmates finds market on the outside
And speaking of art, Native inmates inside the Mike Durfee Prison in South Dakota are creating artwork that could help support them on the outside. State corrections spokesman Michael Winder says art is encouraged in the prison. And Laurie Apple tells the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, here, that she buys art from Native inmates for her art store and gallery, Osage Lakota Artworks, in Kimball.
Two novels draw inspiration from Northwest Coast tribes
Today, Bellingham (Wash.) Herald book reviewer Barbara Lloyd McMichael takes a look, here, at two novels that focus on Northwest Coast Native American culture – John Pappas’ “When Wolf Comes,” that McMichael terms an historical novel that reads like a captivity narrative. The second is a book recently brought back into print: “Raven Stole the Moon.” It’s the first novel by Garth Stein, who went on to write the bestseller, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”
Gathering heralds First Nations, Metis and Inuit learners
A recent gathering hosted by the Edmonton Public Schools’ Board of Trustees was the first such event for First Nations Chiefs and other leaders from First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities from across three territories, the Edmonton Journal reports here. The idea was to build on the work of the board’s Aboriginal Education Task Force.
Dine soldiers home with their families after 10-month tour in Iraq
We love stories about soldiers coming home safe. Here’s one from the Navajo Times, about the 300 soldiers of the New Mexico National Guard who returned after a 10-month tour in Iraq. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was on hand to welcome members of the 1115th and the 720th companies. “I’m very proud of our National Guard, particularly with the Navajos who are serving,” Richardson told them.
Nearly a half-century after becoming part of the first class at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, N.M., Crow artist Kevin Red Star’s is part of the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Denver Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of Western Art, the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, and the U.S. State Department.
Tonight, he’ll open the first solo exhibition of his work at the Missoula Art Museum in western Montana, the Missoulian’s Joe Nickell writes here.
“All of the national recognition that Kevin has received, his drawing attention to art as a living and breathing part of contemporary Native American culture, and then his decision to come back here to Montana – it makes it important for us to celebrate that body of work,” MAM curator Steve Glueckert tells Nickell.
“He really had a big part in bringing contemporary Native American art to where it is now. He was and is hugely influential.”
As Nickell writes, Red Star’s work blends “elements of pop art and abstract expressionism with an unabashedly pictorial, at times romantic approach.”
Red Star characterizes his own history as well as art. The exhibit includes his “Crow Tipis – Night Lodge,” shown above in the Missoulian photo by Tom Bauer.
“Someone who is a student of Plains Indian groups will see that those tepees aren’t just any tepees; they’re Crow Indian tepees, which is reflected in the way they’re constructed,” says Red Star. “The dresses of the dancers, too, that’s not just colorful dresses. It’s Crow Indian dresses.”
Gwen Florio
Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean unveils the Truce Wall at the Olympic Athletes Village in Vancouver this week. (Jenelle Schneider, PNG, The Province)
The stainless steel “truce wall” carved by First Nations artist Corinne Hunt for the Olympics will do more than grace the winter games that start tonight in Vancouver.
The panels will be auctioned off after the Olympics to benefit Haitian relief, reports Suzanne Fournier of The Province, here.
The decision was announced when the sculpture was unveiled this week at a ceremony that featured drummers and a blessing by Tewanee Joseph, CEO of the Four Host First Nations, which have become the first ever indigenous co-hosts of Olympic Games:
Hunt, who also designed the Olympic medals, has pledged to replace the two truce walls to ensure a permanent monument will remain at both Olympic athletes villages in Vancouver and Whistler.
Governor-General Michaelle Jean, who was born in Haiti and still has family in the earthquake-stricken country, was deeply moved by the decision, made apparently just before Tuesday morning’s ceremony
.
“Building peace does not mean simply laying down our weapons,” said Jean, speaking at the unveiling in Vancouver of the two truce walls, one with the orca crest Hunt designed for the Olympic athletes’ medals and the other for the Paralympics, sporting a stylized raven crest.
“It means taking one step closer to others, to respect their dignity, identity and integrity and to sympathize with their pain, around us, at home and abroad,” said Jean.
Hunt is of Komoyue and Tlingit heritage and creates gold and silver jewelry, carvings and furniture. Fournier notes that with Hunt’s work selling now for several thousand dollars, the auction of seven panels could raise serious money.
Pieces of contemporary Native American pottery now grace the Oval Office. (AP photo/Susan Walsh)
Detail of some of the pieces of art. (AP photo/Susan Walsh)
You don’t get much closer to power than the Oval Office. So, the fact that President Barack Obama has accented what is perhaps the most famous workspace in the world with Native American art is telling. We’ve written about this before, but now there are photos to show the art in its new setting. This Associated Press story details the president’s choices. Let’s hope they’re more than symbolic.
By Nancy Benac of the Associated Pres
WASHINGTON – The decorative china plates are long gone. Historic metal gadgets and Native American pottery now stand in their stead. Resting on a bookshelf is a framed program from the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech.
President Barack Obama gradually has made the Oval Office his own.
To varying degrees, each president puts his own imprint on this celebrated workspace. Even the smallest change — Obama’s penholder, for example — is closely watched for symbolism.
While recent presidents have each done a big overhaul upon taking office, Obama decided against major redecorating. It would have struck a sour note in a time of economic distress.
But over his first year in the White House, the office has come to reflect his tastes.
Above, “Christmas in the iglu” by Elisapee Ishulutak. (Artwork courtsey of Uqqurmiut, via Nunatsiaq News.
Sometimes we feel that Buffalo Post could be a blog solely about art, so many are the supremely gifted people about whom we write. Painters and sculptors, jewelers and quilters, writers and musicians and filmmakers – all entranced us this year. Here are just a few:
Brian Jungen’s art is not only beautiful and impressive, it’s also a lot of fun. He uses a lot of modern materials – sneakers, anyone? – in contemporary sculptures that reference Native traditions. “Native cultures are living, and shouldn’t be in the Museum of Natural History. . . . It’s good for people to realize native art isn’t just beads and carving,” says Jungen, of the Dunne-za First Nation in British Columbia. Jungen was the first living artist to be featured in a solo show at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. His work has also been featured in London’s Tate Modern and New York’s New Museum as well as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
You’d think it would be enough that at the age of 25, Josh Marceau’s photo already hangs on the Wall of Fame in the Native American Research Lab at the University of Montana. Marceau is a doctoral student at UM, pursuing his degree in biomedical science. But he’s also a talented jeweler, and says the two pursuits actually dovetail nicely.
Sherman Alexie
Writer Sherman Alexie seems to be on track to surpass Joyce Carol Oates in terms of productivity. Alexie makes us a little grumpy because he writes superbly in too many genres – adult fiction, young-adult fiction and poety – but we’ve got to get over that because he’s just so good. Besides, he’s passionate on the subject of reading and books: “I think white folks should be ashamed that it’s taking an Indian to save part of their culture,” he says. Alexie’s got a new book, “War Dances,” and of course he won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for his young-adult novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” It’s not as though his success comes from bending over backward to please everyone: “If you’re not offending a pretty high percentage of people who read your books, you’re not doing it well enough. … At my public performances, if somebody doesn’t walk out at some point I feel like I haven’t done my job.”
Jereldine Redcorn had already received multiple honors for her pottery, for which she mastered ancient Caddo techniques, although using them sometimes in modern designs. This year, she has one more kudo – First Lady Michelle Obama selected one of Redcorn’s works, “Intertwining Scrolls,” to decorate the White House. Her work is included with pieces by internationally renowned artists such as painters Mark Rothko and Jasper Johns, and ceramic artist Maria Montoya Martinez of the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico. “Life and unity are universal and timeless,” Redcorn says.
Wes Studi
The film, “The Only Good Indian,” swept the American Indian Film Festival this year. University of Kansas faculty member Kevin Wilmott won best director, and actors Wes Studi and Winter Fox Frank won best actor and best supporting actor, respectively. The film was based on a script written by KU alumnus Thomas L. Carmody and “The Only Good Indian” was inspired by the early history of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence. It recounts the story of a Kickapoo boy forcibly taken from his family – yes, that would be kidnapping – and sent to boarding school. He later escapes, but is tracked by a bounty hunter – who is Cherokee. Those two are, in turn, pursued by an Indian sheriff. Many of the cast and crew are from the University of Kansas, Haskell, and the nearby Kickapoo Indian Reservation.
And speaking of movies, “New Moon,” the second movie in the “Twlight” teen vampire series got buzz and more buzz for the number of hunky young Native actors taking roles of Quileute tribal members who – in the books and movies – also turn into werewolves.
Some of the nearly 10,000 ancient images in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon. (AP photo)
A corporation that wants to add 800 gas wells to an area of Utah known for its rock art has reached an agreement to protect those petroglyphs, Paul Foy of the Associated Press reports here.
The only way for drilling and other equipment to reach the high plateaus where the wells will be located is along a road through Nine Mile Canyon, which has been called the world’s longest art gallery.
The canyon, which is actually 78 miles long, has thousands of ancient drawings.
Bill Barrett Corp., the company developing the gas fields, has agreed to changes to limit abrasive road dust that can damage the art. The federal Bureau of Land Management will monitor the canyon from rim to rim.
Nine Mile Canyon contains more than 10,000 prehistoric rock carvings and paintings of bighorn sheep, owls, a two-headed snake, spear-wielding hunters and warriors engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
“The rock art and archaeological sites on the West Tavaputs Plateau are everyone’s heritage,” says Wilson Martin, Utah’s historic preservation officer. “They are priceless.”
