Author: FAAM Staff

First American Art Magazine’s Top 10 Native Art Events of 2016 This last year brought us daring art projects, extraordinary exhibits, illuminating publications, new institutions, and challenging discussion of art by Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Selecting only ten events from so many was challenging, but our writers and advisory board ranked the following ten as the highlights of the last year. 1. The Art and Activism at Standing Rock, SD Since April 2016, Water Protectors gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Members of hundreds of different Indigenous groups…

Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, Oklahoma IT ALL BEGAN on the Southern Plains landscape at Salt Fork where 72 Arapaho, Comanche, Cheyenne, Caddo, and Kiowa were transported by train to Fort Marion (earlier known as Castillo de San Marcos), in St. Augustine, Florida. The imprisonment of warriors also began a history of government-led boarding schools to assimilate children, remove their tribal identities, and convert them to Christianity. Generations were impacted by historical trauma that continues to the present day. Re-Riding History: From the Southern Plains to the Matanzas Bay, exhibits 72 echoed responses of contemporary artists sharing personal histories of these…

Labor Day weekend in Northern New Mexico means the Annual Santo Domingo Pueblo Pueblo Arts and Crafts Market on the Santo Domingo Pueblo square, also know as Kewa Pueblo, south of the 1890 Santo Domingo Mission Church. With approximately 350 artists, this quiet art fair is one of the largest Native art events in the country. Santo Domingo Pueblo Market hosts more artists than the Eiteljorg, Autry, Cherokee, and Indigenous Fine Art Markets and is only smaller than the Santa Fe Indian Market and Heard Fair. It might be the largest tribally-run art market in the US. Yet, this market…

The 2016 Santa Fe Indian Market Best of Show winner is Adrian Nasafoite (Hopi) for his woodcarving, “Purification.” Classification winners are: I. Jewelry: Benson Manygoats (Navajo) II. Pottery: Al Qöyawayma (Hopi) III. Painting/Drawings/Graphics/Photography: Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo) IV. Wooden Pueblo Figurative Carvings and Sculpture: Adrian Nasafotie (Hopi) V. Sculpture: Ed Natiya (Navajo) VI. Textiles: Berdina Charley (Navajo) VII. Diverse Arts: Leonard Gene (Navajo) VIII. Beadwork/Quillwork: Joyce and Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine-Sioux) IX. Youth: Nicklaus Stanaland (Navajo) X. Moving Images: Jordan Dresser (Northern Arapaho), Julianna Brannum (Comanche), and Mat Hames XI. Basketry: Kelly Church (Odawa-Ojibwe) Special awards include the…

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) cohosted our fall launch party at Museum Hill Café. Weldon Fulton prepared a menu of Cherokee-inspired cuisine to honor Lloyd Kiva New that included turkey skewers, cornbread, an onion and egg dish, and sassafras tea. Aysen New agreed to share some words at our launch, but we were surprised when she brought Jeff New, Lloyd’s son, as well as his wife and children to our event. A great mix of people joined us from MIAC, School for Advanced Research, Wheelwright, International Folk Art Market, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, IAIA, and even…

Issue No. 12, Fall 2016 Click here to purchase a digital copy for $7 from Issuu. To purchase a print copy, select your location: Locations US, New Mexico $9.74 USD US, other than NM $8.99 USD Canada $9.99 USD International $15.92 USD Features Archival Art by Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, 26–33 Science Fiction Imagery in Native Art by Suzanne Newman Fricke, PhD, 34–39 Lloyd Kiva New by Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation), 40–45 Contemporary Native Art in Britain by Stephanie Pratt, PhD (Dakota), 48–55 Three Artists You Should Know by America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), 56–59 Artist Profiles Colin Coonsis: Zuni Jeweler and…

Issue No. 11, Summer 2016 Click here to purchase a digital copy for $7 from Issuu. To purchase a print copy, select your location: Locations US, New Mexico $9.74 USD US, other than NM $8.99 USD Canada $9.99 USD International $15.92 USD Features Iroquois Whimsies by Wandeyu Estrada-Goeman (Onondaga), 22–27 Mata Ortiz Pottery by Cathy Short (Citizen Potawatomi), 28–33 Great Plains Horse Painting by Kim Mariette, 34–39 Maya Influences in Yucatecan Art by Geoffrey E. Aronson, 40–45 Artist Profiles Marwin Begaye: Navajo Printmaker by Suzanne Newman Fricke, PhD, 46–51 Kansuet: Guna Painter by Peter Szok, PhD, 52–57 Marianne Nicolson, PhD: Dzawada’enuxw…

Letter to the People of France, May 24, 2016 The People of the Pueblo of Acoma, an Indian tribe in the United States, call upon the People of France to help us in our hour or need. Something very disturbing and unsettling has been occurring in Paris auction houses and in the art world that has led to outrage and condemnation by many Native American tribes in the United States, including the Pueblo of Acoma. It’s the illegal practice of trafficking and selling Native American cultural property – items considered sacred, sacrosanct, used in worship, and never to be given away…

By Kelly Church (Grand Traverse Odawa-Ojibwe) In the coming decade, black ash split baskets, ash bark baskets, and hand-carved ash cradleboards will become some of the rarest, collectible pieces of Native art. Black ash (Nigra fraxinus), also known as brown ash, is a tree that only grows in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. The Native Nations in these areas, which include the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Wabenaki, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee, have woven baskets from the black ash tree for thousands of years. First, they wove utilitarian baskets, and after contact, fancy baskets to provide for the needs of the communities…

Issue No. 10, Spring 2016 Click here to purchase a digital copy for $7 from Issuu. To purchase a print copy, select your location: Locations US, New Mexico $9.74 USD US, other than NM $8.99 USD Canada $9.99 USD International $15.92 USD Features Wisconsin’s Effigy Mounds by America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), 22–29 American Indian Art Magazine by Gloria Bell (Métis), 30–31 Historical Continuum: The Portraits of Brian Honyouti by Zena Pearlstone, PhD, 32–37 A Conversation with Tanya Lukin Linklater by Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, 38–42 Artist Profiles Angela Babby: Oglala Lakota Glass Artist by Mary V. Bordeaux (Sicangu Lakota), 48–53…