By Katharine Thomas SARASOTA, FL — A crowd gathered on March 18 for an artist panel reflecting on the opening of a historic exhibition at the Ringling Museum. Reclaiming Home: Contemporary Seminole Art is the first exhibition of Native American art to be presented at this museum. Ringling Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Ola Wlusek curated this exhibition, It showcases “contemporary art by Native American artists with ancestral, historical, and present-day connections to Florida.” John and Mable Ringling opened The Ringling Museum of Art in 1931 to further education and foster an appreciation of art in young people. The…
Author: firstamart
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Five artists have been selected for the prestigious 2023 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, an award that comes with a $50,000 unrestricted grant, museum permanent collection purchases, and a place in the exhibition UNSETTLE/Converge. This exhibition, sure to be stellar, will open November 11, 2023, and continue through the end of February 2024 at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. The museum will publish an art catalogue featuring essays about each of the 2023 fellows to accompany the exhibition. In 2023 the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellows are: Natalie Ball (Klamath/Modoc) of Chiloquin, Oregon. Ball draws…
Visiting with us from her home in Montana, Jackie Larson Bread (Blackfeet) is a renowned beadwork artist known for her detailed portraiture and geometric abstraction rendered with a gorgeous and nuanced palette of glass seed beads. She won Best of Show at the 2019 Santa Fe Indian Market (after previously winning in 2013). Her winning piece—a beaded naturalistic portrait of Bread’s great-aunt that highlights Blackfeet geometric designs on her great-aunt’s buckskin dress—followed the 2019 SWAIA theme “Rise and Remember: Honoring the Resilience of Native Women.” How have things changed from you since the COVID-19 pandemic began? Life has been complicated…
In Terrortories: The Frontier, artist Jamison Chas Banks held both a performance and open studio as a culmination of several months’ art residency in the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe. Banks (Seneca-Cayuga-Cherokee) explores the aesthetics of nationalism and military totalitarianism—pushing it to such an extreme that it becomes absurd. Much in the manner of Slovenian artist collective Neue Slowenische Kunst, Banks repurposes imagery from diverse governmental institutions from all over the globe to demonstrate the universality, and futility, of conflict; however, in this performance, he and his collaborators, Daniel Grignon (UNsurgent) and Echota Killsnight (U.N. Envoy/Guard), resolved…
Who’s on First? When I interned at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, I was instructed to tell visitors how the Kiowa Six were the first Native artists to exhibit and achieve international recognition in the art world, when they exhibited at the 1928 First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Although their European exhibitions were an important milestone in Native American art history, it simply isn’t true that they were the first. My copy of Tamara Leigerot Elder’s Lumhee Holot-Tee: The Art and Life of Acee Blue Eagle states on its back cover that Acee “Blue Eagle was the…
A Glimpse into 16th Century Nahua Art Theory Since the majority of Indigenous Americans did not have writing before the 16th century, oral history, songs, dances, and visual art record precontact philosophies, history, and worldviews. In Mesoamerica, writing dates back 3,000 years, beginning with the Olmecs. Mayan, Mixtec, and Aztec peoples created vast libraries of books; however, many of these were burned by Spanish invaders. From the surviving manuscripts, or codices, we can glean a little of early Mesoamerican thought, including their views about art. Below are some excerpts from Nahuatl poetry recorded after Spanish contact. Here through art I…
“Designed to Last: Striving toward an Indigenous American Aesthetic” The International Journal of the Arts in Society. Volume 4, Number 2 (2009): 373–86. heather ahtone (Choctaw/Chickasaw) When I first got my hands on “Designed to Last,” I handed it out like Chick tracts. So many people write about the need to assess Indigenous American art based on Indigenous values; however, this essay was the first time I have ever seen anyone propose a way to do so. Her methodology was practical, versatile, and accessible. I will attempt to summarize her main points. Choctaw/Chickasaw scholar heather ahtone was a doctoral candidate…
Issue No. 5, Winter 2014 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 New Mexico $8.99 USD Canada $9.99 USD International $16.99 USD Features Fish Skin as a Textile Material in Alaska Native Cultures, by Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, PhD (Alutiiq), 40–47 Mapuche Silver: Dreams, Tears, and the Work of a Retrafe, by Heidi McKinnon, 48–55 Mapuche Silver: Changes in Shape, Form, and Design through Time, by Heidi McKinnon, 54–55 Ohio’s Ancient Earthworks, by America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), 56–59 Artist Profiles Jessica Clark:…
Issue No. 4, Fall 2014 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 New Mexico $8.99 USD Canada $9.99 USD Mexico $13.99 USD International $16.99 USD Features Cahuilla Basketry: An Enduring Legacy, by Bryn Barabas Potter, 50–59 Let It Sink In: The Art of Jagua by Vanessa Elmore, with photo shoot by Stephen Lang, 64–69 Jagua Tips, by America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), 67 Sharing His Legacy: James Luna Donates His Archives to IAIA, by Kim Baca (Diné/Santa Clara Pueblo), 70–73 Jaune…
FAAM No. 3, Summer 2014 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 Graphic Natives: The Indigenous Narratives Collective, by Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation), 42–47 Wixáritari Yarn Painting: Dazzling Art from the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains, by Kevin Simpson, 48–55 Native Soul: The Bacone College Native Art Program, 1932–2014, by Tony A. Tiger (Sac & Fox/Muscogee/Seminole), 56–58 Reaching for New Heights: Totem Poles from Southeastern Alaskas, by Steve Quinn, 59–63…