An Experiment in Acrylic Painting

Women in Cultural Context, a group exhibit, showed at Tansey Contemporary on Canyon Road. I went to see Teri Greeves’ large scale wall pieces—beadwork mosaic appliqués on raw silk. While there, I discovered the work of another artists in the show, Patrick McGrath Muñiz.

Muñiz is Puerto Rican artist who uses Renaissance techniques to make biting and clever social commentary on today’s global society. Besides his portfolio website, he maintains an informative blog. I poked around and discovered his post “Sharing My Own Approach to Painting Sixteenth CenturyVenetian Way.” Artists willing to share their hard-won techniques are rare and should be celebrated for their magnanimity.

These days, since launching First American Art Magazine, I don’t have any time left to paint; however, I agreed to participate in ImagoMundi. This international art exhibit showcases Luciano Benetton’s collection of artworks from around the word—all 12 cm x 10 cm—Imago Mundi is presently focused on Native America. So I had a tiny panel to paint and a new method about how to paint it. We’re running an article about Mapuche silverwork, so I thought perhaps I could paint something on that subject.

When I work from historical photographs, I try to find works in the public domain, such as Gustavo Milet Ramírez’s 1890 photo of a young Mapuche woman from Traiguén, Chile. The French-Chilean photographer, who lived from 1860 to 1917, was known for his photographs of Mapuche people.  Milet Ramírez took several shots of the same girl, many of which were made into postcards; I chose the photo in which she was grinning. Being extraordinarily nearsided, I’m fairly adept at teasing out information from grainy black-and-white photographs. The texture of her clothes and mantle are different; coarse woven material versus fur, which might be a quillango, a guanaco-fur cloak. Guanacos are the increasingly rare, wild cousins of llamas and alpacas, and their pelts are tawny with creamy-white underbellies.

The day before I had painted the wooden panel purple, so I began sanding it down to create a drawing surface; however, the texture was appealing, so I left it for the background and just gessoed the area that the girl would occupy. Gesso is far easier to draw upon than white paint. In composing the piece, I included the hands, since hands can be an expressive as the face

Step #2 Disegno (drawing)

In his blog post, “Sharing My Own Approach to Painting Sixteenth Century Venetian Way,” Patrick McGrath Muñiz’s Step #1 is Bozzetto (preliminary sketch). He recommends drawing on a separate paper and transferring it to the canvas for Step #2 Disegno (drawing) I just draw the girl’s basic features and jewelry directly on the panel.

Step #3 is Sotto Disegno (underdrawing)

His Step #3 is Sotto Disegno (underdrawing), in which he suggests paints the lines with burnt umber and turpentine. I should mention I’m painting with Golden acrylics, not oil paints, so mixed the Burnt Umber with Golden Acrylic Flow Release, which reduces surface tension and makes the paint “wetter.” The end result looks something like an R. Crumb illustration, and her eyes are way too big—but it’s painting; it can be fixed!

Step #4 Imprimatura (toned canvas),

Step #4, Imprimatura (toned canvas), requires a translucent wash of Venetian Red thinned with linseed oil and turpentine. Golden recommends substituting Red Oxide for Venetian Red. I used my typical concoction of Acrylic Flow Release, Retarder, and Acrylic Glazing Liquid. Typically this makes a wonderful “soupy” transparent wash that doesn’t dry quickly; however, I found Step #5: Togliere Strofinare (wipe-out technique) challenging. With oils, you can wipe the light areas clean with a cotton cloth; however, my wash dried quickly. I could wipe away sections but the transition was not smooth, so I just touched up the lighter areas with Titanium White. I’m impressed that at every stage of the painting, Muñiz’s sketch of Titian’s The Gipsy Madonna was gorgeous. Mine had ups and downs, but wacky looking stages can be redeemed.

Left: Step #5: Togliere Strofinare (wipe-out technique). Right: my typical painting formula

Step #6 is Sotto Dipinto (underpainting) involves two processes—painting the cool, backgrounds with a grisaille, a range greys mixed from Ivory Black to White, and a citronage, a range of colors mixed from Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre, and White. I’m a huge advocate of underpainting, especially for fleshtones. Typically I use a verdaille, or an olive-green underpainting, which makes fleshtones pop beautifully.

Palette for the citronage: tones of Titanium White mixed with Yellow Ochre,
and shades of Ivory Black mixed with Yellow Ochre

Step #6 Sotto Dipinto (underpainting)

The heavy lifting is done, so Muñiz’s final step is Step #7 Velaturas (color glazing)—the fun part! First step—I hate the Red Oxide wash over the purple, so to move the background back to the back, I gave it an Anthraquinone Blue wash. I also painted her clothing blue, then used Payne’s Gray and Titanium White for her silver jewelry.

Step #7 Velaturas (color glazing)

I laid down the base colors for her guanaco fur cloak, then painted on the furry texture. Here soupy paint bleeds too much; the paint should be less diluted, because the individual strokes should show clearly. I had to fight myself and use the No. 2 brush as much as possible before skipping to the extremely fine 0/20 brush. I tweaked out too much on the right side of the fur, so tried to stay loose on the left side, then went back and smoothed over areas on the right side of the fur cloak. More work does not necessarily mean a better painting, nor does more detail. The detail should be concentrated on the composition’s focus—in this case, the girl’s face—not every corner of the painting.

Step #7 Velaturas (color glazing)

Finally the time has come to cure the girl’s extreme case of jaudice! Her eyes and teeth both look okay as is, so I add color to her lips—the challenge being to make her look natural, not as if she were wearing lipstick. Dramatic shifts between the lip color and dots of white highlights help make the lips appear moist.

I can finally give her skin some color. My typical palette for fleshtones include Titanium White, Naples Yellow, Pyrrole Red, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, and Payne’s Gray. In larger, more detailed portraits, Violent Oxide is fantastic for shadows, but not needed here. Here’s where the paint should be extremely soupy, with generous portions of Acrylic Glazing Liquid for transparency and blending. Each stroke is nerve-wracking because the slightest shift to a mouth, an eyelid, etc. completely changes the expression of the subject.

This is a seriously tiny painting: 12 cm x 10 cm

The purple dress was annoying me, so I gave it a glaze of Alizarin Crimson Hue (Golden doesn’t create toxic colors, so approximates the more historical toxic colors as close as possible). Her jewelry was lumpy, so I tried to straighten it out with bolder edges. It’s a gamble whether to paint silver-like colors or actually to use silver paint; however, this can often look fake and cheap. Gold paint is very attractive, but silver paint can flop, so I opted to leave the jewelry blue-white.

In lieu of a frame, I sanded down the edges to the white gesso. So small, kind of funky, but finished!

Mapuche Girl after Milet Ramírez, 2014, acrylic on wooden panel

While painting I have hours to ponder issues such as cultural appropriation. Why am I, a Swedish-Cherokee artist painting a Mapuche person when I’ve never even been to Chile? By painting a portrait, hopefully I’m not stepping over the line of respectful outsider. I’m not trying to assume Mapuche identity; it would be bizarre if I tried to create Mapuche silver jewelry or painted drums—to attempt usurp their style.

Painting portraits based on historical photographs, although a ubiquitous practice is not by any stretch of the imagination cutting-edge art, and yet it does have some value. Our tribal histories are still invisible in mainstream culture. Painting is not a neutral representation—it’s a time-consuming practice laden with its own ancient history. Painting someone puts them on a pedestal, exults them. Taking this antique image and bringing into the 21st century, in vivid color, is a form of time travel and a statement that this person and her culture are important—that we in North America should look at and learn from South American tribes. I kept thinking about the idea of an “Indian princess,” because a “princess” is most ready European archetype to describe this young woman—confident and smiling—draped in luxurious furs and extravagant silver jewelry.

Thanks to Patrick McGrath Muñiz in sharing guidelines for this small experiment in painting!

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park + Jarrod Burks presentation

Hopewell Mound Group, as mapped by
Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, published in 1848

Today we went to the primary site for the Middle Woodland societies known as the Hopewell Tradition: the Hopewell Cultural National National Historic Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. I'm beginning to appreciate the extent that manmade earthworks—mounds, earthen enclosures, and ditches, some lined to hold water—covered the landscape, particularly in Ross County, of Ohio.

In the Ohio River Valley, the Early Woodland society known as the Adena culture flourished from 1000–200 BCE. This culture evolved into the the Middle Woodland cultural tradition known as Hopewell, who flourished from 200 BCE to 500 CE. The trade network of the Hopewellian Exchange, while originating in Ohio, ultimately spanned from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

This little redwing blackbird is one seriously angry bird.

First we visited the Hopewell Mound Group on a tour led by Dr. Brett Ruby, who has also studied Hopewell sites in Indiana and Tennessee. He said that vegetation management is the park's greatest challenge. Ohio is incredibly lush. Since the earthen enclosures of the Hopewell Mound Group are no longer clearly visible, the park mowed a large swath into the foliage to reveal where the earthworks once stood. From north to south, the enclosures run 2,800 feet.

In 1891, three connected mounds were excavated and many of the Hopewell artifacts in museums today came from these burial mounds. All the other mounds at the site were excavated several times in subsequent years.

Copper repoussé, possibly representing a Carolina parakeet

The Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park maintains a number of close but not adjacent sites. We drove to the immense Siep Mound. Mound City is next to the museum includes 23 mounds, enclosed by earthen embankments with openings at regular intervals. The US Army destroyed most of these mounds in WWI, so they have been rebuilt. A walkway leads down to the nearby Scioto River.

The interpretative center has numerous artifacts and reproductions on display, including mica cut-outs, copper repoussé objects, ear spools, shell bead necklaces, and the characteristic effigy platforms pipes for which Hopewellian artists are so famous.

Muskrat (?) swimming in the Scioto River

Jarrod Burks gave a presentation to a packed house about his success mapping ancient earthworks with remote sensing technologies. These include LiDAR, Light Detection and Ranging, which allows earthworks to be seen through forest canopies, and the magnetometer, which through variations in the magnetic fields can sense underground trenches. Through walking carefully over a site with a magnetometer, either handheld or rolled, Burks can create a map of the underground site, which reveals ditches, earthworks, and post holes.

Remote sensing technologies are extremely exciting developments since they allow archaeologists to glean valuable information about sites, without disturbing burials or sacred sites by excavating them. Tribal archaeologists often couple remote sensing with surface collection, since both are non-intrusive, allowing tribes to know about their ancestors without disrespecting them.

Siep Mound

Mound City—these mounds have all been reconstructed

• Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park, official NPS site
• Jarrod Burks, Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants
• Brett Ruby, papers on Academia.edu

Ohio Earthworks

Map of precontact sites in Ohio by Heironymous Rowe

Thanks to American Indian Studies Program at the Ohio State University, Linda Lomahaftewa and I are embarking on another precolumbian journey—this time to explore Ohio's Ancient Earthworks!

Ohio is the birthplace of three major civilizations:

• Adena culture (ca. 1000 - 200 BCE)
• Hopewell Exchange (ca. 200 BCE - 500 CE)
• Fort Ancient culture (1000-1750 CE )

Marti Chaatsmith, the Associate Director of the Newark Earthworks Center, and Christine Ballengee Morris, Professor of Arts Administration and Policy at OSU, created an amazing itinerary that includes:

• The Great Serpent Mound

  

  Hopewellian copper bird, the Mound City, Ohio

• Fort Ancient Earthworks
• Mound City [Hopewell Culture National Historic Park],
• Newark Earthworks: the Octagon and Great Circle Earthworks
• Panther Mound
•  Jeffers Mound
• Wright-Holder Earthworks
• Ohio Historical Society
• Flint Ridge State Park
• and, for fun, the Longaberger Basket Building.

We'll post our discoveries and adventures here. For more information about Ohio's precontact earthworks, check out:

• Newark Earthworks Center blog
• Ancient Ohio Trail.

Cultivating Vocabulary: An Ongoing Process

Ah Tz'ib, a Mayan word referring to painters and writers

While it’s clear that we need new vocabulary to discuss Indigenous art; the effort to find new words seems to be stymied. One problem is, especially here in the southwest, there’s an incredible volume of writing about Native art, but it’s dominated by the language of marketing and hyperbole and seldom written by people with both a background in arts and Native cultures. 

The first obvious challenge is that much of the dialogue takes place in the English language, whose grammar is hardwired for antonyms, that is binary opposites, such as black/white, hot/cold, or right/wrong. In the language, these opposites seem clear cut and logical. However, in reality, couldn’t transparent be the opposite of black or morally relative between the opposite of both right and wrong? The pairing of concepts as binary opposites is rife with unspoken assumptions that steer the ensuing dialogue in a predetermined direction. That’s why I have tried in the past to write about the futility of any discussion positioning traditional in opposition to contemporary or craft against fine art. The racism at the core of these pairings is inexcusable—the notion that tribally specific art or art informed by tribal values is old fading away before the Western-sanctioned new or that artists using non-Western forms have no content or message to convey but are only repeating decorative utilitarian forms.

Traditional is not a bad word at all, but everyone has her or his own definition of it. As Scott Ennis (Cherokee Nation) once said, “Tradition is like cornbread; everyone has their own recipe, but it’s still cornbread.” Personally, I view traditional as being ceremonially involved in one’s tribe, speaking one’s language, reflecting and living one’s tribal worldview, which is all completely positive and something to aspire to. Locally, some Pueblo people see traditional art as following procedures and artistic prescribed collectively for a reason. Whether tradition describes what’s in a person’s heart or in techniques and aesthetics (or both), it’s a term grounded in an Indigenous community. If an artist is creating video art of their tribal members using their own language, wouldn’t that be traditional?

A place to reject the word traditional is how it is used in marketing transitional Native art forms. A great deal stays the same in the Native art world because vast quantities of money is invested in keeping things the same. Because certain art forms were marketed in a certain way in the early 20th century, other dealers want to keep artists in their ascribed categories. For instance, the notion that overlay silver working technique is Hopi. The overlay style was developed and promoted by Hopi artists such as Fred Kabotie and Paul Saufkie for veterans returning from World War II (Byrne et al. 191–192). The fact that people initially resisted Charles Loloma’s use of gold in jewelry boggles my mind, when Hopi jewelers only adopted silverwork in the late 19th century. That’s on par with Oscar Howe’s 1958 rejection from the Philbrook since he didn’t paint Flatstyle, which was developed in the 1910s to 1930s. That drive, usually by non-Natives, to freeze art in time should has nothing to with the Indigenous perspective of tradition and should be actively resisted.

From a modernist Western perspective, integration within one's community hasn’t necessarily been the ideal in art; individual self-expression has been celebrated—even fetishized in the romantic vision of a lone genius struggling in a studio. The primacy of community versus the individual could be a potential fault line between Native and non-Native art; however, I believe the best of post-modern Western art is in the process of evolving back toward the community in the arts. Especially since so many historical art stars have had innumerable people working with them to fabricate their art.

And historically, “innovation” has been celebrated in Western art over “tradition”, in the sense of recreating pre-existing forms or designs; however, it’s easy to argue that there’s nothing new under the sun and a great deal of “innovation” is just appropriation. Appropriation, or the reuse or reference of early artworks, is the earmark of the contemporary art world. An excellent example of this is the work of Sherrie Levine, who in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, photographed or recreated famous pieces of art, shifting their context. In 1982, Levin rephotographed the Great Depression-era social realist photographs of Walker Evans (Owens 114). How do the artworks change, now they are by a woman in the 1980s instead of a man in the 1930s? I would argue that there also incredibly potent conceptual possibilities behind a 2010s Odawa basket weaver weaving a black ash basket — how has the environment shifted, how do pesticides and invasive species come into play, what range of technologies are employed, how has societies’ perception of basketry shifted and changed, what actions is the basket weaver performing that have no English words but can be described in the Odawa language?

Appropriation with a complete disregard for the earlier work's cultural context or meaning would be misappropriation — or a banal or commercial use of sacred imagery. That could be another point of departure between Western and Native art since the brunt of Western art is forcefully secular.

“Derivative” doesn’t get used much in Native art but it should, since it implies a copying that doesn’t renew or add to meaning but rather produces a weaker copy, akin to cloning plants. An artist who copies but doesn’t acknowledge the source would be derivative, and an artist using symbols without understanding or at least striving to understand their meanings might also be described this way.

Obviously, these are just stray thoughts on an ongoing major discussion, but I have observed that discourse improves when more precise terms are substituted for worn out, catchall terms. What the hell is authenticity? Why not discuss honesty? Is an artwork traditional or is it historical, tribally specific, customary, or using non-Western media?

While it can be a challenge to make the leap from English to tribal languages, the wisdom is stored within the languages. I just learned an amazing word, Eqqumiitsuliorneq, which is the Greenland Inuit word for art and more literately translates to mean “odds products, something artificial” (Arke 5).  The Cherokee word for art, ᏗᏟᎶᏍᏙᏗ or ditlilosdodi, refers to making an imitation of reality. The Muscogee Creek word for art is nakvkakv and their word for artist is nakvjayv (Martin and Mauldin 193). A Minnesota Ojibwe word for artist is mazinibii’igewinini (Nichols and Nyholm 80). The Mayan word uj uxul literately means “he of the burnishing/scratching” and is also the title of the royal sculptor (Montgomery).

Not every tribe has a word for “art,” as we are so often informed, but related words are also potent. The Navajo word, hózhó, has had a widespread impact on art discussion. Extrapolating from Harry Walters’ definition, author Mary Lawlor writes, “The sense of beauty invoked in the term is clearly not synonymous with Western concepts that emphasize an exclusively visual appeal based on limited aesthetic criteria. Hózhó implies harmony as well as ethical and moral strength, which derived from a fluent relationship between the one who is hózhó and other beings in a social or spiritual environment” (Lawlor 68).

I’m extremely curious to hear other people’s “forbidden words” they would like stricken from Native art discourse and to hear more Indigenous words for art.

Lane stitch on Arapaho moccasin, 1880s

Addendum: An example of improving terminology is using the term "lane stitch" for the technique of sewing parallel lines of beadwork with single stitches at each end. This stitch was once known as "lazy squaw stitch," an utterly insulting term, then it became known as "lazy stitch." For anyone who's tried their hand at beadwork, there's nothing "lazy" about it. The current term, "lane stitch" is both neutral and actually describes the nature of the stitch.

• Arke, Pia. “Act 5: Ethno-Aesthetics.” Re-Thinking Nordic Colonialism. 2006. Web.
• Lawlor, Mary. Public Native America: Tribal Self-Representations in Museums, Powwows, and Casinos. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Web.
• Martin, Jack B. and Margaret McKane Mauldin. A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Print.
• Montgomery, John. “AJ u-xu-[lu].” Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies.
• Nichols, John D. and Earl Nyholm. A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. Web.
• Owens, Craig. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Web.

In a Nutshell, Part 2

When someone mentions a supposed dichotomy between "fine arts" and "crafts" in Indigenous American art, I scan for escape routes. That conversation goes nowhere, because the unspoken framework governing those terms is fundamentally at odds with Indigenous art.

The notion of "art for art's sake," that visual art should have no utilitarian purpose, was proposed by Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant in his 1790 Critique of Judgement (Fenner 7) and was echoed by many others in the following century. "During this period, 'the fine arts' were those that fit the aestheticist criteria for art for the sake of art and for the sake of nothing else," writes author David E. W. Fenner (7). This Enlightenment era philosophy still echoes among those would haven't studied any art theory in the last century.

A certain cadre of European and European-American thinkers strove to separate art from the banality of daily life, then subsequently, others have spent the last hundred years attempting to re-integrate art into people's lives. The Arts and Craft moment, John Dewey's book Art as Experience (1934), happenings of the 1960s, Thomas Crow's Modern Art in the Common Culture (1998), public art, street art, relational art, community art, etc.

My tribe never signed up to follow Kant or separate our art from our the rest of our lives. Aesthetics and content are interwoven in our artistic creations, ranging from installation to gig-making to basketry to digital art to featherwork.

Martin A. Berger sums up the situation with rare lucidity: "...trac[ing] our modern conception of art back to the eighteenth-century separation of the fine arts from crafts, of artists from artisans, and of aesthetic pleasure from entertainment. These divisions broke a two-thousand-year-old Western convention that art was any activity practiced with skill and grace. In the modern West, art came to be defined by the product created, the person making it, and the experience it generated in audiences rather than the quality of what was fashioned. [Larry] Shiner notes how this new definition of art helped consolidate relations of power: 'To elevate some genres to the spiritual status of fine art and their producers to heroic creators while relegating other genres to the status of mere utility and their producers to fabricators is more than a conceptual transformation.' He points out that 'the genres and activities chosen for elevation and those chosen for demotion reinforce race, class, and gender lines.'" (Berger 99–100).

Berger continues, "Since cultures outside of the West had never divorced aesthetics from utility, it was easy for European-Americans to devalue even visually alluring objects nonwhite peoples produced, given that such object always served a practical function" (Berger 100).

• Berger, Martin A. A Sight Unseen: Whiteness and American Visual Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
• Fenner, David E. W. Art in Context: Understanding Aesthetic Value. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008.

Low-Rez: Native American Lowbrow Art

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"Reclamation: Manifestations of Changing Woman," Nani Chacon, oil on masonite

Santa Fe, NM — Low-Rez: Native American Lowbrow Art is a group art show of emerging and established Native artists working in the “lowbrow” genre of Pop Surrealism. The show runs from August 17 to September 1, 2012, and opens with a reception on Friday, August 17, 5:30 – 9:00 pm at 131 West San Francisco Street, First Floor near the downtown Santa Fe Plaza. A closing reception will be held on Saturday, September 1st, from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm. Both events are free and open to the public.

Participating artists include: Jamison Chas Banks (Seneca-Cayuga-Cherokee), Nanibah “Nani” Chacon (Navajo), Brent Greenwood (Ponca-Chickasaw), Amber Gunn Gauthier (Ho-Chunk–Menominee), April Holder (Sac and Fox-Wichita-Tonkawa), Topaz Jones (Shoshone-Lummi-Kalapuya-Molalla), Randy Kemp (Choctaw-Yuchi), Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara), Daniel McCoy, Jr. (Potawatomi-Muscogee Creek), America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Chris Pappan (Osage-Kaw-Cheyenne River Sioux), Jeremy Singer (Navajo), Monty Singer (Navajo), Ryan Singer (Navajo), Hoka Skenandore (Luiseño-Oneida-Oglala Lakota), “The Werewulf” Micah Wesley (Kiowa-Muscogee Creek), and Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez-Korean). The show will also feature a mural by Jamison Chas Banks and Keith Secola (Northern Ute), both recent IAIA graduates.

Coming from diverse backgrounds and experiences, these artists are united in their use of pop cultural imagery to express themselves as contemporary indigenous peoples. Most of the artists attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, a school dedicated to Native artists choosing their own path in self-representation, and most are participating in SWAIA’s Indian Market.

Redemption March, Ryan Singer (Navajo), acrylic, 2012

Lowbrow Art, also called Pop Surrealism, has mushroomed over the last few decades, as a response to overblown bombastic excesses of conceptual art and a return to a love of craft and technique in art making. Santa Fe has been an epicenter for the Native Pop movement, in which artists use pop imagery to explode non-native fantasies of Indians as the timeless “Noble Savage” and to establish entry points for audiences who might not be familiar with tribal histories or imagery. The subversive humor of Native Pop and Lowbrow Art provides a perfect vehicle for social commentary without becoming preachy or propagandist.

The pop imagery used by the artists isn’t random. Often it reflects traditional Native imagery that was co-opted by mass media—Trickster Rabbit as Bugs Bunny, Princess Leia’s Hopi butterfly whorl hair-do, Taos Pueblo artist Pop Chalee’s blue deer paintings transformed by Walt Disney into “Bambi”—acts of re-appropriation.

Pin-up girls are transformed by the hand of Amber Gunn Gauthier and Nani Chacon from sex objects for voyeurs to symbols of empowered women who own their sexuality. Chris Pappan turns traditional ledger art on its head. Linda Lomahaftewa was part of the initial wave of Native Pop artists and was a classmate of T. C. Cannon at IAIA. Lomahaftewa lived in the Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s and will exhibit monotypes with UFO-imagery. Micah Wesley and Cannupa Hanska Luger were part of the Humble Collective, an artist-run space that challenged and inspired waves of artists over the last decade.

Daniel McCoy combines comic book imagery with imagery from traditional Muscogee ceremonial grounds of his youth, with wry to dark humor. McCoy will create a large scale, site-specific installation at the street-level San Francisco gallery space.

The art show’s website is at www.ahalenia.com/lowrez.

Heather Ahtone Reads Beneath the Surface

Parking Lot, Joe Feddersen (Colville), glass, 2003

In her 2009 essay, “Designed to Last,” Choctaw-Chickasaw artist, writer, and curator heather ahtone proposed a means of critiquing Indigenous American art based on Indigenous art theory. In her essay “Reading Beneath the Surface: Joe Feddersen’s Parking Lot,” presented at the College Art Association Conference and published earlier this year in Wicazo Sa Review, she puts her ideas into action by critiquing a sculpture by Joe Feddersen using Indigenous methodologies.

Her introduction lets us know exactly what's at stake. “Every time an Indigenous artist creates an object that reflects concepts rooted within her culture this same artists is perpetuating the culture one more day as an act of self-determination,” Ahtone writes at the opening of the essay. She continues, “While every effort of political and religious assault has been made historically to subdue these same cultures, their survival can be partially attributed to the continued production of visual and performance arts” (Ahtone 73).

Ahtone writes that Indigenous epistemology—“ways of knowing”—differs fundamentally from Western ways of knowing (74). While this is relatively obvious to most readers, she further points out that Indigenous learning is not “parallel or perpendicular” (74); that is, Indigenous knowledge is not the Other or opposite of Western knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is not universal but instead must be grounded in local tribal cultures and worldviews. To critique an artwork based on Indigenous values, Ahtone examines materiality, metaphor and symbolism, and cultural reciprocity (74).

Joe Feddersen, whose glass sculpture is critiqued here, is Okanagan and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State. He earned his MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a printmaker and basket weaver before moving into glass art. Using textures from Plateau textiles that symbolize aspects of the natural environment, Feddersen creates a dialogue about the shifting environment and the impact of human development in the Columbia Basin (Askren).

Collaborating with Tlingit artist Preston Singletary, Feddersen embarked on an Urban Indian series. In 2003, he created Parking Lot, a 14 inch tall blown and sandblasted glass sculpture. The translucent, milky-white surface carries the texture of …, which is overlaid with an olive green rim and structures of perpendicular black lines.

Ahtone sees the overall cylindrical form as being reminiscent of a “sally bag,” a flexible basket common throughout the Plateau region (76). The materiality of the piece juxtaposes the implied basket’s soft and pliable surface with the rigidity of glass. Navajo-Wasco artist and author Elizabeth Woody wrote, “Feddersen’s use of glass speaks of our human fragility” and of his choice of the color white, Woody writes “the shell of the basket with the ephemeral density of a cloud” (78).

Feddersen’s use of metaphor and symbolism is overt and deliberate. A metaphor directly substitutes on concept or object for another, while a symbol implies something else. The symbol might be a much more simplistic shorthand for the concept it references. The Plateau weaving designs that Feddersen has incorporating into his printmaking, weaving, and glasswork are extremely spare, abstract geometric designs, and yet they are symbolic and inspired by elements seen in daily life, such as snake tracks on the ground (Askren). The textured surface of Parking Lot has four repeating patterns of chevrons etched on its surface. Feddersen explains that the chevrons “are actually the designs for woman in Plateau culture, kind of like an hourglass design, kind of a winding vase” (79). He learned traditional symbolism from Okanagan weavers but an elder pointed out that the meanings of the widespread symbols change from community to communities (79). By using this symbol, Feddersen “invigorates it as a continued part of the cultural dialogue and… contemporizes the language in its usage” (79).

Vessels themselves are commonly allegories for women. In the Okanagan worldview, “woman is a living metaphor for the earth” (79). The art audience can automatically juxtapose this view with the European-American view of woman as earth, and therefore, ripe for domination. Dynamical tension is conjured between these two referenced worldviews. Okanagan oral history describes the earth “as a woman ‘who gives birth to life forms’” who was once a human being and is still alive (79-80). The etched basket surface suggested grass, which is seen as the hair of the living female earth (80).

Then the black lines on the vessel are diagrams for parking lots, invented in the late 1920s. Ahtone sees these as referencing contemporary migration patterns, which “form the basis of how most Americans relate to the earth—through a mediated system of transit routes…” (80).

Cultural reciprocity is the third lens in which Ahtone critiques Indigenous art and is “an act of gratitude by an artist for their culture heritage” (81). Feddersen is keenly aware of place-based culture, and he incorporates landmarks, or “vital signs,” such as electric lines and railroad tracks into his expression of evolving Okanagan culture (81). “By using the traditional signs,” Feddersen says, “we talk about what the meaning is and they become part of our visual vocabulary rather than something that is purely historical” (82).

Looking at the artwork from a strict formalist approach, that is, looking only at visual aesthetic qualities of the work—an approach espoused by mid-20th century art critics—would completely miss the content of a work such as Parking Lot. Feddersen deliberately uses contemporary imagery and symbols to bring his cultural traditions into the present. Ahtone’s critique brings the content forward in a manner that could be understood by Native and non-Native readers alike. Personally, I’m well acquainted with the mental wall that some non-Native art audiences reach when viewing Indigenous artwork. Facing the situation of having to understand the cultural contexts of hundreds of different tribes seems overwhelming to fully understand Native art; however, it’s not a matter of getting cultural background to then get the works’ content. The cultural background is much the works’ content, and further understanding the worldview enhances the audience’s understanding of being Human.

• heather ahtone, “Reading Beneath the Surface: Joe Feddersen’s Parking Lot,” Wicazo Sa Review, 27, no. 1 (Spring 2012), 73–84.
• Mique’l.Askren,  “Joe Feddersen,” IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts: Vision Project. Web.

Travels to England: Indigenous Brilliance - Messengers - Emissaries of Peace

The King's Men, part of the Rollright Stones in Warwickshire

Three events conspired to lure me over to England for the first time. Two were contemporary Native American art shows. Indigenous Brilliance opened at the Highgate Institute in London, and Messengers at Rainmaker Art Gallery in Bristol. The third event was the Emissaries of Peace, a tour sponsored by Cherokee Nation Tourism, which retraced the travels of three Cherokee leaders who traveled to England 250 years ago to meet King George. These were sandwiched just between the Queen’s Jubilee and the London Olympics, making London crowded and tickets expensive — but the trip was well worth it.

I flew into Bristol the day of the opening of Messengers—not a smart move—and muddled through it with only three hours of sleep. Marcus Amerman was in town and assisted with developing the concept of the show. Joanne Prince, owner of Rainmaker Art Gallery, saw the idea of messengers, and artists as messengers, working on many different levels. 18 contemporary artists participated in the show. While most were painters, photographers, and printmakers, Melissa Cody (Navajo) showed weavings, Kelly Church (Odawa-Ojibwe) showed birchbark bitings, and Marcus Amerman (Choctaw) showed both representational and stylized pictorial beadwork. As a former bike messenger, I took the art show’s theme extremely literately and painting small portraits of a Pawnee motorcycle messenger and Navajo/Mestizo walking messenger from San Francisco. Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne) was also present, as he was traveling through London and Paris on business.

Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, England

Joanne rented a nearby textile workshop for artist talks the next day. Marcus presented about creativity and his inspirations in working in so many media— beadwork, painting, fashion design, installation, glass, and performance art. Edgar showed videos about his 2005 public art sculpture and installation, Wheel, at the Denver Art Museum, and his 2007 art installation, Most Serene Republics. I presented about Linda Lomahaftewa and my journey through the southeast visiting archaeological sites and the art we created based on our experienced. Sarah Sense (Chitimacha-Choctaw) could not make the trip after all, so I filled in for her and presented about ancient Andean art with an emphasis on textiles art.

Unbelievably, some people stay from the beginning to the end of the talks. Max Carocci, Programme Director of World Arts and Artefacts at the British Museum, traveled over to Bristol to attend the talks. He has worked with contemporary Kiowa artists and has written several books about Plains Indian art.

It was strange but refreshing to be able to comment frankly, through art and words, on the history of US injustice against indigenous Americans without encountering the usual layers of resistance or denial. People in the audience really listened and soaked up information. They also came to the table with a great deal of knowledge. Some of the lecture-goers had traveled to Mayan temples or to South America where they had firsthand experience with Cusco School paintings or the Nazca Lines.

Bristol is the home of Banksy and actively embraces street art. They have amazing graffiti and street murals, but unfortunately I didn’t get to explore much in my short stay. Thanks so much to Maria who let me stay in her house, Andy Pink who gave myself and other artists rides, Sophie who assists at the gallery and gave Marcus and I a tour of Bath—Jane Austen’s turf!— to Emelia, my fellow Cherokee-Swede who helped with the show, and especially to Joanne whose vision brought us all together.

A messenger friend from San Francisco, Joel, lived in the sleepy northern hamlet of the Priors Marston, so I got to explore centuries-old churches and millennia-old standing stones with him, his wife Becky, and daughter Aleisha. Incredibly beautiful country steeped in history. Thank you so much for your messengerosity! (That’s Howard Williams’ term for the inherent generosity that messengers share.)

Elija below work by Bryon Archuleta (Ohkay Owingeh)

In London, Cornelia “Elija” Vandenberg curated Indigenous Brilliance with Lyle Toledo Yazzie, a Navajo jeweler and collage artist. Elija is a human rights activist originally from the Netherlands, who has curated indigenous before and is keenly interested in showcasing political work. Lyle coordinated with many artists in the US and together they showcased over 70 works by 30 different artists. Bryon Archuleta (Ohkay Owingeh) came to the show’s opening and helped hang work the day after he arrived. No rest for the wicked! Elija reported that interest was high and the show at Highgate has seen a steady stream of visitors. Paul and Max from the British Museum attended. A non-native English artist, Gary Wells showed two pieces that I thought were great, combining vibrant, Celtic-inspired calligraphy with stencilwork featuring gunpowder. Many of the artists are activists in different causes, including Michael Horse, the actor and AIM member, who has championed ledger art for years. Osage artist Matt Jarvis brought images of the Oklahoma sky into the show with his digital photocollage, Meditation No. 1—Osage Meditations, and Steve Hapy (Anishinaabe) commented on diabetes in his visceral and highly textural piece, Diabetes, painting on an American flag.

Edward Chamberlain and Lyle Toledo Yazzie examine jewelry

Lyle had arranged with the British Museum to see their collection of contemporary southwest jewelry, and graciously let me tag along. We were please to see Hopi jeweler Michael Kabotie’s work in their collection, as well as a beautiful piece by Gail Bird (Santa Domingo) and Yazzie Johnson (Navajo)—who helped enable me to make the trip over! Jack Davy, Museum Assistant for North America, shows the items from the permanent collection and shared with us the internal database for the museum.

The North American room at the British Museum featured a survey of Canadian and United States indigenous art, from precontact, historical, modern, and contemporary, which included works by Bob Haozous and Diego Romero on permanent display. Their collection of avian and feline Hopewellian platform pipes is extraordinary. But their indigenous Mexican room is truly incredible, featuring elaborate turquoise mosaic sculptures, including the famous Aztec double-headed serpent. Believed to be a gift from Moctezuma II to the Spanish invader Hernán Cortés from 1519, the carved wooden serpent is covered with over 2000 pieces of turquoise, conch, and delicate crab shell.

Early 18th century Cherokee incised gourd

The next day, I returned to the British Museum to meet up with the Cherokee delegation. They arrived, joking and laughing more than anyone else I’d seen in the country (except maybe Marcus). The trip was arranged by Cherokee Nation Tourism, and everyone paid their own way. People from all three Cherokee tribes participated and they retraced the steps of Ostenaco, Standing Turkey (Cunne Shote), and Woyi. The Cherokee men were accompanied by Henry Timberlake and met with King George III. The 2012 group of Cherokees met with a wide range of officials and politicians (the Queen, presumably was too preoccupied with jubilee-ing it up to meet with our friends). I actually have no idea why I didn’t join this trip, since I met a bunch of interesting Cherokee people just in that short afternoon, including beadwork and storyteller Corey Still.

Jack Davy’s showed us several early 18th century Cherokee prints from the British Museum’s permanent collection, as well as a rare geometric beaded sash on stroud cloth with intact selvage, an incised gourd with a wooden stopper, and a double-woven rivercane basket with lid whose dyes were incredibly brilliant considering the basket was almost two centuries old. Afterwards, my cousin and Cherokee historian and genealogist extraordinaire Jack Baker; historian

Cherokee visitors presenting British Museum staff
with gifts of Cherokee pottery

and director of the Gilcrease Museum, Duane King; and writer and former curator at the IAIA museum, B. Lynne Harlan got to see rare, seldom published portraits of Richard Justice and Moses Price (both Cherokee) by William Hodges (1744-1797) at the Hunterian Royal College of Surgeons. Ironically, a graduate student was taking a survey about how comfortable people felt seeing human remains on display. She certainly got a mouthful from us, and she already knew about NAGPRA.

Other than that, I ate a million pasties, functioned (barely) without my phone or internet in my hotel, and finally located and paid homage to the house from Spaced. Thanks so much to everyone who made this trip possible and who I met on the way. I've heard that CN Tourism is a little done in from planning the England, but my sister pointed out, we can organize our own Cherokee trip through Wales!

London Calling 1762, America Meredith, acrylic, gel medium, five pound note, and map on panel, 2012

• Messengers art show at Rainmaker Gallery, Bristol, England
• Indigenous Brilliance on Facebook and ArtSlant
• Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, founded 1839
• British Museum Native North America
• British Museum Cherokee collection
• Emissaries of Peace tour blog

Changing Hands CONNECTIONS: We Are Here, Monday, June 25th

Ironworker Cradleboard, Donald "Babe" Hemlock, maple, pine, ash, painter, fur, hide, instestines, 2011

Last in a series of cutting-edge contemporary Native art exhibitions, the newest Changing Hands exhibition will feature Eastern Woodlands art. The National Museum of the American Indian Heye center in New York City will host a series of lectures and discussions on Monday, June 25th. The event is free and open to the public.

 Changing Hands CONNECTIONS: We Are Here
Monday, June 25th: 11 AM–6 PM
This one-day program explores contemporary art from an indigenous perspective—aesthetics, ideas, contexts and contrasts—with leading artists, curators, and critical thinkers. Work by artists featured in We Are Here, Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, and Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, Part 3, the final exhibition in the groundbreaking series surveying cutting edge contemporary Native art, organized by the Museum of Arts and Design, will serve as the launching point for this continuing discourse.

CONNECTIONS: The Curators and the Artists, a Conversation
11 AM–12 noon
Diker Pavilion, Ground Floor
NMAI in New York
1 Bowling Green

Ellen Taubman, Curator, Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation (2002–present) Jennifer McNutt, Curator, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Contemporary Art (1999–present) Marie Watt, Artist and former Eiteljorg Fellow Barry Ace, Artist and Changing Hands participating artist

CONNECTIONS: Contemporary Native Art in Context, a Panel
3:30–6 PM
Theatre, Lower Level
Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle

Artists: Jeffrey Gibson, Robert Houle, George Longfish, Kent Monkman, Sarah Sense, and Skawennati

Moderators: Kate Morris, Santa Clara University, Judith Rodenbeck, Sarah Lawrence College
Limited seating. Please RSVP by June 11th for both events at: ChangingHands3@madmuseum.org.
For more information, click here.

Messengers 2012 at Rainmaker Art Gallery, Bristol, UK

Messengers 2012 a group art show curated by Joanne Prince, an advocate for Native art and owner of Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, England. The show features 18 contemporary Native American Indian artists from tribes across the continent.

As Prince says, "2012 is a pivotal year for the indigenous peoples of the Americas. As the current cycle of the Mayan calendar draws to a close, and in preparation for a new beginning when indigenous values will perhaps be more widely recognised and adopted, it is time to welcome the diverse and authentic messages and manifestations of contemporary Aboriginal American artists."

"My people will sleep for 100 years, and when they awake, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit." –Louis Riel, Métis revolutionary (Boyle and Racette 21).

Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), Sarah Sense (Chitimacha-Choctaw), Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne), and myself will fly in especially to attend the opening and give talks, demonstrations, film screenings and discussions on Thursday June 14th.

Please contact the gallery for details:
call 0117 944 3101 or email jo@rainmakerart.co.uk.


Participating artists include:

• 

  Cupcake (Pawnee), America Meredith, 2012

  Tony Abeyta (Navajo)
• Marcus Amerman (Choctaw)
• Shonto Begay (Navajo)
• David Bradley (White Earth Ojibwe)
• Kelly Church (Grand Traverse Odawa-Ojibwe)
• Melissa Cody (Navajo)
• Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheynne)
• Frank Buffalo Hyde (Onondaga)
• Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw)
• America Meredith (Cherokee Nation
• Chris Pappan (Kaw-Osage-Lakota
• Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo
• Cara Romero (Chemehuevi)
• Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo)
• Mateo Romero (Cochiti Pueblo)
• Sarah Sense (Chitimacha-Choctaw)
• Ryan Singer (Navajo)
• Werewulf Micah Wesley (Kiowa-Muscogee Creek)

For more information, visit Rainmaker Art Gallery, online or at: 123 Coldharbour Road, Redland Bristol, BS6 7SN. Map.

• Boyle, John and Sherry Farrell Racette. Rielisms. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2001.

Five Civilized Tribes Museum 2012 Competitive Art Show

Five Civilized Tribes Museum, Muskogee, Oklahoma. Wikimedia Commons.

Another competitive art show is coming up in Indian Country: the Five Civilized Tribes Competitive Art Show in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Their deadline for entries is June 22nd. It is free to enter, and the show is open to artists from federally- and state-recognized Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole tribes.

The eligible federally recognized tribes are: Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Cherokee Nation, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, Chickasaw Nation, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, Kialegee Tribal Town, Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Muscogee Creek Nation, Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Seminole Tribe of Florida, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.

Artists can enter up to three pieces in the categories of painting, graphics, minaitures (art image must be 4"x4" or smaller), and sculpture. Information about the show will be posted on the museum's website.

You can download a copy of their entry form here.
Their main webpage is at www.fivetribes.org.

Five Civilized Tribes Museum, 1101 Honor Heights DriveMuskogee, OK 74401
Phone (918) 683-1701 • fax (918) 683-3070 •  email: 5tribesdirector@sbcglobal.net

Moundbuilders art show, May 25-June 3

Year of the Dragon 2012, monotype, Linda Lomahaftewa

Santa Fe, NM — Moundbuilders: Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands, a two-person art exhibit inspired by the journey artists Linda Lomahaftewa (Choctaw-Hopi) and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) took through the Deep South to explore ancient Native American mound sites, opens with a reception on Friday, May 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. On display will be prints, paintings, photography and mixed media works inspired by the sites, smells and scenery observed on their trip. The exhibit takes place at Ahalenia Studios, known for its edgy, fun and important art exhibits, at 2889 Trades West, Unit E, off of Siler Road (note: street parking only). This event is free and open to the public. 

Thanks to the online funding platform Kickstarter, Lomahaftewa and Meredith took a two-week trip in 2011 to visit 15 mounds and other archaeological sites in the southeast, from Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma and to Echota Mounds in Georgia. Both artists were able to visit the Mother Mounds of their respective tribes: NanihWaiya, origin of the Choctaws, in Mississippi and Kituwah, mother mound of the Cherokee, in North Carolina.

Lomahaftewa, an instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts and artist who has exhibited internationally, says, “It was the trip of a lifetime.” Painter, printmaker and arts educator Meredith concurs, but adds, “It was great to learn how contemporary tribal people maintain such a vibrant and living relationships to these mounds.”   

Mounds are colossal earthworks built by hand by Native Americans prior to European contact. They flourished during the Mississippian Era, a time period from 800 to 1400 AD characterized by city-building, hierarchal governments, intensive maize agriculture and a unique iconography that spanned from Oklahoma to Florida. Several of the sites Lomahaftewa and Meredith visited, such as the Poverty Point, date back much further. Poverty Point in Louisiana is a planned community marked by elaborate earthworks dating back to 1650 and 700 BC and predating agriculture.

Moundbuilders: Exploring the Ancient Southeastern Woodlands will be open to the public from 1 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 26, Sunday, May 27, Saturday, June 2 and Sunday, June 3. From May 28 through June 1 the show will be open by appointment only, which can be arranged by sending an email to ahalenia@yahoo.com.

For more information on the exhibit, including a blog from the journey, visit www.ahalenia.com/woodlands  

Narcissa Chisholm Owen: The Mother of Cherokee Painting?

Narcissa Owen, 1907, WikiMedia Commons

If Cecil Dick (1915–1992) is the “father of Cherokee painting,” then would a Cherokee woman born 84 years before him be the “mother of Cherokee painting”? Narcissa Chisholm Owen (1831–1911) won awards for her naturalistic oil painting, and several of her works survive in museum collections today.

Narcissa was born on October 3, 1831 at Webber Falls, Indian Territory (Jacobson and d’Ucel 265). Her father, Thomas Chisholm, was a third chief of the Old Settlers, the Cherokees who migrated west prior to the 1838 forced removal known as the Trail of Tears.

She gave an extremely colorful version of her family tree, describing Thomas Chisholm as the “last hereditary head of the seven great clans that comprise the Cherokee Nation,” giving his Cherokee name as “Heil-Steky-Yearle” or “Little-Rusty-Knife.” She also described her ancestor as “Queen” Quatsis (NYT 1911), completely bypassing and overshadowing others’ claims of Cherokee Princess ancestors. Emmet Starr writes that Thomas Chisholm, who married Malinda Wharton, was elected Third Chief of the Western Cherokees on 16 July 1834, under the Principal Chief John Jolly (Starr 474). The Owen family was predominantly of Scots-Irish descent; however, her father belonged to the ᎠᏂᎩᎶᎯ, Anigilohi, or Longhair Clan (NYT).

Narcissa majored in music and art at the Anderson’s Female Seminary in New Albany, Indiana (Owen and Kilcup 56; Cocker), and graduated from the Fayetteville Female Academy. In 1853 in Tennesseee, she married Robert Owen, a European-American railroad tycoon, and the couple eventually moved to Lynchburg, Virginia (265). The Civil War and aftermath left the family in poverty. Robert died in 1873, so Narcissa taught music to support herself and her two sons (265). in 1850 (OHS). By 1880, Narcissa moved back to Indian Territory, with Robert Latham “Oconostota” Owen Jr. who served as an Indian Agent in Muskogee before being elected as one of Oklahoma’s first US senators. Narcissa Owen taught music at the Cherokee Female Seminary, one of the first institution of higher learning for women west of the Mississippi.

At the age of 62, Narcissa devoted herself seriously to painting (NYT). “In oil painting and miniatures I have of late years found great interest,” she told the New York Times reporter. "I also sometimes indulge in sketching in watercolors as an agreeable pastime."

Both Narcissa’s father and grandfather had been friends with Thomas Jefferson (Jacobson and d’Ucel 265). Her two oil paintings, Thomas Jefferson and His Descendants, won a medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, more commonly known as the St. Louis Exposition, in 1904. An additional painting won a diploma (NYT). Her three painting and several of her tapestries “were admired by the many thousands who visited the Territory pavilion” (US 270).

Thomas Jefferson and His Descendants

is now part of the Herman Collection of the University of Virginia Art Museum. The medal belongs to the Oklahoma Historical Society, who also owns her 1896 self-portrait and a copy she made of Charles Bird King’s portrait of Sequoyah (Jacobson and d’Ucel 266).  Three portraits, including one of her stepfather, William Wilson, are the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa (Cocker).

In 1907, Owen published the book, A Cherokee Woman's America: Memoirs of Narcissa Owen, which has recently been republished in 2005 in a version edited by Karen L. Kilcup. Owen died on July 16, 1911 in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Both her self-portrait and the surviving Thomas Jefferson painting are technically adept and rooted in realism. Attention is lavished on details such as hair, faces, furniture, eyeglasses, and jewelry. The backgrounds and textiles are soft and muted, showcasing the warm, glowing flesh tones of the subjects. Even with such a small corpus of surviving known works, Owen’s pride in her Cherokee heritage is evident in her portrait of Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary.

With her academic American art education and embrace of contemporary easel art techniques, Owen joins the ranks of Angel De Cora (Hochunk) and Edmonia Lewis (Ojibwe). Although these 19th century indigenous women artists had an education based on European-American perspectives, they used Native subject matter in their works, albeit not exclusively. Most significantly they exhibited their art in the mainstream art arena and kept abreast of new developments of the art world.

Bibliography

Sequoyah, Narcissa Owen after Charles Bird King

• Cocker, Jordan Poorman. "Narcissa Chisholm Owen." Gilcrease Museum. Web.
• Jacobson, Oscar B. and Jeanne d’Ucel. “Art in Oklahoma.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 32, no. 3 (1954): 263–77. Web.
• “Mother of U.S. Senator an Indian Queen; Mrs. Narcissa Owen, Daughter of the Last Chief of the Seven Great Cherokee Clans, Is a Charming Old Lady of Distinction Whose Talent in Art Has Won Recognition.” New York Times. 22 Jan 1911. Web.
• Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore. Oklahoma City, OK: The Warden Company, 1921. Web.
• United States, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission. Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission, 1906. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906.