The New Individualists

Traditional skills, new materials, innovative ideas: Native American crafts have become fine art in the hands of THE NEW INDIVIDUALISTS

Native American art today is as exhilarating as a newly formed rainbow-reaching out of the past, arching into the future. Old colors blend with new themes; new colors transform familiar motifs. Highly individualistic styles augment or replace traditional tribal ones. Skills have been refined and perfected; new materials have been invoked: diamond raindrops sparkle in the rays of a golden sun. The results can be dramatic indeed, startling in their fresh, new beauty.

Over the centuries, American Indian arts and crafts reflected a distinctive cultural base-Anasazi, Hohokam, Mogollon. That phased into tribal tradition-Navajo, Apache, Puebloan. And now the evolution has reached a new peak of innovative, individualistic achievement that qualifies unreservedly as fine art.

That development has taken place within the last thirty-five years. It has resulted from superior materials, improved technologies, imaginative designs and styles -and a new and demanding clientele. Many of the utilitarian requirements of earlier years have been cast aside, freeing the artist to move in new directions.

Marble, diamonds, la-pis lazuli; gold, bronze; new, different clays: these materials among others have opened bright new vistas to the Indian artist. Sculpturing and bronze casting have been conquered by a number of Native Americans. Advances in working silver have set the stage for more involved and finer execution in gold. Simple bezel treatment of turquoise gives way to more elaborate cast settings, or exquisite pavé mounting of diamonds. Ever expanding abilities have created strikingly artistic combinations of smooth and textured metals, flat or low-relief figures in gold against a silver ground, gracefully sculptured ears of corn on a dull white ceramic base, all meticulously executed.

New inspiration came to kachina carving with the dynamic rendering of figures in action, culminating in finely detailed, realistic sculptures, first in wood and now in bronze. Commercially produced wool that accurately imitates the twist and color tones of the native Navajo weaver has allowed great advancement in another traditional craft.

Aided by finer materials and more sophisticated technology, encouraged by the advances of their peers, Native American artists have demonstrated an astonishingly creative response. Some few have studied under famous designers or at art institutes; many have advanced, self-taught, along paths of their own making.

Within historic times, style in Indian art has passed through three phases: first, that in which tribal traits dominate; second, that in which the identity of the individual appears, but within definite tribal bounds; and third, that phase in which the artist, the individualist, emerges-independent of any tribal connection-on a universal stage.

For that third phase to be possible, as in any culture, there must be certain pioneers: creative individuals whose high

Introduction by CLARA LEE TANNER Entire Issue Photographed by JERRY JACKA

talent, energy, and willingness to try new ground will set the example for others. Outstanding among Native American leaders in the transition from tribal craft to fine art have been Charles Loloma and Allan Houser. Breaking away from centuries-old tradition and from tribal controls, these men have led the way into intercultural and international paths of artistic expression.

In the realm of fine art, distinction of style is a principal criterion. And surely style is distinctive in the beautifully conceived, designed, and executed works of exquisite sgraffito by the artists of Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. Following or abandoning tradition as may suit them, they move freely between precedent and innovation; pattern may follow native paths, even venture back into prehistoric Mimbres, or shift into totally new and creative design areas, all enhanced by precise cutting into successive, contrasting color layers.

In ceramics, the style of the innovators has followed many directions. Basic, centuries-old forms remain, but often they become fine art when adapted to more slender outlines of Hopi jars, or to bowls delicately curved from rim to almost cone-shaped base. Equally esthetic are some of the new, non-utilitarian forms. A few Santa Clara artists have veered off to pastel colors and quite different shapes. Decorative line work of some Ácoma jars is unbelievably complex and perfect.

Sculpture, too, is unpredictable. It may follow austere, elongate lines in an Apache warrior figure or represent the rounded bundle of a mother cradling her infant. In other pieces, the artist may move completely away from realism to pure abstrac tion. So, too, in painting. And some Navajo weavers have mimicked the latter, producing painterly representations in their creations on the loom.

On the pages that follow, you will see in amazing variety the works of sixty-seven Native Americans who have achieved recognition in the realm of fine art.