Enduring Traditions

TEXT BY LOIS JACKA PHOTOGRAPHS BY JERRY JACKA From a new book on American Indian art: Enduring Traditions

NATIVE AMERICAN artists today, no matter how innovative they may be, walk a pathway that has been traveled for thousands of years. As time-honored art forms are reinterpreted in contemporary ways, cultural heritage is an ever-present if sometimes subtle influence.

Although some artists employ more traditional symbolism than others, it is not necessarily the reservation-born and bred individual who is the most traditionally oriented. Many artists from urban areas across the United States lament being reared away from native homelands, and some have "gone home" to reservations in adulthood. Still others, brought up on reservations, now live elsewhere but return periodically.

Jeweler James Little, born and reared in a remote area of the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona, returns home as often as possible. Inspired by the scenic beauty of his homeland, his moth-er's rug designs, and his memories of legends told around the fire at night, he goes back as if seeking renewal-and to help his widowed mother with the sheep and cattle.

Materials used by Tobono O'odbam basket weaver Mary Thomas include yucca (white), banana yucca root (red), and devil's claw (black). Often referred to as the "friendship design," the circle of human figures represents the enactment of a traditional ceremony of prayers for rain and good crops.

Finding renewal in native environments is easily understood. Most reservations are in somewhat isolated areas, relatively quiet and peaceful. In speaking of his Navajo home near Shonto Canyon, Baje Whitethorn remembers: "When I was four or five years old, we'd go out into the countryside picking piñon nuts. Later, I went there quite often to sketch. I love the quietness and paint what I feel."

With the slower life-style comes a feeling of having taken a step back into time, which undoubtedly contributes to the strong bond between artists and their ancestors. They return as if to drink at the wellspring of their creativity, and inspiration and ideas seem to flow endlessly.

To many Native Americans, art is a way of life. Generation after generation has shared skills and techniques and passed along encouragement as well as talent.

Hopi painter-carver Neil David, Sr., a third-generation artist, says, "We looked on sketching as a human activity as natural as eating, forming friendships, or watching kachina dances.

Joseph Lonewolf recalls his family life as being like that of any other Pueblo child: "We'd sit in the evenings and do beadwork, drawing, painting, clay modeling, wood working, whatever, while our grandparents told us the old legends and stories...."

Grandparents played a very important role in the lives of many artists. Danny Randeau Tsosie, Navajo, says he has painted since he can remember, and speaks of his grandmother with great warmth. "She was an herbalist perhaps you might call her a medicine woman Innovation abounds today, even in very traditional art forms such as weaving. Many unusual rugs are woven: raised-outline, which have a three-dimensional appearance; two-faced, which have a different design on each side; and a double rug, with a design of one style in the center surrounded by one that is totally different, creating the illusion that a small rug lies atop a larger one. And pictorial rugs, long a favorite type with both weavers and collectors, have increasingly become mazes of intricate figures within kaleidoscopes of color.

Employing centuries-old methods, many Navajo weavers invent imaginative designs and introduce unexpected colors. Others, however, continue to make tapestries in traditional styles, notable for their ultrafine weaving and intricate details.

An excellent example is a Two Gray Hills rug woven by two Navajo sisters, Barbara Teller Ornelas and Rose Ann Lee. It won five awards, including Best of Show, at the 1987 Santa Fe Indian Market. Because the weavers worked only part-time, the rug was four years on the loom; the actual weaving consumed at least 2½ of those years.

As artists tend to depart from definitive styles, there is a refreshing absence of predictability to their art.

Sculptor Doug Hyde, a Nez Percé-Chippewa-Assiniboine, believes that blending of tribal styles and methods can be credited, at least in part, to the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "We [the students] had free cultural exchange at the best level-art. It broke down a lot of barriers." With such assimilation of cultural information, artists are able to expand and experiment in an everwidening creative world.

Doug (whose wife, Evelyn, is Hopi) also thinks that intermarriage broadens the artist's outlook; being welcomed into a society other than one's own adds further dimension to understanding. Motifs from Hopi culture provide some of Doug's favorite sculptural subjects.

Intermarriage has influenced the pottery of Navajo Christine Nofchissey McHorse. Married to Joel McHorse of Taos Pueblo, she learned to make pottery from his grandmother. Christine now creates an unusual style of micaceous pottery (from clay containing thin-leafed silicate crystals) that incorporates shapes and designs from both Navajo and Pueblo cultures.

Today's pottery tends to reflect its ancient roots, for most contemporary potters were taught by mothers, aunts, or grandmothers. As generation follows generation, each individual adds a personal touch to vessels made the old way, hand-formed without a potter's wheel. Although a few contemporary artists use a kiln to fire their pottery, the majority still fire outside with sheep dung, juniper, or other traditional fuel.

Contemporary styles are not necessarily newborn but may well be re-created. "Nothing is ever completely new," remarks Grace Medicine Flower of Santa Clara Pueblo. "What we call contemporary today will be considered traditional tomorrow. I think our ancestors did the same things years ago, and now we are rediscovering them."

Many ancient pottery vessels attest to that fact. Intricate designs from Mimbres and Sikyatki wares are often included in contemporary motifs, and incised designs have been found on Rio Grande pottery dating from the 15th century.

"There's really nothing new in what I do," Joseph Lonewolf insists. "I simply rediscovered some of the secrets known to my ancestors, the Mimbres people, nine or ten centuries ago. So what I do is not new, just so old that it is new again." Given fresh interpretations, venerable techniques and designs live again.

Barbara and Joseph Cerno of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico re-create a style of pottery popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Exceptional artists, the Cernos produce extremely large vessels adorned with Acoma, Zuni, and Mimbres designs.

(OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM) Following centuries-old tradition, Angie Reano Owen of Santo Domingo Pueblo creates mosaic jewelry on shell and cottonwood.

(OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP) Familiar Navajo designs somehow enhance the modern appearance of James Little's jewelry.

(BELOW) A Hubbell Revival blanket made in the late 1890s; 37 by 72 inches. Trader Lorenzo Hubbell encouraged Navajo weavers to revive earlier rug designs such as this. COURTESY OF MARGARET KILGORE GALLERY Rooted in the stone fetishes and altar pieces of the distant past, contemporary sculpture speaks of ancient heritage as stories are fashioned in stone or legends in bronze. Whether the lifelike stone or metal images of Oreland Joe, a Navajo-Ute, or the fanciful clay figurines of Navajo Elizabeth Abeyta, they manifest the feelings of the artists for their traditions.

Basketry is gradually evolving in the contemporary art world of the Native American. Few revolutionary changes have been made, though some basket weavers are experimenting with new color combinations and designs. Others create extraordinary, finely woven baskets that by their excellent quality alone have earned a place among today's contemporary arts.

Several Tohono O'odham (Papago) basket weavers create remarkable miniature horsehair baskets with intricate geometric designs and human and animal figures. Palomino, roan, black, and sorrel hair is used for variety in color. Noted for her exceptionally fine horsehair baskets, Norma Antone makes miniature masterpieces approximately one inch to five inches in width. One palomino horsehair basket, woven with approximately 60 wraps per inch, has 248 human figures made of brown and black horsehair.

During the last few years, a traditional Hopi art form has moved into the realm of contemporary art. Kachina dolls, traditionally static figures, have evolved into intricate wood carvings of lifelike detail, depicting action and grace. Handcarved

Enduring Traditions

From cottonwood root, each of the finer contemporary kachinas is made from one solid piece of wood (often including the base). Occasionally, small accessories such as a bow and arrow may be added, but the head, arms, legs, clothing, antlers, and other elements are integral parts of each carving. Furthermore, the bright colors formerly used have become more subdued as a result of recently developed staining techniques.

Hopi carver Lowell Talashoma makes it all sound quite simple: “I study each root until I can picture the final carving that's inside; then I just remove the parts of the wood I don't need.” Nevertheless, simple is one thing these kachinas are not. Perfect in detail, alive with motion, each is a testimonial to the creativity, talent, and patience of the artist.

The expertise of prehistoric American Indians in using primitive tools to form tiny turquoise beads with minute center holes is astonishing.

Today exceptional beads are fashioned from a wide variety of materials, including coral, jet, lapis lazuli, turquoise, gold, silver, and various kinds of shell. Some are the size of marbles, others infinitesimally small.

John Christensen, whose Sac-Fox name is Keokuk, produces beads that are only .036 of an inch in diameter, while that of the inside holes is a mere .012 of an inch. Metal beads, cut from sheets of silver or gold, are pulled by hand through a hole in a small “draw plate”; stone beads are hand-rolled, and both kinds are handpolished. Strung on double-strand silk, the finished beads are so fine that they flow through the fingers like a creamy liquid. Derived from the earliest of Native American body adornments, these beads are a highly refined form of an ancient art.

Equally remarkable is the versatility of today's jewelry artists. Sleek, classic designs in gold or silver are adorned not only with the more familiar turquoise and coral but also with exotic stones from around the world.

Regardless of the materials used for these modern masterpieces, traditional techniques have endured. Both smooth and textured designs enhance the gold or silver of today's jewelry creations. Some are cast in tufa stone, some by the lost-wax process, and others are fabricated or include designs in gold or silver overlay. Many exceptional pieces are results of the ingenious combination of more than one process. No matter how contemporary they may be, a touch of tradition is usually included: yei figures, kachinas, rug designs, symbols of nature, or ancient petroglyphs.

Today's painters tell exciting stories of the past in a broad array of media, including oils, pastels, watercolors, tempera, and more. Using both simplicity of form and very complex designs, they strive to keep their traditions alive.

Spiritual figures, traditional symbolism, and scenes from everyday life fill canvases by the score; yet each painter's work is different. Whether it be the pastel portraits of Navajo Clifford Beck, the portrayal of a Hopi kachina ceremony by Neil David, Sr., or Baje Whitethorn's rather whimsical depictions of traditional Navajo scenes, each artist in his own way pays homage to his people.

Inspired by cultural memories, Native American artists walk a path that stretches before them to the horizons of the future, as far as the imagination can travel.

Adapted from the book Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Indian Art and Its Evolution, by Jerry and Lois Jacka. Copyright 1988 by Jerry and Lois Jacka. Published by Northland Publishing Company, Flagstaff, Arizona. Available through Arizona Highways: $55.00, hardcover, plus $4.00 for U.S. surface shipping and handling.

The author, photographer, and artists whose work is represented in the book will be honored at a reception and book-signing at the Heard Museum, Phoenix, from 2:00 to 6:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 6, 1988.

Jerry and Lois Jacka collaborated on the March 1986 issue of Arizona Highways on contemporary American Indian art. Jerry's photographic career spans 35 years and has resulted in five books. Lois is a respected writer on Native American fine art.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) “Ancestral Imagery,” by Navajo artist Clifford Beck; pastel, 42 by 32 inches. This work symbolizes the proximity of the Navajo people (portrait) to the Zuni people (pottery jar) and the migration of the Navajos into a historically and culturally rich area (petroglyphs). (THIS PAGE) Teeming with likenesses of spirits, wedding basket motifs, and rug designs, the works of Lucy Leuppe McKelvey represent a broad departure from traditional Navajo pottery. COURTESY OF KEAMS CANYON ARTS AND CRAFTS