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Print2010 May/June Happening (Events)
It's Baaaaack! Popular Pueblo Art Show Revived
Buffalo dancers perform from Ohkay Owingeh.
After taking a year off due to the Great Recession, the popular Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show returns to northern New Mexico for its 38th year, July 17-18 at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo (formerly known as San Juan Pueblo, 30 minutes north of Santa Fe). The nonprofit event is sponsored by the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos, Inc. and is expected to feature approximately 350 artists—most from the local pueblos but others from near and far.
The show, the largest of its kind in the Southwest directed by Indians, will actually kick off on Friday evening, July 16, with a cocktail reception, the awarding of prizes to winning artist, preview sales, and live entertainment at the new Santa Claran Hotel in Española. There will be a substantial admission fee.
The market will get underway the next morning at the permanent show grounds off NM 68 near the Ohkay Casino. Here you will find artists working in a broad range of both traditional and contemporary media, from ancient dung-fired pottery processes to kiln-fired glass. Other activities will include artist demonstrations, presentations by the group HawkQuest, appearances by the Santa Fe Indian School’s nationally renowned poetry team, and live music and dancing throughout both days. Traditional foods and other dishes will be available from food vendors.
On Saturday night, the action will return to the Santa Claran Hotel, where a concert will be staged in the brand-new outdoor amphitheater behind the hotel. (In addition, a fundraising golf tournament at the Black Mesa will be held on June 18, followed by a dinner and raffle at the Santa Claran Hotel. Tickets for this evening will run $25.)
“It’s an extremely important event,” notes Valarie Lyon, director of planning and development for the show’s parent body, Eight Northern Indian Pueblos, Inc. “There was lots of disappointment last year when we decided to not put it on, due to the economy. That’s why this year we are trying to expand it and make it more than just an art show, to take it above and beyond what it’s been.”
Admission to the art market is $10 per adult per day; $5 for seniors over 55; and free for children 13 and under. For those holding recent admission tickets to the nearby Puye Cliff Dwellings (supervised by Santa Clara Pueblo), admission to the crafts fair will be reduced by 20 percent; likewise for those visiting the cliff dwellings after the crafts fair. Parking is free. For additional information, call 505/747-1593 or visit www.enipc.org.
Elsewhere
Head to the fifth annual Four Corners Indian Art Market, May 1, Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum, Blanding, UT, which includes some 40 artists, live music, dance and food. Free admission. 435/678-2238 or http://stateparks.utah.gov/node/1238
Shake a leg to the 15th annual Northern Southern Winds Pow-Wow, May 7–9, Los Angeles State Historic Park (1245 N. Spring St.), Los Angeles, CA, to celebrate Indigenous peoples living in southern California who hail from throughout North America. Enjoy exhibition dancing, drumming and singing, arts and crafts vendors, and traditional foods. Grand entries are at 7 p.m. on Friday and at noon on Saturday and Sunday. Host northern drum is Mount Adams Lake, host southern singer is Phill Hale, head woman dancer is Lita Mathews, head man dancer is Robert Jimenez, and head gourd dancer is Saginaw Grant. Also performing will be the band Quinto Sol. Free admission. 323/252-8070 or www.nswcf.org or www.nosowinds.org
Catch the 27th annual Indian Art Market, May 14–16, San Diego Museum of Man, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA, which includes a large juried art market, artist demonstrations, music (including flautist Steve Holmes), dance, comedian and storyteller The Running Grunion, and children’s activities. This year also includes a film festival, with screenings on Sunday only. Films will include animated works like Wapos Bay: Raven Power and How People Got Fire; the feature film Pearl; the long documentaries No More Smoke Signals and Waila: Making the People Happy; and short docs like Pipestone: An Unbroken Legacy. Admission to the outdoor art market is free; $10 for adults for the museum and film festival, $5 for children. 619/239-2001 or www.museumofman.org
Mosey south to the Tunica-Biloxi Pow Wow, May 14–16, Chief Joseph Alcide Pierite Pow Wow Grounds, Marksville, LA, a competition powwow with special guest musician Bill Miller, the Azteca Dancers, and the Tunica-Biloxi Singers and Legend Keepers. 800/946-1946 or www.tunicapowwow.org
Perk up your ears at the 10th annual Southern California Indian Storytelling Festival, May 15, Mizell Senior Center, Palm Springs. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. enjoy children’s story time and vendors; from 7 to 9 p.m., “Story as Song.” 760/323-0151 or www.accmuseum.org
Don’t miss the sixth annual Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival, May 22–23, Sweeney Convention Center, Santa Fe, NM, featuring some 200 juried artists as well as a body of high school and college-age student artists. This fundraiser for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture includes weaving demonstrators from Toadlena Trading Post, Native and non-Native music, and dancing and food. Admission $95 on Friday evening for preview sales, appetizers and wine; $5 on Saturday; and free on Sunday. The honored artist this year is micaceous potter Lonnie Vigil (Nambé Pueblo). 505/476-1250 or www.nativetreasuressantafe.org
Cash in at the fourth annual Native American Economic Summit, May 26–28, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Isleta Pueblo, just south of Albuquerque, NM. Sponsored by the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of New Mexico. 505/766-9545 or www.aiccnm.com
Zoom over to the 20th annual Zuni Festival of Arts and Culture, May 29–30, Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, which will include a large number of fine artists such as fetish carvers, inlay jewelers, weavers, potters and painters. Also watch performances by the classic Zuni Olla Maidens and the Nawetsa Family Dancers, and enjoy live music and traditional foods. 928/774-5213 or www.musnaz.org
Head “down under” to The Dreaming, June 11–14, Woodford, Australia (near Brisbane), for Australia’s huge international Indigenous festival. Events include music, performance art, visual arts, film, speakers and more from the nation’s Aboriginal people and other Indigenous cultures of the world. Produced by the Queensland Folk Federation. www.thedreamingfestival.com
Step to the 24th annual Red Earth Festival, June 18–20, Cox Convention Center, Oklahoma City, with more than 200 juried artists and a major powwow, as well as children’s activities, storytelling and a youth art competition. It begins on Friday morning with a unique non-motorized parade through downtown with people from more than 100 tribes. The powwow grand entries are at noon and 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Admission: three-day adult pass (ages 18–59) $20; children (ages 6–17) and seniors $15; one-day adult pass $10. 405/427-5228 or www.redearth.org
Wander west to the 29th annual Plains Indian Museum Powwow, June 19–20, hosted by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY, with competition dancing, an arts and crafts fair, and Native foods. Grand entries are at noon and 6 p.m. on Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. Admission: $7 per adult per day (18 and up), $3 for children (7–17). 307/578-4102 or www.bbhc.org/events/powwow.cfm
Dance into the 51st annual Eastern Shoshone Indian Days Powwow, June 25–27, Ft. Washakie, WY (on the Wind River Indian Reservation). In addition to a large competition powwow (with grand entries at 7 p.m. on Friday, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, and 5 p.m. on Sunday), enjoy foot races, shinny games and stickball contests, plus softball, basketball and horseshoe tournaments. Free admission; donations are encouraged. 307/349-5664
Celebrate Virginia Indian Heritage Day, June 26, Williamsburg, VA, with intertribal drumming and dancing along with a major museum exhibition opening May 15 titled Werowocomoco: Seat of Power, which examines artifacts recovered from this former capital of some 30 regional tribes in the era of the Jamestown colonization. Also tour the permanent Powhatan Indian Village interpretive area. Sponsored by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. 888/593-4682 or www.historyisfun.org
Motor over to the 20th annual California Indian Basketweavers Gathering, June 26–27, Buena Vista Rancheria, Ione, where weavers will demonstrate weaving techniques and sell finished works. Also, enjoy presentations and discussions, a benefit raffle and more. 530/668-1332 or www.ciba.org
Enjoy the 14th annual Strawberry Festival, June 26–27, 10 a.m. to dusk, at Kanatsiohareke, a traditional Mohawk community near Fonda, NY. Activities include sale of regional Native arts and crafts, dancing, storytelling, lacrosse demonstrations, a social dance, traditional foods and demonstrations. Admission: $5 adults; children (5–12) and seniors $3.
Claes H. Jacobson will give a presentation based on his book Rosebud Sioux: A Lakota People in Transition on the photographs taken by Swedish immigrant John Anderson in the late 1800s and their modern descendants. Tuesday June 29, at 6:30 p.m., at the Journey Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota. He can be contacted at ch.jacobson@skl.se
