Sky City Cultural Center Opens

The long and eagerly awaited public grand opening of Acoma Pueblo’s Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum is scheduled for May 27–29. The previous center, which burned down several years ago, has been replaced by a grand new multi-story facility that will greet visitors to the ancient pueblo, nicknamed Sky City, atop the dramatic mesas of west-central New Mexico.

The new $15 million facility—located at the base of the 360-foot-high mesa on which the ancient pueblo sits—covers 40,000 square feet and includes exhibition galleries, a research library, a 67-seat theater, gift shop, café, classrooms and meeting rooms. The lovely structure includes Chaco-style stacked sandstone; mica windowpanes; hand-carved doorways, window frames and ceiling beams; and, in summer, outdoor traditional gardens. “We are really looking forward to this—it’s a big step for Acoma,” notes Brian Vallo, the center’s director.

Opening-day activities will kick off at 10 a.m. with remarks from pueblo Governor Jason Johnson, followed by a procession and free entertainment, including traditional dancing and food from 1 to 4 p.m., and the opening of the exhibitions. From 6 to 8 p.m., additional dances and other cultural presentations will follow for ticketed guests.

Sunday’s activities will include a high mass in the awesome San Esteban del Rey Mission atop the mesa at 10 a.m., tours of the restored convento, and then more dances and cultural demonstrations from noon to 3 p.m. at the center. Monday will bring dances and demonstrations from noon to 3 p.m. and a special corn dance from 6 to 10 p.m.

The exhibits include one on Acoma pottery titled The Matriarchs, featuring works by Lucy Lewis, Marie Z. Chino, Jessie Garcia and Juana Leno. It will include pieces drawn from two major collections gifted to the tribe. Also up will be The Cotton Girls, featuring rare 19th-century Acoma textiles being publicly displayed for the first time ever, and sculpture by Doug Hyde.

Visitors to the old pueblo atop the mesa must first register at the cultural center for guided tours of the pueblo. The center is open daily, except for occasional tribal observances. Admission to the center is $4; guided tours of Sky City are $10. It is located about 90 minutes west of Albuquerque off I-40. Details: 800/747-0181 or www.skycity.com

Ride On: The Trail of Painted Ponies

The Trail of Painted Ponies continues to ride off into the ever-setting sun with its newest edition of miniature painted ponies dedicated to raising income for various philanthropic causes. First up in the series are two ponies dedicated to raising income for the Gary Avey Educational Fund at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Avey founded Native Peoples magazine in 1987 originally as a Heard Museum publication.

Artist Frank Salcido (Navajo) has created the “Native Peoples Pony” and Andersen Kee (Navajo) “The Magician.”

“As an artist, I have always had this vision of different cultures around the world coming together sharing their beliefs and customs, blending as one on this small planet we call Mother Earth,” says Salcido, who now lives in Portland, Oregon but was born to the Standing House Clan of the Navajo Nation. With the sides of his pony’s face adorned by Aztec and Mayan warriors, an Australian Aborigine and an African Masai woman, he has fulfilled his artistic mission.

In certain Plains Indian tribes there was a special tribal figure who spoke to and for horses. As rendered by Taos artist Andersen Kee, who was born on the Navajo Reservation and whose mother was a weaver and father a silversmith, the “Magician” is portrayed releasing a herd of multicolored spirit ponies from the inside of his elkskin robe, and then gathering them on the backside.
“I never realized how versatile and accommodating the horse could be as a canvas,” notes Rod Barker, director of Trail of Painted Ponies.

Both ponies were produced in a limited edition of 100 numbered and hand-signed works. This edition sold out in a few hours, but works in a second, unlimited and unsigned edition can be purchased through the magazine’s Web site, www.nativepeoples.com, or the project’s Web site, www.trailofpaintedponies.com. “Magician” is available for $31.99 and “Native Peoples Pony” for $23.99.

Walking Around the Great Lakes

Photographing the annual Mother Earth Water Walk through northern Michigan last spring was more than another typical volunteer project for professional photographer Scott Ridgeway. “It was a life-changing experience for me, even after photographing American Indian powwows, tribal ceremonies and individuals for more than five years across the United States. I began as an ‘outsider’ from California, but I soon felt a welcome part of a rare event—perhaps because of my roomy four-door pickup and supply of snacks,” he jokes.

The Michigan trek was one leg of a multi-year project to walk around all of the Great Lakes to focus international attention on dangers posed by industrial and agricultural toxins in these immense water bodies. Last summer walkers traipsed 800 miles around Lake Huron. A month-long trek around Lake Ontario is expected to begin in April, beginning and ending at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

“Most unforgettable was getting to know the five dedicated Ojibwe women—Josephine Mandamin, Melvina Flamand, Violet Caibaiosai, Joanne Kejick and Joanne Tait—who founded the walk,” says Ridgeway. The walk began each day before sunrise and ended sometimes more than 50 miles later after dark. “I will never forget their unflagging enthusiasm nor the Anishinaabe prophecy that guided them: ‘If human negligence continues for another 30 years, drinking water will be worth its weight in gold.’”

Details: www.motherearthwaterwalk.com

Shopping in Central Alaska

The miracle of Internet commerce is now helping Native artisans in central Alaska earn a living creating traditional arts and crafts. With a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Steven Dinero, a Philadelphia University professor of human geography, has overseen creation of a Web site—www.ArcticWays.com—that features beaded moccasins, vests, gloves, snowshoes, fishing spears, walking sticks and other practical, often beautiful, goods, arts and crafts.

“We’re working with poor, isolated Native communities that have little access to the resources of the rest of Alaska and the lower 48 states,” explains Dinero. “It’s very difficult to make a go of it financially in these villages. We want to bring some hope into these communities, which tend to be economically depressed. Few people can sustain a lifestyle any longer living off the land. We’re trying to take advantage of opportunities that the Internet offers.”

The Web site is based in Fort Yukon, under the auspices of the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments. A coordinator travels to villages to bring craftspeople on board with the project and negotiate prices. Handmade hide gloves with intricate beadwork, for instance, sell for $200 on the Web site; moccasins start at $150, while leather barrettes and beaded earrings go for $40 to $60. Pick up a diamond willow backscratcher for only $15, or a model fishwheel for $145.

Honoring

Major award winners at the March 2006 Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market included Jamie Okuma (Shoshone/Bannock/ Luiseño) of southern California, who took an unprecedented second Best of Show award for her stunning Plains-style doll, “Jake.” Best of Class in jewelry went to Edison Cummings (Navajo) for his evening purse; in pottery to Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) for a wedding vase; in paintings, drawings, graphics and photography to Peterson Yazzie (Navajo) for his painting “Dance for Dook’oo’sliid”; in wooden carvings to Aaron Fredericks (Hopi) for his owl katsina with rabbit; in sculpture to Oreland Joe (Ute/Navajo) for his metal work “Raintalker”; in textiles and weaving to D.Y. Begay (Navajo) for a woven dress and manta; and in baskets to Eliasica Timmerman (Haida) for a rattle top.

Joe Baker (Delaware) has been selected as one of the five 2005 Piper Fellows by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Baker, the Lloyd Kiva New Curator of Fine Art at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, will spend part of his sabbatical in New York and Santa Fe writing a curatorial essay, “Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World,” for an exhibition to open in 2007 at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Heye Center in New York.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has selected Marie Watt (Seneca) of Portland, Oregon and Steven Deo (Creek/Euchee) of Rio Rancho, New Mexico as the winners of its annual painters and sculptors grant program award.

Callan Chythlook-Sifsof (Inupiaq/Yup’ik Eskimo) from Alaska’s Bering Sea coast has been selected to the U.S. Snowboard Association All-American Team for her outstanding prowess in the rough-and-tumble field of snowboard cross. In February she competed in the high-profile X Games in Aspen and at the World Junior Championships in Korea, where she finished sixth.

Mary Kim Titla (San Carlos Apache) has left her high-profile television-reporting role in Phoenix to assume full-time duties as publisher of the online Native Youth Magazine (www.nativeyouthmagazine.com).

Three scripts by Native writers have been chosen for production at the National Audio Theatre Festival in West Plains, Missouri, June 18–24. The original works, chosen from a field of 23 entries, are The Best Place to Grow Pumpkins by Rhianna Yazzie (Navajo), Super Indian by Arigon Starr (Kickapoo) and Melba’s Medicine by Rose Yvonne Colletta (Lipan/Mescalero Apache). Another play by Yazzie, Wild Horses, has also been selected for a rehearsed reading at the 9th New Visions/New Voices festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., May 19–21. In addition, Starr made her network TV debut this winter when she appeared in an episode of General Hospital.
Jane Ash Poitras (Cree/Chipewyan) of Edmonton, Alberta was presented the arts and cultural award at the annual National Aboriginal Achievement Awards of Canada in January for her powerful contemporary paintings and collages.

Dallas Arcand (Cree) of Alberta, Canada took first place in the men’s division in the 2006 World Champion Hoop Dance Contest, held at the Heard Museum in February. Derrick Suwaima (Hopi/ Choctaw) took second place, while Tony Duncan (Apache/Hidatsa/ Arikara/Mandan) finished third. Nakotah LaRance (Hopi/Assiniboine/ Tewa/Navajo) claimed his sixth title: two youth titles and his fourth consecutive teen title.

The Silver Wave Records compilation recording Sacred Ground: A Tribute to Mother Earth won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Native American Album.

Dr. Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet (Navajo), 51, has been selected as the new president of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, a fully accredited, four-year degree-granting college. She was the first woman president of Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, and served in various capacities in the past at the University of Wyoming, University of New Mexico, Oregon State University, University of Oregon and American University. She holds a Ph.D. in educational policy and management from the University of Oregon.

Shards

In the 1800s, Diné weavers of Arizona produced an extraordinary body of work known as the First Phase, which was followed by the Second Phase and Third Phase. Now comes “The Next Phase,” according to Navajo weaving specialist Steve Getzwiller of Nizhoni Ranch Gallery in Sonoita, Arizona (www.navajorug.com). Under his direction, Navajo weavers are busy creating a new generation of fine textile arts, including the first Navajo poncho serape created in the past 150 years, woven by Kathy Marianito, and a line of shawls that debuted to great acclaim at the Western Design Conference in Cody, Wyoming last September. The new works include textiles composed of traditional churro wool, as well as silk, silk-woolen blends and alpaca.

The ambitious Reach the Rez Tour organized by rapper, actor and motivational speaker Litefoot (Cherokee) is back on the road for another eight months of appearances and performances. At each stop in the tour, Litefoot is presenting a free concert, hosting talks, and distributing a free magazine and educational study guide. The tour began in fall of 2005. By its conclusion, it will have visited some 200 Indian reservations. “We educate our children and fill their minds up with everything we think they need to achieve in this world, but what good is that if their spirit is dead?” he asks. “You’re filling an empty shell.” Interviews and details: www.reachtherezradio.com

The American Indian Arts Council of Dallas, which sponsored an Indian arts market in Dallas every fall for many years, has opened the Native Arts Center and Gallery in Preston Forest Shopping Center. The center will host cultural performances, art demonstrations, seminars and exhibits, and includes a gift shop with handmade Native fine arts and crafts.

In April the C.N. Gorman Museum at the University of California, Davis hosted Our People, Our Land, Our Images, an international conference of Indigenous photographers. The event drew lens artists from New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Peru and Japan, as well as North America. The group shared photographic histories and experiences, discussed the canon of Indigenous photography and held a group exhibition which remains on view through June 23. Details: www.gormanmuseum.ucdavis.edu
Red Sky, the Canadian Native contemporary dance company (see Sept./Oct. 2005 cover story), danced across China with performances in March at colleges in Nanjing, Yinchuan and Chengdu under the auspices of the Canadian Embassy of Beijing.

Andrew Conseen Duff (Cherokee) has been appointed chairman of the board of directors of AISES, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, based in Albuquerque.