Santa Fe Indian Market prize winners included Sarah Paul Begay (above
left) and Marvin Oliver (right). “Navajo Universe” measures
an astonishing nine feet by 12 feet. Photo: Wendy
McEahern/courtesy SWAIA.
Sarah
Paul Begay (Navajo) took the coveted Best of Show Award at the 2006
Santa Fe Indian Market with a truly outstanding, monumental-scale
weaving. Others taking home top prizes in their class were the
following: Edison Cummings (Navajo) in jewelry, Russell Sanchez (San
Ildefonso Pueblo) in pottery, Alex Jacobs (Akwesasne Mohawk) in
painting/drawings/photography, Aaron Fredericks (Hopi) in wooden Pueblo
carvings, Marvin Oliver (Quinalt) in sculpture, Rhonda Holy Bear
(Cheyenne River Sioux) in diverse arts, Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/
Shoshone-Bannock) in bead and quill work, and Jessica Growing Thunder
(Assiniboine Sioux) in the youth class. Taking the Artists’ Choice
Award was Phillip John Charette (Yup’ik).
Hopi jeweler and stone sculptor Steve LaRance has been selected as a
Visiting Artist to the National Museum of the American Indian for
spring 2007, which will entail a research project on pre-Columbian
sculpture and jewelry, and public art demonstrations and presentations.
Other artists so honored in NMAI’s Native Arts Program are basketmaker
Carol Douglas (Northern Arapaho), multimedia artist Clarissa Hudson
(Tlingit) and sculptor Adrian Wall (Jemez Pueblo). Mona Smith
(Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota), a video/audio/media artist, was selected as
the program’s Community Artist, while writer and storyteller Vianor
Perez (Kuna) was picked for the Community Arts Symposium, and painter
and wood carver Joseph Ives (Port Gamble S’Klallam) for the Youth Mural
Project.
Debbie Robbins (Navajo) of Winslow, Arizona continues to ride among the
elite of the Women’s Pro Rodeo Association, from her initial tie-down
roping Rookie of the Year Award in 2002 to her current second-place
standing among the all-around competitors on the tough WPRA circuit.
Details: wpra.com.
Political leader (current president of the Haida Nation), carver,
traditional medicinal practitioner, singer and negotiator Guujaaw
(Haida) of Skidegate, British Columbia, has been honored with the sixth
annual Buffett Award for Indigenous Leadership from the nonprofit group
Ecotrust. Details: ecotrust.org.
Christina Burke has been selected to serve as the curator of Native
American and Non-Western Art at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Photographer Larry McNeil (Tlingit) has received an award from the
National Geographic Society’s All Roads Photography Program for his
collection of photos titled Keet Hit. Details: larrymcneil.com.
The Chinle Valley Singers (see Sept./ Oct. 2006) and the Native
alt-rock Red Earth (see May/June 2004) are both performing at the Sing
Sing Festival, being held in March 2007 in Papua New Guinea and
co-produced by Gordon Bronitsky.
Tina Deschenie (Navajo) has been hired as the new editor of Tribal
College Journal, the quarterly magazine based in Mancos, Colorado
published by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. In the
past, she has written for Native Peoples and served as dean of
continuing education at the Crownpoint Institute of Technology.
The Burke Museum of Seattle has awarded grants to four visiting Native
artists and researchers to explore the museum’s extensive Northwest
Coast ethnology collections and photo and paper archives. Grants were
extended to weaver Lisa Telford (Haida), her apprentice Shauna Colbert
(Haida), graduate student Mique’l Askren (Tsimshian/ Tlingit) and
mixed-media artist Mike Dangeli (Nisga’a).
The Society of Professional Journalists has awarded Deborah Krol
(Salinan/ Esselen) of Phoenix a Diversity Outreach Leadership Grant.
The reporter for the Fort McDowell Yavapai News is a frequent
contributor to, and book editor of, Native Peoples.
The American Association of Law Libraries recently awarded Monica
Martens and David Selden at the National Indian Law Library the Public
Access to Governmental Information Award. The NILL was established in
1972 to provide hard-to-find tribal law information to the pubic; it is
a project of the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado.
Details: narf.org.
