It all started with a few rocks. Minerals, actually. Terry and Becky
Rader had a burgeoning collection of agates, opals, amethysts and the
like, when the couple decided that they wanted to decorate their home
with objects that would complement the stones. So one day in 1986, when
they were returning from a house-boating vacation with family and
friends, the Raders stopped at the Museum of Northern Arizona in
Flagstaff. The museum’s annual Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture was in
full swing, and the Raders bought three modest pieces, a 10-inch
abstract clay maiden by Kim Obrzut (Hopi) and two small pots by
Lawrence Namoki (Hopi).
“We bought them and we just got hooked,” says Becky, relaxing in the
living room of their sprawling suburban home about 30 minutes north of
Detroit. Sitting nearby, Terry, a patent attorney and founder of Rader,
Fishman and Grauer, a leading intellectual property law firm, picks up
the tale. “I remember we pulled up in front of the museum and there
were several middle-aged and older couples standing in line to get in.
We got in line and the doors opened up and all these people rushed in
like sharks feeding on fresh meat, and we’re not talking about
teenagers here.
“The
first thing I learned about collecting this art is that you’ve got to
get your red stickers,” he continues, laughing. “Because things are
happening so fast that you can’t do the paperwork on an individual
basis. There are paper placards by the pieces, and if you want to buy a
piece you’ve got to put your sticker on it before somebody else does.”
left
to right: “Red, White, and Blue Bears” by Alfred (“bo”) Lomahquahu; owl
storyteller by Joyce Sisneros; “Warrior Mouse and Hawk” by Lomahquahu.
Untitled painting by Felix Vigil.
More than 20 years later, the Raders have clearly mastered red-sticker
strategy. Their extraordinary collection of contemporary Southwest
Native American art numbers about 400 pieces. The works can be divided
into major categories of pottery, paintings, bronzes, Navajo rugs,
storytellers and one of the finest private collections of Hopi
katsinas—the Raders own 110 of these elaborately whittled and painted
religious figurines rooted in Hopi mythology and carved from cottonwood
root. With a few exceptions, all of the works in the collection are by
living artists, including such leading figures as Tammy Garcia (Santa
Clara), Pahponee (Kickapoo), Al Qoyawayma (Hopi), Tony Dallas (Hopi),
Richard Zane Smith (Wyandot), Alfred “Bo” Lomahquahu (Hopi), Tony
Abeyta (Navajo) and the late Frank Howell.
Several of the Raders’ favorite artists, among them Smith, Qoyawayma
(known as “Al Q”) and Pahponee, are represented by 10 to 12 works, with
Garcia’s 22 ceramic pots and seven bronzes earning her most-favored
artist status. “We prefer collecting living artists because we can
develop personal relationships with them,” says Terry. “We know about
their families and their lives, and when you deal with artists that
way, you know their inspiration and what caused them to make a
particular piece.”
“Rains for the Harvest,” Tammy Garcia, bronze, surrounded by works of prominent potters.
While
a few of the Raders’ pieces remain at their second home in Taos, New
Mexico, about 90 percent of the collection is tucked into every nook
and cranny and on the walls of the couple’s meticulously kept
6,000-square-foot Michigan home. Beautifully lit, built-in shelves both
upstairs and in the finished basement display katsinas and pottery. A
sitting room is a virtual shrine to Garcia and other ceramic artists.
Several standout works greet you just inside the front door. Howell’s
haunting 5-by-4-foot painting “Lakota Fire” welcomes you on your right
in the foyer: an elder in profile, pulsating with spirituality, his
hair a tangled virtuoso of lines evaporating into the painting’s
ground. Just ahead on a pedestal is an elaborate bear katsina by
Lomahquahu, who has miraculously carved three intricate katsinas and a
bear stacked in a single continuous four-foot totem.
“Each one of these katsinas alone would be a nice piece, but to put
them into this form with these proportions is simply remarkable,” says
Terry. “For him to visualize something like this in his mind and then
actually do it—I mean, if you’ve ever done any whittling you know how
hard it is, so how in the world could you come up with something like
this?!”
The Raders’ collection grew swiftly after their initial foray at the
Museum of Northern Arizona as they immersed themselves in the art and
culture of the Southwest. An early epiphany came one day at Gallery 10
on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. They had gone to see work by Al Q when
Terry spotted a clay pot about 10 inches tall tucked in a corner about
15 feet away. His knees buckled. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Who did that
pot?” It turned out to be Tammy Garcia, then on the brink of stardom
and an artist the Raders did not yet know. “It was like love at first
sight. We got one of her pieces a short time later, and then it became
an obsession.”
What was so striking to the Raders was the intricacy of Garcia’s
designs, the unique elegance of her shapes and absolute authority of
her work. “It just strikes you as being significant,” says Terry. “It’s
not like a piece where two people could argue about it. With Tammy’s
work, there’s absolute consistency in the reaction to it.” Becky
finishes the thought: “The only question is that some people might like
one better than another.”
Museum curators call regularly inquiring about loans, and the couple
has lent works by Garcia, Abeyta and Wilmer Kaye (Hopi) to the Peabody
Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the Museum of Arts & Design
in New York, the Autry National Center in Los Angeles and the Eiteljorg
Museum in Indianapolis. Both Terry and Becky sit on the Eiteljorg’s
national board of advisors and the couple has promised a large group of
their katsinas to the museum. At the height of their collecting, the
Raders were buying dozens of pieces a year; these days, they acquire
fewer than five a year, concentrating on the most significant works.
They’re done buying katsinas, but otherwise, as Terry says, “We’re
always looking.” In other words, they’ve still got some red stickers in
their future.
Mark Stryker is an arts reporter and music and visual arts critic with the
Detroit Free Press. This is his first piece for
Native Peoples.
