A Legend Is Born
left to right: Randall May, Jody Naranjo and Ken Lingad celebrate Naranjo’s Best of Show award at the Eiteljorg Museum’s 15th annual market.

A major new player has arrived on the Santa Fe Indian art scene: Legends Gallery. Setting up shop in the heart of the downtown arts district, the gallery has quickly established itself as a significant presence in both the regional and national Indian art markets.
    Lead artists, most now showing exclusively at Legends, include potter Jody Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), painter Malcolm Furlow, sculptor Ed Archie NoiseCat (Shuswap/Stlitlimx), apparel designer and textile artist Penny Singer (Diné), painter Nocona Burgess (Comanche), jeweler Melanie Kirk-Lente (Isleta Pueblo), sculptor Adrian Wall (Jemez Pueblo) and sculptor Upton Ethelbah Jr. (Santa Clara Pueblo/Apache). Corralling all these talents is gallery director Ken Lingad (Isleta Pueblo), who previously built a solid reputation as a visionary impresario as the director of The Gallery at 17 Peck in Providence, Rhode Island. His partners in the endeavor are Randall and Lauren May.
    “It’s been my dream to be able to provide intimate access to the leading voices in contemporary Indian art in a family-type atmosphere, which we’re creating here,” says Lingad. “We’re letting the artists determine how their work will be displayed, the furniture and color schemes used—each one even has a key to the gallery. That’s why they are so enthusiastic about it.”
    The gallery occupies some 4,000 square feet of space and includes changing rooms for trying on Singer’s unique clothing. During opening festivities at Indian Market, many of the gallery’s artists will be present to demonstrate their skills and will offer a free work of art to lucky participants in an on-site raffle. Grand opening reception is Aug. 15, 5 p.m. Details: 130 Lincoln Ave., 505/917-8718 or legendssantafe.com

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Heard Museum North Redux
Scottsdale has a major new Native-oriented museum, or, better put, a relocated museum. In late June, the Heard Museum of Phoenix opened its newest branch facility, the Heard Museum North. It is located at 32633 N. Scottsdale Road, about a mile south of the previous location of the Heard North, which first opened its doors in 1996.
    The new, larger facility—measuring some 11,000 square feet—includes two exhibition galleries, a museum shop, an elegant café run by Arcadia Farms and an interpretive garden created in partnership with the Desert Botanical Garden. The museum’s curator is Tricia Loscher.
    On view long-term at the new space is Choices and Change: American Indian Artists in the Southwest, which includes a diverse range of media both old and new that show how artists past and present create work that changes in response to new materials, social concerns, new environments and other factors. Also on view, through Feb. 10, is Our Weavings, 12 magnificent Navajo rugs from the Four Corners area, ranging from works drawn from sandpaintings to the Yei style and geometric Teec Nos Pos school. The museum is open daily. Details: 480/488-9817 or heard.org

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The Race Is On!

right: Joe Cajero and one of his Apache runners in progress.

He is best known for his often humorous clay sculptures of koshari—the Pueblo “clowns”—but the waters run far deeper in Joe Cajero (Jemez Pueblo) than first meets the eye. Trained as a painter at the Institute of American Indian Arts, the 37-year-old artist made a detour into sculpting some 20 years ago and has since built a reputation as a talented and always-evolving creative force, producing both small and monumental works ranging from exquisite animals to highly detailed figures drawn from his heritage, as well as abstract forms and even fine jewelry.
    He is now focusing his skills on a project for the Jicarilla Apache Nation, creating a set of two bronze figures—one-and-a-half times life size—participating in the tribe’s annual Gojiiya footrace. The racers are dressed in simple breechcloths and are barefoot, their bodies covered with ceremonial black and white clay paint; eagle feathers flutter atop their heads as they strain forward at the starting line.
The work is expected to be completed in early November and will be unveiled shortly thereafter at the Best Western Jicarilla Inn and Casino in Dulce, in northern New Mexico. For details on the unveiling, contact the inn.
    Cajero took his first prize in clay sculpture at the Santa Fe Indian Market when he was only 20 years old—and that just two years after taking honors in painting. His first award in bronze came just a decade later, and today his list of prizes scrolls through the years in unbelievable regularity. Details: cajerosculpture.com

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lines
Planning for the Festival of First Nations Theatre, to be held in London in 2008 with theater groups from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is well under way, according to coordinator Gordon Bronitsky (g.bronitsky@att.net) … Grammy Award winner and multi-platinum recording artist Micki Free (Cherokee/Comanche) has donated personal memorabilia, including a guitar and a flute, to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Florida … A terrific source for quality books, as well as some CDs, DVDs and other media, is the Native-owned and -operated online company GoodMinds (goodminds.com, 877/862-8483), launched by Jeff Burnham and based on the Six Nations reserve of Ontario … The large beverage company Honest Tea has teamed up with a small Native company, I’tchik Herb on the Crow Reservation of Montana, to produce a popular organic brew, First Nation Peppermint … The Burke Museum of Seattle has signed a five-year agreement with the Washington State Department of Transportation to hold in trust the Tse-whit-zen archeological collection uncovered in Port Angeles in 2003; the 86,000 objects spanning a 2,500 year time frame will eventually be transferred to a museum being developed by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe … Democratic presidential candidates have been invited to attend the first Prez on the Rez forum being held on Aug. 23 on the Morongo Reservation in southern California; Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico was the first to commit (details at 918/583-6100 or indnslist.org) … In early August, Adventure Gallup and Beyond (505/722-4327) hosted the first-ever Tour of the Nations Recreational Bike Tour in west-central New Mexico, a five-day, 200-plus-mile ride which rolled through three pueblos (Isleta, Acoma and Zuni), ending at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial … Jeff Hurlburt (Athabascan), a mental health worker, has launched a football team called the Middletown Spartans in Connecticut in the semi-pro New England Football League (newenglandfootballleague.com), which began 2007 play among its 38 teams in July.

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shards
above, left to right: Buddy Big Mountain at Pentre Ifan, a prehistoric Welsh burial site some 5000 years old; Jason Quigno with his monumental sculpture; Artist Edgar Heap of Birds. below: First Vision Filmmakers Forum panelists answer questions from audience, (left to right) Deborah Johnson, Chris Eyre, Vangie Griego, Gary Farmer and Barbara Martinez-Jitner.

Master puppeteer and ventriloquist Buddy Big Mountain (Apache/
Comanche/Mohawk/Welsh) is undertaking a major tour of Wales in October in a production titled The Eagle Dances, written for him by Welsh author and playwright David Rowe. Big Mountain will play the role of 19th-century artist and explorer George Catlin. The work will include shadow puppets operated by his wife Diana, as well as film, video, recorded voices, music, dance and computer graphics. Details: e-mail davidjohnrowe@yahoo.com

A monumental sculpture titled “Gete-Achitwa-Asinakwe” (“Ancient Honorable Stone Woman”) created by Jason Quigno (Saginaw Chippewa) has been permanently installed outdoors on the Central Michigan University campus in Mount Pleasant. The work, more than eight feet in height and weighing some two tons, was commissioned by the university to acknowledge the region’s Native heritage and culture. Quigno, based in Grand Rapids, has been sculpting for more than 17 years.

The remarkable resurgence of American Indian tribes after decades of grinding poverty and social distress has been chronicled in a noteworthy new book, The State of the Native Nations: Conditions Under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination (Oxford University Press). The book, overseen by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, contains essays by 14 Native leaders sharing their success stories and a wealth of data on a wide range of factors affecting life in Indian Country. Details: https://www.ksg.harvard.edu/
virtualbooktour/kalt_spring_07.htm

Thought-provoking, original and linguistically oriented artist Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne/Arapaho) was selected by the National Museum of the American Indian for inclusion in the 52nd Venice Biennale this summer. His two-part installation titled “Most Serene Republics” uses multilingual signage in Italian, English and Cheyenne to probe questions regarding place, history and creation of nation-states through force, and pays homage to the Native people who traveled to Venice in the 1880s in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

More than 350 people involved in making films and television programming attended the First Vision Filmmakers Forum in Albuquerque, New Mexico in late April. The event, led by Charmaine Jackson-John (Dine), drew emerging and veteran filmmakers such as Moctesuma Esparza, Gary Farmer and Chris Eyre to panel discussions, a film screening and other activities. Details: nmfilm.com/locals/nm-filmmakers/cultural-outreach.php

The Raramuri people (commonly known as the Tarahumara) of the Sierra Nevada region of Chihuahua, Mexico have weathered many assaults combined with neglect over the centuries, but a terrible confluence of drought, lifestyle disruption by narcotic traffickers, pollution and other factors is driving their remarkable society over the edge of the famous canyons they live among. Efforts are being made to raise $130,000 to provide emergency food and medical relief for them. Details: Alliance of Native Americans, P.O. Box 31276, Los Angeles, CA 90031; 213/618-0420 or spiritruns.net.

The Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music and the Archive of World Music at Harvard University have been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitally preserve critically endangered sound recordings. The preservation project will include 10 collections of Native American recordings made between 1933 and 1949. The IU Archives of Traditional Music already contains more than 110,000 recordings. Details: dlib.indiana.edu
In June, more than 100 members of the Minnesota Vikings football team pitched in with other volunteers to build a playground for the American Indian Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota, based on drawings its students created. The team and the Toro corporation also split the cost of the project.

The National Congress of American Indians has produced a “Tribal Meth Toolkit” for tribes and other parties to use in their ongoing battle against the scourge of methamphetamine abuse now washing over Indian Country. The kit was unveiled in June by NCAI President Joe Garcia (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo). To order a kit or obtain further details, visit ncai.org.

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passages
Michael Sockalexis (Penobscot) passed away on April 22 in Bangor, Maine at age 60. He served in both the tribal council and as a state representative. A former champion runner, he was also known for his love of traditional dance and his warm relations with a diverse cross-section of Maine society.

Actor Nick Ramus (Blackfeet), a frequent guest on Walker, Texas Ranger and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and lead of the film Windwalker, passed away in late May. Made on a shoestring budget, Windwalker went on to earn more than $18 million.

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honoring
In mid-June, 15 students from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community near Phoenix traveled to Washington, D.C. to take part in the National Anthem Project Grand Finale. The students were the only American Indians among the 5,000 participants. The group sang several patriotic songs, including “God Bless America,” in O’odham, and performed two social dances.

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) has selected a handful of artists for 2007 fellowships. Receiving the prestigious award, which comes with a cash prize to help further their careers, were Roger Amerman (Choctaw) for beadwork, Diane Douglas-Willard (Haida) for basketry, Ira Lujan (Taos Pueblo) for sculpture (glass), Beverly Rose Moran/Bear King (Standing Rock Sioux) for beadwork, Rainy Naha (Hopi) for pottery, and Penny Singer (Diné) for clothing design. Receiving Youth Fellowships were Jamie Brown (Potawatomi) for basketry and Ray E. Rosetta (Santa Domingo Pueblo) for jewelry.

Environmental and social activist, writer and speaker Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe) has been asked to join the advisory board for the Tribal and Native Lands Program of the Trust for Public Land.

Author Debra Magpie Earling (Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes) has been awarded a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship. The writer and professor at the University of Montana won widespread acclaim for her first novel, Perma Red, and plans to next write a historical novel about a Kootenai medicine woman.

In July, Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee) assumed the role of president of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. In the past, he served as president of the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, Haskell University and the Tohono O’odham Community College.

Della Warrior (Otoe-Missouria), the former president of the Institute of American Indian Arts and first woman president of her tribe, has been inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame.
Brian D. Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), the former director of Acoma Pueblo’s Historic Preservation Office and its new cultural center, has joined the staff of Cornerstones Community Partnerships, where he will serve as a liaison between the nonprofit group and the Native American and Hispanic communities of New Mexico on projects to preserve historic architectural treasures.

Brad Panteah (Zuni Pueblo) took the Best of Show award for his five-piece shadowbox katsina set titled “Gathering of the Clan” at the 2007 Indian Fair and Market held at San Diego’s Museum of Man.
Musician Arvel Bird (Shivwit Paiute) had the honor this past spring of having not one, not two, but three CDs in the top 40 on the New Age Reporter chart. His CD Ananeah broke into the top 10, while Animal Totems 2 hit the number 22 spot and Arvel Bird and One Nation topped out at number 31.

A cradleboard by Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings (Kiowa) is featured on the cover of the recently released book Brave Hearts and Their Cradles: A Pictorial Presentation of Native American Cradleboards (available at authorstobelievein.com) by Richard Janulewicz.

Rochelle Chester (Navajo), a 17-year-old classical composer from northeastern Arizona, was featured this summer in the PBS series From the Top: Live From Carnegie Hall, which took a behind-the-scenes look at the performance of her “Moon’s Lullaby” at the famous New York City concert hall. Details: pbs.org/fromthetop

Julio Cusurichi Palacios, a Peruvian Indian, has been awarded the highly regarded Goldman Environmental Prize for his persistence in fighting for creation and protection of a reserve for Peruvian Indian peoples. Oil drilling and timber cutters harvesting big-leaf mahogany are ravaging his homelands.