Inuit Art

It is amazing how short a time social media such as Facebook  has been with us and it has totally changed our lives.  More than once have I been introduced to people “virtually”.  The first time it happened I wasn’t even sure what it meant.  A dealer from New York met a collector from Santa Fe in Paris and knowing I lived there introduced us by email.  If I had gotten a phone call or letter that someone from Santa Fe had been at the fair I would not have wanted to get in touch for fear of imposing.  Yet, we have now become friends in Santa Fe.

It happened again last year when a wonderful Cherokee Basket weaver, Shan Goshorn sent an email saying in part, “Please may I introduce a friend of mine to you? Like you, he is an astute collector who also writes about native art and the art world. He is a retired teacher from NYC where he still resides and will attend Indian market next month, I believe for the first time.”  His name is Edd Guarino.   We did not meet that summer though we did correspond through email.  A couple of weeks ago, however, he came into the Ralph T. Coe Foundation, where I volunteer, brought by a friend of the Foundation President, Rachel Wixom.  He had come for the opening of an exhibition of works on paper from his collection of Inuit Art showing at the Museum of Contemporary Indian Art (MOCNA).

I became aware of Inuit Art when I visited my son, Danny, in Traverse City Michigan.  Needless to say, we went to the local museum, The Dennos, and their strongest collection is from the Baffin Island area of Nunavut, Canada.  It includes a 1,000 prints, sculptures, drawings tools and textiles.  Funnily enough I only remember prints and drawings in black and white.   There is probably much more but nothing else there particularly intrigued me.

I was most pleasantly surprised when Edd took me into his exhibition,  "Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait".  There was color everywhere and fascinating subjects.  The exhibition offers a visual conversation between an Inuk grandmother, mother, and daughter – Pitseolak Ashoona (1904-1983), Napachie Pootoogook (1938-2002), and Annie Pootoogook (1969- ).   The matriarch bore her husband 17 children had to bring them up on her own after he died.  She settled in Cape Dorset where she was a pioneer draughtsman creating 9,000 drawings within 20 years!   “Family Camping in Tuniq Ruins”, 1976.  stonecut and  stencil, lent by Dorset Fine Arts, is typical of her intricate works of art.  I must say that I needed the title attached though I am sure that a Native would have understood the symbolism.

Pitseolak was encouraged to concentrate her art on community rather than the individual “Migration Towards our Summer Camp”, 1984, lithograph lent by Dorset Fine Arts,  if you like me were brought up on the East Coast think of an Indian camp not summer camp in Maine.  This is one of her last works and reminds me of the African-American Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence.

As in so many Native Families it is not just one member who is an artist but it becomes a tradition and even a dynasty of artists.  No exception here.  Many of Pitsolak’s progeny became artists and one of her daughters Napachie Pootoogook is represented here.  I love this lithograph of 1989 titled, “Nascopie Reef”  from Edd’s collection who supplied the following 3 images.  We don’t need any more information to realize how dangerous that reef is and of all the boats that have broken up on it.  The remaining images are courtesy of Edward J. Guarino.

I wrote the last paragraph before receiving the backstory, which Edd sent me: “Nascopie Reef documents an historic episode in the life of Cape Dorset residents.  The people of Cape Dorset depended on the supply ship Nascopie to bring them goods to get them through the winter.  In July, 1947 the R. M. S. Nascopie hit a reef off Cape Dorset.  The citizens of the town rushed out to the ship to try to get as much off of it before it sank, knowing that it carried the only supplies they would see all year.  Without them they could not make it through the winter.  This event was so traumatic that it is still vivid in the minds of the people of Cape Dorset so much so that a number of artists have created works that reference this incident.” I thought this an excellent example of how if the work of art is successful the history is not necessary though it helps to expand our knowledge.

Napachie’s daughter Annie is more involved in family than community.  The drawing of her grandmother, Pitseolak, is a woman we all know instinctively.  It is a sympathetic portrait of an older person.  Do note the child peeking in on the right side in this image of everyday family life “Drinking Tea”.

My last image by Annie, “Couple Sleeping” 2002-2003, a drawing with pencil, crayon and ink, shows a major progression in style using color as much as draughtsmanship  to depict the scene.  Gustav Klimt at the beginning of the last century used color similarly to form his subject.

I am asked why I continue to do these Missives week after week numbering well over 300 by now and there are two simple answers.  One is that if I stop even for a week I feel I may never start again and the other is that every week I am able to learn something new or at least get a fresh insight into another world.

“Catch 22” The Exhibition

The Coe, formally known as The Ralph T. Coe Foundation, recently opened a new show, “Catch 22”.  According to the guest curator, Nina Sanders, (Apsáalooke, also known as the Crow Tribe), “we do ourselves a disservice by manufacturing boundaries that serve to exclude, define and restrict certain types of art.  ‘Catch 22’ addresses the paradox that sanctions Native American art as well as the paradoxes that exist within each artist’s life…These individuals are faced with navigating the ‘catch- that comes from standing in two worlds, as modern Americans and indigenous people”.

It is the job of every curator to edit an exhibition so that it speaks to its audience.  In my opinion this show of 22 works on paper does.  It helps to know, however, that the owner of the collection, Edward J. Guarino known as Edd, was getting bored with collecting traditional Native American art and wanted to find edgier material, which the younger Indian artists have been doing.  As someone who has spent most of his life dealing with Old Master European paintings, I find it difficult to agree but cannot disagree with Edd’s statement, “that you can’t talk to dead artists.”  Clearly both curator and collector came together on the importance of this point and each work has an artist’s statement in the small catalog that accompanies the show.

How did the Coe find this private collector from Brooklyn, New York?  Actually, Edd found the Coe about a year ago, through a Coe volunteer and someone who had set up a tour of the Coe.  Edd met its President, Rachel Wixom, and they came up with the idea for this show together.  The fact is that Edd was not unknown in Santa Fe.  The artist, Shan Goshorn, had introduced Edd to me online a short while before and an exhibition of Edd’s collection of Northwest Coast works on paper was up at the Museum of Contemporary Indian Art.

Shan Goshorn, an Eastern Band Cherokee from Oklahoma, is a basket maker who weaves stories into her works. http://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=goshorn  In the catalog entry for her piece in Catch 22 she states; “Art cajoles, encourages, forces us to stretch out of our comfort zone and to consider things that we might not have considered before.  I want people who see my work to walk away with the curiosity to learn more…”

An etching by Charles Loloma (1921-1991), a Hopi Jeweler who worked in many other media is called “Vertical Rectangles” and is based on a drawing from one of his sketchbooks.  What is particularly interesting is that it relates directly to some of the jewelry he was doing circa 1980. The catalog entry includes a quote from his writings: “I feel a strong kinship to stones…I feel the stone and think, not to conquer it, but to help it express itself”.

We saw Rose Simpson from Santa Clara Pueblo work in clay when she was still young enough to be called Rosy and was making small clay dolls.  Now 20 years later she is an established artist whose clay sculptures can be found in many exhibitions and museum collections.  She is from a renowned family of artists specializing in work in clay.  But as you must know by now artists never wish to pigeon hole themselves in one medium any more than an actor wants to be typecast.  Here we have a mixed media piece called “V-8 Engine”.  Possibly influenced by her mother, Roxanne, having rebuilt and decorated a car, which she loved to show off in the town of Espanola near Santa Clara.  Curator Nina Sanders says of Rose, “She is a force to be reckoned with.  She carefully and thoughtfully explores new areas of art as she navigates her own existence."

Since it is necessary to expand our horizons my final illustration will be by an artist I was totally unacquainted with, Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/Coctaw). She belongs to the tradition of basket weavers but this piece, like most of her work, is  flat. Titled “Elizabeth as Cleopatra”, 2015, it is woven from an inkjet print on Bamboo paper.  I love it when a picture emerges for me slowly and the first time I viewed this work I did not really see it other than colorful patterns. Then, as a volunteer at a Coe function, I found myself sitting opposite it and slowly the face of Elizabeth Taylor came out at me and the image clicked. The artist’s statement said, “The ultimate connection between me and this weaving would be the personal romantic journey that I had experienced at the same time I created Elizabeth as Cleopatra.”  That mysterious comment has all wondering.  What is important to me, however, is that the statement only amplifies the experience, but is not necessary to appreciate, the art.

If I have piqued your curiosity the exhibition can be seen at The Coe at 1590B Pacheco in Santa Fe. Just call, even at the last moment, (505) 983-6372 or come to an open house on the first Friday of every month from 1-4pm.  If you can’t make it, the fully illustrated 16-page catalogue with artists’ and curatorial commentary can be acquired by writing to or emailing the Coe, info@ralphtcoefoundation.org