Indian Country/O’Keeffe Country

The actual title of the exhibition currently at the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe is, “Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country”. As you probably can guess these words have the same meaning, just the first is in the Tewa language. The Tewa are Native Americans who live in the Pueblos of the Southwest, mostly in New Mexico and Arizona and speak the Tewa language.

If you come from the East you may have heard the Southwest referred to as “O’Keeffe Country” in reference to the artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived much of her life in New Mexico. If, however, you have lived for any length of time in the Southwest you know full well that it was, and remains, Indian Country. There are 19 Indian Pueblos with independent governments in New Mexico alone, and they represent 12% of the population of the State. You also learn that Indian Country is not limited to the Southwest, because long before Europeans arrived, Native American nations inhabited all of what is known today as Canada and the United States. The Tewa people are located in this part of the Southwest. It has become customary to read a formal land acknowledgement of what was and remains Native Land before performing arts and other events in Santa Fe.

The O’Keeffe Museum represented by its Director Cody Hartley, PhD. wished to acknowledge the fact that when O’Keeffe adopted this magical place, she did not live in a vacuum but was influenced by her surroundings and culture. Since turnabout is fair play, the curator Dr. Bess Murphy, Luce Curator of Art and Social Practice, asked 12 Tewa artists to explore their reaction to Okeefe’s work. Together with co-curator, artist Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo) they created an exhibition that that puts the accent on works by the Native Americans and includes a few works by O’Keeffe that illustrate a relationship between them.

O’Keeffe talked about “her” land, and the Pedernal mountain she often painted as “her” mountain. The Tewa have taken her words literally and understandably object. Obviously, she didn’t mean it as literal ownership and I would liken her statements to the common expression, this is my country. What is interesting is that originally the Indians did not believe that anyone owned land but rather were stewards of that land, therefore no one could claim ownership.

Jason Garcia is known for his painted ceramic plaques, including a series in comic book style called Tewa Tales. A key work in the exhibition is his plaque showing O’Keeffe standing beside a sign where Tewa is painted over her name ...

Some artists took their assignment quite literally as did Martha Romero (Nambé Pueblo) who made this ceramic and called it “Tainted Lily” using clay gathered at Ghost Ranch, where O’Keeffe had lived, in response to O’Keeffe’s painting “Calla Lily in Tall Glass -No. 2”.

Clay is very important to the Native Americans. For thousands of years clay has been used to make utilitarian objects, as well as to make Adobe for their structures and ceremonial objects as well. Marita Swazo Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) has a case to herself in the show with the title “Did Georgia Pray”. She explains her title in the label: “As potters when we gather our clay we pray – with our cornmeal, with our hands, with our hearts. … Every step is a conversation with the land…” She implies that O’Keeffe could not fully understand how sacred the land is to the Tewa people.

One of my favorite images is “The Sentinels Have Always Been Watching” by John Garcia, Sr. (Santa Clara Pueblo), father of the show’s co-curator Jason. He explains that the Sentinels are the Mountains and the Stars. The Morning Star is one of the major deities of Tewa Culture and cosmology.

You can enjoy O’Keeffe’s work without ever coming to the Southwest, but you cannot appreciate how she sees the world without coming out here. I always thought her clouds were stylized imagery, but we see them out here often. The same is true of the landscape which can look so barren with its little spots of green vegetation. It is captured in Eliza Naranjo Morse’s (Santa Clara Pueblo) painted installation called “Coming Home” that evokes the landscape as seen from the window of O’Keeffe’s home.

One of the most impactful works in the show is not an object or a painting but rather a series of four handwritten letters by Samuel Villarreal Catanach (Pueblo of Pojoaque). He states on the label that he felt a connection with O’Keeffe so close that it inspired him to write these letters. He continues on the label that in these letters, “I express what is important to me and how I perceive her as a visitor to Tewa Nangeh. If she were alive today, I believe she would be someone I would be eager to engage with and learn from. I wonder how she would respond to my thoughts about her.” This single page sums up my experience of the show.

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