Marcus Amerman

My wife, the curator, would tell you that a good exhibition will tell you a story. I would say a good exhibition is one you enjoy. We have seen one that does both so I would qualify it as a success.

The exhibition is called “Pathfinder: 40 Years of Marcus Amerman” and you will find it at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am on the Wheelwright Board of Directors. However, I have been visiting the Museum for the past 30-plus years before joining the Board two years ago and this is one of the best shows I have ever seen there.

Marcus Amerman (1959-) is a multidisciplinary artist of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. He is known as a bead artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist. Amerman received a BA in Fine Art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, with additional art study at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He also had a residency at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Here is Amerman at the opening of his exhibition.

He learned at the early age of 10 how to create art with beads from his aunt. Since his bracelets are sold commercially, he is best known in that category and has been referred to as a "photobeadalist". For more of my commentary on beading ... 

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2017/06/beads-universe-of-meaning.html

Amerman has mastered the technique to the point of creating true portraits where the subjects are clearly recognizable. To illustrate the point here is an image of Buffalo Bill standing with a group of eight Native Americans. They are identifiable leaders of the Crow and Pawnee Nations. Amerman copied an 1866 photograph using 120,000 beads in 120 different colors! Here is Amerman’s work and the original photograph. He said in a video that accompanies the exhibition that “it is said that the photo steals the soul of the Indian and I believe my beading steals it back”.

For this exhibition, the Museum commissioned Amerman to create an image specific to the Wheelwright. He used historic photographs of the Museum’s co-founder, the Navaho artist and medicine man Hastiin Klah. In the lower half, he depicted the figure of Klah before the Museum building that he did not live to see, while in the upper field, he abstracted Klah’s features in the searchlight beams of the opening celebration.

Amerman has a wonderful sense of humor. His college roommate told us that he would play practical jokes and when his victims chased him into his dorm room they would find no one there because he had figured out how to “hide behind a wall”.

He often assumes the guise of his alter ego, Buffalo Man. In the photographic parody by Cara Romero, “The Last Indian Market”, he is posed at the center of other Indian artists participating in the Market. A life-size figure of in the outfit and mask he fashioned for his Buffalo Man stands In the Wheelwright show. He created the character around 2002 and in 2008 is quoted as saying, “Beadwork is my gun, painting is my bow and arrow, fashion is my lance and installation is my coup stick”.

Amerman can’t stop himself from turning the most mundane objects into works of art. Here is one of his hubcap shields. When we were invited to his studio/residence we saw the profusion of objects he hordes for use in one or another of his various creations.

He has said that he enjoys painting the most and finds it the most satisfying. Here are two images, before and after, where no explanation is necessary. Ameriman’s moving vision of 9/11 in two paintings that come at the end of the show.

Three Artists In Dialog

Last week I went to a talk at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. There were three Native Artists in dialog: a painter, Tony Abeyta (Navajo Diné); a Ceramicist, Diego Romero (Cochiti); and a Beader, Marcus Ammerman (Choctaw). The latter has an exhibition at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian that I wrote about earlier this year ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=amerman

Diego Romero I wrote about 8 years ago ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2016/09/diego-romero-1964.html

... and Tony Abeyta I have mentioned in miscellaneous Missives.

They have several things in common and the most important is that they are at the top of the chart in their fields of art. They have recognition from other artists as well as the collectors and museums that exhibit and acquire their work.

Something else they have in common is that they all attended The Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in the 1980’s and attribute much of their success to the school and the teachers who were seminal in their careers.

IAIA started out as a high school in 1962 and from 1975 offered college and post-graduate courses. In 1994 it was designated a land-grant college and by 2001 was fully accredited. Today 20% of the students art non-Native.

It could be compared to the French Royal Academy of the 18th century, the institution that oversaw the training of artists with hands on instruction by leading artists, lectures, access to prestigious commissions and opportunities to exhibit their work. All this is very similar to IAIA. However, instead of an annual Salon IAIA has a museum in the center of Santa Fe to exhibit the work of alumni and students.

The panelists talked about how IAIA also trained them in the business world and how to manage and sell their art, driving home that just saying you’re an artist does not put bread on the table.

All three of the panelists had degrees beyond their studies at IAIA. Diego Romero went to art school in Berkley before IAIA and then went on to Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles for his BFA and UCLA for a Masters Degree. Tony Abeyta received an Associate of Fine Arts degree from IAIA and later an honorary doctorate of humanities. He earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a MFA from New York University. Marcus Amerman earned his BFA at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington.

Diego Romero had debated whether to concentrate on making jewelry or pots. However, Ottelie Loloma, ceramicist and wife of the most famous Hopi jeweler, Charles Loloma, was teaching at IAIA and convinced Romero to concentrate on his ceramic work. In fact, Ottelie influenced many Native American artists who went to IAIA and not necessarily directing them towards ceramics.

The artists agreed that art was part of a narrative ie telling a story. Here is a pot by Diego Romero in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. The image depicts two soldiers, accompanied by a priest, executing a sentence imposed upon a number of Acoma men in 1599 in retaliation for the deaths of soldiers killed at the Pueblo months earlier.

I was surprised when Tony Abeyta talked about his education including travels to the South of France and to Florence. Abroad he learned from the work of Old Masters and contemporary European artists but did not try to copy them. He said of himself that, aside from being an artist, he is a collector and a curator and wants to understand the art of all cultures. Here is Abeyta at work painting a mural at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona to complement the exhibit,"Over the Edge: Fred Harvey and the Grand Canyon."

There were humorous moments in their presentations. When Romero said he looked at the work of Dan Namingha (Hopi Tewa) renowned painter and an IAIA student some years earlier, Marcus countered, that he too looked at the work of earlier artists, but in order to do something different!

Amerman also said something interesting that I did not think much about until I read my own notes. He said that Indian (Native American) artists get others to join their own cultures and not adopt that of others. That is probably one of the reasons that they are just recently joining the mainstream of the Eurocentric art world and are only now being incorporated in contemporary art collections. Amerman did this beaded work, “The Gathering” for the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. These Native American riders are represented against the Portland cityscape with Mount Hood in the background. It was inspired by a photograph of Nez Perce Chiefs of the Umatilla reservation in Oregon.

In the Q and A session one of the members in the audience asked, “How do you become an artist” and Tony Abeyta responded, “First you fill out the application ... ”

Beads: A Universe of Meaning

“Beads: A Universe of Meaning” opened recently at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, in Santa Fe. The exhibition traces the history of imported glass beads as a medium of exchange, artistic expression, and identity for indigenous peoples throughout North America.

Who would think that it was the Europeans who introduced the Native Americans to one of their greatest art forms, beading.  From first contact in the 15th century the Europeans brought strings of glass beads as gifts and trade items.  Even today the most coveted beads are made in Czechoslovakia.

In primary school I learned that the island that I was born and lived on, Manhattan, was bought from the Indians with just $24 worth of beads.  (Today there is still debate about what the medium of exchange was.)  Even then not a great sum of money but the beads served as currency.  The Indian woman found it a lot easier to work with these beads and not have to find and prepare stone, shell, bone or porcupine quills for adorning garments.  The Europeans also found that the Indians valued blue beads above the other colors.  On his 1804 exploration of the Northwest, Meriwether Lewis (Lewis & Clark expedition) reported “The blue beads occupy the place which gold has with us.”

You have probably seen the classic postcard, “Greetings from Indian Country”.  In 2002 it was turned into an artwork by Marcus Amerman  (Choctaw) and was lent to the show from a private collection.  He adapted it with updated and more political imagery.   When we moved out here I bought my wife an Amerman beaded bracelet, which showed a New York City scene, the hawks nesting on a Fifth Avenue apartment building, on one side and the open range on the other as a symbol of our move!

There are many striking images in the show, here is a Nez Perce Woman’s Beaded Yoke circa 1900 from the Collection of Lee and Lois Miner who have lent a number of items to the show.  If you are not familiar with the Nez Perce tribe, don’t be surprised.  I don’t know if anyone can name all of the over 560 recognized Indian tribes.  The Nez Perce, were historically nomadic and, when this piece was made, they claimed parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana as their homeland.   From about the same period, and borrowed from the same collection, is this vest from the Plateau region, which included around 17 tribes including the Nez Perce.  These Indians lived between the Rocky Mountains to the East and the Coastal Mountains to the West.  They went as far North as British Columbia.  Obviously, these tribes traded among themselves and borrowed decorative ideas from each other as well as Anglo sources like floral printed cottons.

Children’s clothing is always thought precious and takes extra skill to work in small scale.  This Cheyenne child’s dress must have been made for a very special occasion around 1890.  It was lent to the show by Nikki Vandenberg.  It is shown with a pair of high top child’s Moccasins from the Shoshone-Bannock Fort Hall Reservation around 1940 and were lent by a private collector.

I love the idea of a pair of man’s moccasins that are beaded on the bottom as well as the top.  They too must have been made for a very special situation because they could not have been comfortable to dance in.  They are Sioux, circa 1890, and lent by Robert Vandenberg.

It is well worth seeing this exhibition for these are works of art that tell stories and express the identity of their creators and their communities.

Indians, Indians Everywhere

Yes, the politically correct nomenclature is Native Americans and that is certainly appropriate, they, themselves, however, mostly refer to themselves as Indians.  During the month of August in and around Santa Fe Native Art is celebrated in high gear.

The first event focuses on older material. It occurs at the fair grounds in Albuquerque and while there are many collectors there it serves as a first sifting for dealers to buy from each other.  They are gearing up for four fairs in Santa Fe.  Two of them are produced by Whitehawk which was originally organized by Kim Martindale who now has his own two shows.  Only one from each is designated specifically as Native Art but the others include some as well.  

As we near Indian Market week the frenzy reaches higher and higher proportions with events for the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture to name a few.  Also, there are events for out of town museums such as Washington D.C.’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

The Ralph T. Coe Foundation, of course, had their event as well with a renowned family of bead workers whose matriarch is Joyce Growing Thunder.  She and her daughter Juanita and her daughter Jessa gave a fabulous talk about the history of beading and how it is in their blood.  It is not an avocation but rather a vocation for the whole family, or at least many members, who work together morning, noon at night.  They as well as many Native artists we have spoken to tell us that there is a great impetus before the large Indian Markets to get work done both for commercial sales reasons but also to try to create prize-winning material.

The two major efforts to bring contemporary Native Art to the public are SWAIA, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (aka Indian Market) and the new kid on the block IFAM, the Indigenous Fine Art Market.  We went to a breakfast at Sorrel Sky Gallery for the National Museum of the American Indian and Dallin Maybee, the SWAIA, president, spoke.  He made a statement I must repeat here because it made a dealer, namely me, very happy.  He said, "We could not fulfill our mission without he Galleries.  I don't know why we don't celebrate them more."  Artists at the breakfast and later on the plaza said that while the aim at Indian Market was to promote and sell Indian art it was also a wonderful opportunity to meet friends and extended family.  (In Native America very close friends are considered family.)  Many artists depend for their livelihood on these fairs. 

IFAM, the Indigenous Fine Art Market, which in its second year expanded with 1/3 more artists and getting city permission to occupy more of the Railyard Park.  There was also a cause this year.  It was to “Free Leonard Peltier”, a leader of the AIM (American Indian Movement) who has been serving time since 1977 sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for first-degree murder in the killing of two FBI agents during the conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975.  Amnesty International has placed it in their “Unfair Trials” category in their 2010 annual report.  John Torres-Nez, President of IFAM, has written articles regarding art as therapy for incarcerated Natives and after reading them Peltier applied to exhibit at the Market as a painter.  His application was accepted by the committee and he was admitted by proxy through his son, Chauncey, who manned the booth selling shirts and stickers as well as the paintings.

Penelope and I have certainly made our contribution to the effort to sell Native art this summer by buying a number of objects.  A couple of the acquisitions have their roots in our old world.  One is a Katsina carving by Hopi artist Ros George.  It represents a couple embracing.  Its subject and delicate carving reminded both of us of 17th century German boxwood carving.  Note especially the delicate work of the hands and feet.

Another work we bought which comes out of art history is Cara Romero’s photograph, “The Last Indian Market”.  A group of well-known Native American artists got together in a local cantina and posed in the manner of Leonardo’s, “Last Supper”. Here is a list of all of them with their affiliations: from left to right:
Chris Eyre, Cheyenne/Arapaho: Director/ Filmmaker; Smoke Signals, Skins, Edge of America
Amber Dawn-Bear Robe, Siksika: Curator/ Art Historian
Kenneth Johnson, Muscogee(Creek)/Seminole: Designer And Metal Smith
Diego Romero, Cochiti: Potter/Artist
Darren Vigil Grey, Jicarilla Apache: Painter
Kathleen Wall, Jemez: Potter, makes Koshari Clowns
Marcus Amerman (Buffalo Man), Choctaw: Beadwork
Marian Denipah, San Juan: Jeweler, wife of LaRance
Pilar AStar (Agoyo), San Juan: Fashion Designer
Steve LaRance, Hopi: Jeweler
Cannupa Hanska Luger, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lokata: Ceramic Artist
Linda Lomahaftewa, Hopi/Choctaw: Print Maker, Painter, Educator
America Meredith, Cherokee: Painter, Printmaker, Educator and editor of First American Art Magazine

What a nice document as well as fine photo to own.

Cara’s husband Diego Romero is a famous potter who has worked in print media as well.  We acquired his print, “ Hector at the Ships”. In Greek mythology during the Trojan War, Hector set out to burn the ships of the Greeks.  This print depicts the 1680 Pueblo Revolt when the Native Americans drove the Spanish out of Arizona and New Mexico and burned their mission churches.

Our oldest acquisition was a Squash Blossom Necklace minus the blossoms that has crosses in their stead.  We had been looking for the right necklace for about 20 years and finally felt we had found one.  It dates from the 1940’s and is purported to have belonged at one time to Julie Andrews.

With the slightest interest in Native America and its art one must be in Santa Fe during the month of August.  We have been coming for these events for 25 years now and we still learn more every single year.