Sonya Kelliher-Combs was raised in the Northwest Alaska community of Nome. Her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Master of Fine Arts is from Arizona State University. Through her mixed media painting and sculpture, Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her combination of shared iconography with intensely personal imagery demonstrates the generative power that each vocabulary has over the other. READ MORE…
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
“I’m inspired by the relationship of our ancestors to their environment — how they used skin, fur and membrane in material culture. The subjects of my work are patterns of history, family, and culture…” Read More
California — a biodiversity hotspot — provides an abundance of plants for both food and medicine. To Native peoples across the state, gathering locations were like supermarkets today. They provided all the resources necessary to survive. These native plants are relevant today as they reinforce cultural continuity for California’s Native peoples and provide healthy, drought-tolerant alternatives to the processed foods typically found in Western diets. In contemporary California, movements such as “eat local” and scientists’ “discovery” of the health benefits inherent in chia and sage, for instance, have led to an increasing awareness and desire to purchase indigenous foods. But while more and more people are recognizing the benefits of California’s indigenous plants, the scale of the commercial food industry often prohibits access to local indigenous communities. In this video, we visit members of the Chia Cafe Collective, a group working in Southern California to revive Native food practices and raise awareness about the precarity of these important cultural resources.
Cara Romero (b. 1977, Inglewood, CA) is a contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX. Romero’s identity informs her photography, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective. READ MORE…
As an Indigenous photographer, I embrace photography as my tool to resist Eurocentric narratives and as a means for opening audiences’ perspectives to the fascinating diversity of living Indigenous peoples. My approach fuses time-honored and culturally specific symbols with 21st-century ideas. This strategy reinforces the ways we exist as contemporary Native Americans, all the while affirming that Indigenous culture is continually evolving and imminently permanent. READ MORE…
THE LAST INDIAN MARKET
Awards: 1st Place in Photography, Heard Museum
Collections: Autry Museum, Coe Foundation, Denver Art Museum, Tia, Tony Abeyta and Wheelright Museum
C.Maxx Stevens is an Installation artist and Seminole/Mvskoke Nation from the Oklahoma Region. Her art is based on memories of family and culture expressed in three dimensional environments using materials, objects, and technology to build a visual narrative.
My artwork is based on memories of family and culture within a three dimensional environment through the use of materials, objects, and technology to build a visual narrative. For the past eight years I have been developing a series of installations based on the issue of diabetes in the native communities. “Last Supper,” a site-specific installation, is a commentary on how the food we are eating today is making a negative impact within our native communities, as diabetes has become an epidemic and we cannot continue to ignore the warnings. One out of every six native people will develop diabetes or be affected by the disease. Based on my family and tribal history this number seems to be low. While the native community is re-educating themselves and trying to change the way that we are eating we are also finding these changes to be double handed. Realistically this isn’t going to happen overnight due to the economics of many native families for many of the food we serve is part of our traditional meal that we are not going to change. Essentially the issue has become a dilemma.
Charlene Maxx Stevens, Last Supper, mixed media installation, 2011.
SE-94; IAIA Museum Purchase, 2012; Courtesy of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts; Santa Fe; NM.
Carol Emarthle Douglas considers herself a Traditional & Contemporary basket weaver
She creates baskets that tell a story by design, shape, and use of color. Coiling baskets is an extremely time consuming process, and the baskets she produces in a year’s time are one of a kind.
“My inspiration is taken from my Northern Arapaho and Seminole heritage. I have based some of my designs on the Plains style beadwork, ledger art, and parfleche designs from my mother’s tribe. My father is from the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and I also incorporate the colors and patterns of Seminole patchwork into my baskets. I am fortunate to have such a rich heritage to draw upon to inspire my work.” READ MORE…
“Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Marie-Cecile Kakgoosh Nottaway-Wawatie. But everyone calls me Cezin, so can you. I am of Algonquin ancestry, born in Rapid Lake, but raised in the Parc de la Verendrye, QC. I come from a long line of strong Anishinabe First Nation women, who all have contributed to the proud and hard working person I am today. I called my business WAWATAY CATERING in honor of my ancestors, as it is believed that the northern lights are the colors of the spirits of our ancestors who continue to guide us from the spirit world.”
According to Bear Robe, “The show highlights Indigenous fashion designers who look to their cultural past to create clothing, jewelry, and accessories that embody the essence of ancestral memory while creative innovative designs representing the now.” In the film, Bear Robe provides an overview of the misconceptions surrounding Indigenous Art and the problematic nature of terms like “traditional” and “authentic” as well as how the show allows a platform for Indigenous designers to express themselves without the limitations that historically have defined them.
Included Indigenous designers are Jamie Okuma, Sho Sho Esquiro, Cody Sanderson, Maya Stewart, Yolanda Skelton, Shane Watson, Decontie & Brown, Pamela Baker, and Adrian Standing Elk Pinnecoose. Along with interviews with some of these designers, models and attendees also lend their voices, and there is a glimpse of World Champion Hoop Dancer Nakotah LaRance’s opening performance. Stunning and vibrant imagery of models walking down the runway wearing each of the designers’ work is shown throughout the video.
Before “Walk with Pride” was submitted for consideration to the Regional Emmys, the film made the rounds in the film festival circuit with 14 screenings across the U.S. Walk with Pride won awards for Best Documentary at Fashion Film Festival Chicago and New Mexico Filmmakers Showcase and was nominated for awards at the Seattle International Film Festival and Borderscene Film Festival.
In 2020, because a large in-person event was not possible, SWAIA and Bear Robe worked with Waldstein to create a virtual fashion event – a series of intimate bio-pics about seven Indigenous Designers, plus a pre-recorded intimate show of local designer Orlando Dugi’s 2020 capsule collection. The video streamed at this year’s Virtual Indian Market to great fanfare.
Bear Robe and Waldstein are currently applying for grants to produce additional films around the theme of how Indigenous designers of today are incorporating contemporary elements into their designs as they honor their cultural heritage(s).
Press release and information courtesy of Amber-Dawn Bear Robe and Kaela Waldstein
RED CHEF REVIVAL
