Four Winds Gallery: 2013

Hózhǫ́: Walk In Beauty at Four Winds

We would like to thank Shane Hendren and Jed Foutz for a great show! It was an honor to be able to host both a talented jeweler as well as a knowledgeable trader; not only did they bring exceptional material, but their stories were a real treat for the Pittsburgh audience. We especially appreciated their perspective on Southwestern Native American art culture as it continues to evolve.

Visitors loved getting to know Shane and hearing more about his creative process. A first-generation jeweler from an artistically inclined family, he sources all his turquoise from the US and does his engraving by hand. His meticulous attention to symmetry is evident in his work.

Shane has a unique life perspective and attitude, and told us some wonderful stories from his time in the rodeo as well as his various world travels. Shane considers his jewelry his legacy and only makes a limited amount of pieces. As a ‘one man band,’ he takes care and consideration with each of his works.

Jed Foutz’s lecture was a big hit as well. We learned about his fascinating family history working within the Navajo reservation for five generations. He spoke about the personal relationships that he has developed with top Navajo weavers, and expressed the nuances of the trader and artist relationship, reflecting on how the symbiotic system has developed over the years. His father, Ed, had a different style of selling and trade, while Jed has come into his own in how he conducts business.

Jed told a touching story about the special moment he shared with his friend Anita Tsosie when she realized her weaving won Best of Show at Indian Market in 2004. He encouraged Anita, who typically devoted an entire year to complete one weaving to immediately sell, to enter her work into the juried show. Reluctantly, she entered her weaving, and when she walked into the awards ceremony and discovered her piece covered in celebratory ribbons, she was overcome with emotion. She then sold the piece to a couple for more than double what she originally had humbly thought she could charge for her work. Jed reflected on how proud he was for her to know the value and respect people felt for her artistry.

Jed also fielded questions from the crowd, one of which was, “As times change, will there still be Navajo weavers?” Jed noted the ways in which the traditional trading post system is in transition and how the number of Native weavers has declined significantly even since his father’s time in trading. However, he believes that there will still be weavers who continue the tradition, creating and working within an entirely new system.

Both Jed and Shane touched upon how this is a very transitional time period in which artists and historians are currently redefining how we look at art originating in Native American culture. With an already rich and interesting history, it is very exciting to look forward to what will come in the future.

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Artists

Interview with Teri Greeves: Part 2

While speaking with Teri, it became clear how her creative process and work reflect the importance of Native American history and education on both a personal and wide scale level. In the second part of our interview, we discuss the representation of Native Americans in mainstream culture and the art world, and the very universal concern for the type of world we’ll leave for our children and the generations that follow us.

You made an interesting point about hoping to educate people, drawing them in through art. In some of your bio information you talk about the use of the Sunboys --- wanting that superhero story to be told for your sons. Were they able to engage with that right away or did it take some time?

Sunboyz Beaded Shoes, 2008, Dan Barsotti photo

All of my beadwork starts with drawings first. I simplify them down, as simple as I can make it as line drawings, almost like a coloring book. Then I work my color in and my lines in and all of that. When my sons were really little, I made copies of those drawings on the computer and gave them to them as coloring pages. My idea was that just like any coloring book, or any kind of engagement with a child, that if they interact with it, they don’t even know that they’re learning from it.

That’s how our calendars work, those old Kiowa calendars. All pictoral calendars work that way - people draw them and then by engaging with the events they depict, they come to appreciate the history. I feel like all of my pieces are like those calendars. It’s an event, it’s a thing that happened. Oral history has often been shared with the help of images. We didn’t have written languages so visual markers helped remind us of stories. That is what my intent was with the Sunboyz work I have done. People can read those shoes and know that is Grandma Spiderwoman, that’s the half-boys, and that’s the lightning bolt that struck them down.

I wanted my children to be able to read the story. So far, so good. All you can do as a parent and as an educator is introduce them to it. You talk to them about it and engage them with it in some way, and then hopefully it sticks. In the traditional form of learning – of Native learning - we live, a child shows interest in something, we encourage it, and then we let them go.

Either they follow through with it or they don’t. We encourage them, but they have to make their own mistakes throughout it. With my kids – a lot of my big work comes from me thinking about what I want them to know: What do I want them to know about me? What do I want them to know about our family? What do I want them to know about Kiowa people, and what do I want them to know about Native America? Native history, Native culture, certainly when my babies were born all that stuff really flooded into me: What am I doing here? What’s my purpose on this planet? Who cares? Who cares what I have to say? And then I realized that this was important information that was given to me that I need to give to them, so a lot of work was inspired by what I wanted to tell them.

We have a photo of the piece Fancy Dancin B’ballers… in which you beaded a pair of high-heeled sneakers. People seem surprised at seeing beaded Native American imagery in a modernized context. Which can be perplexing, because of course Native American culture has always been very much alive.

Fancy Dancin B'ballers, 2010

I’ve been battling that battle since my first breath on this planet. I’ll never forget in high school, I was in high school, my American history class, like a good little American kid, and there was literally one paragraph in the 1800s that talked about Native America in my history book. One paragraph. And it was one of those big American history books. And I remember I read it like ten times, and I remember thinking, “This can’t be it.” I remember going to my history teacher and asking, “Why is there only one paragraph about Native History in here?” The high school I went to was about 16 miles off one of the largest reservations in the United States, Wind River in Wyoming. I grew up with my parents, and even though my father is white, we were Native, and we lived on the res[ervation] and all our good friends were Native – so in my mind I was like, “How do they not know this stuff?”

And then as I got out into the world -- to California and to college --I really realized, “Alright. We don’t exist. We don’t exist in American history, we don’t exist in American culture outside of stereotypes. We just don’t exist.” Fighting that idea that we don’t exist, that we haven’t existed, that we’re not important to what is America, will be something I will do for the rest of my life. Every single time I make a piece in which I show modern day Indians, I force the viewer to consider that we do still exist. And I know, I’m obviously not the only Native person that has dealt with this. This is something that happens across Native America, across the board.

In your piece NDN Art you directly reference Lichtenstein’s Art! - I found it fascinating that you chose to include a very identifiable Native American figure while Lichtenstein’s iconic piece uses a disembodied voice. Can you speak more as to how you came to that decision to include the figure for the piece?

NDN Art, Dan Barsotti photo

Basically, that piece came out of the popular question that interviewers were asking all the Native artists: “Do you consider yourself a Native artist or an artist?” That was the question asked of every Native artist in every single interview that year [2006]. It really stuck in my craw. I wanted to reply, “I am both. How about that?” I am a Native artist, my subject matter is Native, I have a Native story to tell --- I can’t be authentic without telling that story. However, I would also like to consider myself an artist and not be pigeonholed or ghettoized into some sort of anthropological definition of what Native art is.

Lichtenstein did that specific piece because at that time, they were asking themselves the same kind of question – What is art? What does it mean? And the bottom line of that question of are you a Native artist or are you an artist, the real question is: Are you making art?

Roy Lichtenstein, 1962, Oil on Canvas

I thought “What is Indian Art?” was an invalid question from the get-go. It just means that you don’t have an understanding of what we do, and how it’s placed in the continuum of art on the planet. I wanted to subvert this question and make it mine, and to do this I wanted to use stereotypical Native imagery – a war bonnet. Are we a stereotype? Am I traditional? I’m traditionally beading; however, I’m beading in neon colors, referencing Lichtenstein. It was one of those things where hopefully everything about the piece questioned every single thing that tried to define it.

You have been involved with the ambitious new publication First American Art. What drew you to it, and are you going to pursue more projects with them?

[The editor] America Meredith has been a friend of mine for several years now. She is one of those amazing people who are driven by the thought, “Let’s do it all.” Why aren’t Native Americans writing their own critiques, why are we always letting others critique and write the theory for our pieces? We know that we could do it ourselves. We are so many generations now into college education: my mother had a little bit of college, I’m a graduate, my kids are going to be graduates, too. And we don’t have an excuse anymore for not writing for ourselves.

All the books you read, articles that you read, 9 out of 10 of them are written by Anglo-theorists, anthropologists or art historians. But that’s changing, and so I jumped at the chance.

She gave me the assignment of interviewing beadworkers – I did an article on Orlando Dugi and then another one on Ken Williams. Since I know the medium so intimately I was able to ask deeper questions. In a way, someone who didn’t grow up in it can’t ask the same kinds of questions because they don’t understand how things are done traditionally. Meredith got a potter who grew up working with clay to do an interview about another potter. So the magazine is going to be something different – I mean, that’s what I want to read. I want to read what artists are saying to each other. Both Orlando and Ken are amazing people, and I was really honored to be asked to interview them.

When people find that language and art definitions are limiting, that’s when this magazine can really help. That’s how having Native voices, Chicana voices, Black voices talking about their own work --- that’s where those distinctions get broken down. Where that learning and communication happens is the bottom line I strive for in everything I do: That moment of contact between me, and the viewer, owner, collector, museum, whoever that is – that point of communication -- And whether it’s jewelry or whether it’s artwork – whatever it is --- if I can communicate in some way the human experience to another human being, from own perspective, that’s why I do what I do.

We’d like to thank Teri for sharing with us. You can find out more about Teri through Craft in America and First American Art. Be sure to stop by Four Winds and see some of her work in person, too!

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Artists

Interview with Teri Greeves: Part 1

Teri Greeves’ beadwork resonates with a wide array of people, whether they wear one of her pieces on their wrist, display it in their home, or view it in a museum or gallery. We recently interviewed Teri about her history and start in beadworking, the sometimes confining definitions of art and craft, and our ability to communicate through art when we look beyond the medium.

How did you find that you had the amount of patience necessary for beadwork?

I started beading when I was about 8 years old, and I was bead stringing from the moment I could pick up beads and thread. One of the first big pieces for me – I was probably about 8 years old and I wanted to make myself my own necklace to wear with my dance outfit – it was just bead stringing – a 10 strand, bone necklace. And I remember that my parents gave me this little container with all my beads in it and I worked on that thing over the summer. I remember it taking a long time but being really satisfied at the end of it all. I’ve never been asked that question before but the first thing that came to my mind was having the patience that I had to do that first one.

Is it something you find therapeutic or is it simply just more rewarding at the end?

Part of the personality of someone who can do beadwork or textiles is obsessive compulsive. I definitely have that streak. I know that because after four hours I’ll go to stand up and not be able to – and I realize I’ve been sitting there for four hours focused like that, without moving. And I know I’m not the only person that does that. A lot of people talk about it being therapeutic, and I think the easiest way to relate it to someone who isn’t a beadworker is if you’re a runner or a swimmer or even a motorcyclist, you get on your bike and your head is full of stuff and you go for a ride and then when you come back you’re clear. That’s kind of how beadworking is. Because once the design work is done, you’re basically machining color, and that’s the therapeutic part of it.

You’ve mentioned in interviews that when you made your piece Indian Parade on an umbrella, it was the first time you’ve considered yourself an artist. What made that mental shift for you – and what did you consider yourself before?

Beadworker. And still when people ask me what I do, I answer “beadworker”. Then when I get a confused, puzzled look, I tell them, “artist”. When I’m in the rest of the (non-Native) world, they ask me what I do and I say I’m a beadworker, and that’s where the confusion comes – that’s where I found I needed to make a distinction and explain that I am an artist with something to say. And I think with that piece [Indian Parade] I realized that I could speak through that medium. Every single stitch I did on there I did with purpose. That’s something I can say 15 years later. At the time, I was struggling with the identifiers, the language that was put upon Native artists. And I was struggling because I wanted to be known as a beadworker because to me, beadworking is like saying, “I’m a painter”.

The whole issue of craft and art, craft versus fine art, became really apparent to me when PBS contacted me to be included in a program [Craft in America] that explores the idea of craft as art. That’s when it made sense to me how Native art had been seen as craft and that there was this shift under our feet where people were starting to recognize it as fine art: silver belts and silver jewelry were starting to be seen as fine art.

I started to see the nuances in how it was being talked about. I realized through PBS and the other craftspeople featured that this is something that all craftspeople struggle with. Somebody that does hand work, where the hand of the artist is required to finish the work from beginning to end – that’s the work that’s kind of been looked down upon- and that’s part of larger art definitions and all that.

I started to think about where my work fit into these larger ideas. I was really conscious of racial distinctions and the way the whole of Native art was ghettoized within larger craft and fine art spheres.

Are there times you can recall that you found the definitions of craft and art really limiting or holding you back?

There have been times when it’s been clear that a viewer dislikes that I’ve used large beads. Now, the material itself is as valuable as the other material that I use; it’s just that they’re larger. I need to do that to make large canvases – a 6 foot canvas, for example. I thought I had innovated in some way in order to do that, so I was surprised when I received criticism for using large beads, specifically. But it seems that they are only seeing the medium, rather than the composition, the meaning, all the other things that you would look at fine art with – you know, I would never look at a Rothko and be like, “Oh well, he only used acrylic paint…that’s cheap!”

I’m very aware as an artist that my part is to educate the larger audience to look beyond the medium. Look beyond what has traditionally been identified as authentic or real or Native or whatever those words are and to look at it as an expression.

Where do you most want to see your pieces displayed?

I should make a distinction – I have basically two things that I do: jewelry and art pieces. And I didn’t realize this until Jamie and Jed at Shiprock did this crazy photograph… an ad in the paper where they had all these amazing Native jewelers and they also included one of my beaded pieces. When Jamie sent it to me, it was the first time I had ever thought of myself as a jeweler. I had always made jewelry, from the get-go I made jewelry, but in my head I had always thought of it as “Those are my little beaded trinkets.” I never thought my jewelry could stand toe-to-toe with all those jewelers, even though I was getting good money for my pieces.

I had always thought more about my artwork. For me - this is how I’ve always done it – I get really intense on a piece or a series of pieces, whatever it is that I’m working on artwork-wise – my heart and soul goes into it, and I feel like they’re babies once their born. My baby is done, I completed it and then I’ll switch to doing jewelry because to me the jewelry is fun, it doesn’t have as much intense thought. Although some of it does have meaning, it’s not quite the same.

I don’t ever mean to say that jewelry is not art – just for me, in terms of commitment to an idea and intensity involved in the project, my jewelry making is a much lighter process.

But the idea of decorating the human form as a part of feeling beautiful and admired is important to me. When I was growing up, my mother [Jeri Ah-be-hill] had a trading post – my sister [Keri Ataumbi] and I had jewelry since the moment we were born. We came out of the hospital and she put a bracelet on our wrist. Jewelry is a universal form all humans can relate to. I love the idea of creating pieces so people can decorate themselves with meaning and beauty. That is my main goal in making jewelry.

At the same time, I have these other things I want to say, and they can only be said in a certain way with certain objects. When I do the artwork it is oftentimes something that has been rolling around in my head, almost like a thorn in a shoe. It bugs me until I have to deal with it. I have to think about it. I have to research it. And then I have to figure out how I am going to tell that story visually.

For these pieces that aren’t wearable – Would you prefer to see them in homes, galleries, museums?

I tend to run towards the educator in me. I have this thing that I want to say – I want it to be so beautiful, even if it’s a really difficult subject matter, people are interested enough to walk up to it and try to understand it. The more people that see it, the more I feel I have helped the understanding between Native America and the rest of the world. And so my bottom line of where I want things to go – I just want them to go someplace where that communication can continue.

Teri is a fascinating person who can really articulate her perspective as a Native American working as an artist and jeweler today. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview, which we’ll post in a few days!

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Hózhǫ́: Walk In Beauty at Four Winds

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