F1rstAmericanArt

ISSUE NO. 23, SUMMER 2019

FEATURES DEPARTMENTS Take a Closer Look: 24 Recent Developments 16 Four Emerging Artists By Mariah L. Ashbacher Shine in the Spotlight and America Meredith By RoseMary Diaz ( Nation) (Santa Clara Tewa) Seven Directions 20 Amanda Crowe & Her Legacy: 30 By Hallie Winter (Osage Nation) Eastern Band Cherokee Art+ Literature 96 Woodcarving Suzan Shown Harjo By Tammi). Hanawalt, PhD By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD peepankisaapiikahkia 36 Collections: 100 eehkwaatamenki aacimooni: The Metropolitan Museum of Art A Story of Miami Ribbonwork By Andrea L. Ferber, PhD By Scott M. Shoemaker, PhD Spotlight: Melt: Prayers 104 (Miami), George Ironstrack for the People and the Planet, (Miami), and Karen Baldwin Angela Babby (Oglala Lakota) By Mariah L. Ashbacher Reclaiming Space in Native 44 Calendar 109 Knowledges and Languages By Travis D. Day and America The Clemente Course Meredith () in the Humanities By Laura Marshall Clark (Muscogee Creek) REVIEWS Exhibition Reviews 78 ARTIST PROFILES Book Review 94 D. Y.Begay: 54 Dine Textile Artist By Jennifer McLerran, PhD IN MEMORIAM

Benjamin Harjo Jr.: 60 Joe Fafard, OC, SOM (Melis) 106 Absentee Shawnee/Seminole Painter By Gloria Bell, PhD (Metis) and Printmaker Frank LaPefta 107 By Staci Golar (Nomtipom Maidu) By Mariah L. Ashbacher Freddy Mamani Silvestre: 66 Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk) Aymara Architect By jean Merz-Edwards By Vivian Zavataro, PhD

Tyra Shackleford: 72 Chickasaw Textile Artist By Vicki Monks (Chickasaw)

COVER Benjamin Harjo 'Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/ Seminole), creator and coyote compete to make man, 2016, gouache on Arches watercolor paper, 20 x 28 in., private collection. Image courtesy of the artist.

SUMMER 2019 [ 11 Reclaiming Space in Native Knowledges and Languages THE CLEMENTECOURSE IN THE HUMANITIES

ByLauraMarshall Clark (Muscogee Creek)

S I GROW OLDER, I laugh to No one knew this better than Earl escape-a microcosm of society where remember how much I strug­ Shorris (1936-2012), an American jour· force is continually applied by equals and gled in college humanities nalist, lecturer, editor, and novelist who unequals, and one merely reacts to it.3 In A courses. Considering my love held a deep passion for the humanities. this environment he became good friends for the arts-, sculpture, music, Shm_:ris also cared for marginalized with female inmate Viniece Walker poetry, and architecture-this didn't make people in the world. As a thought leader from East Harlem who called herself sense. It does make sense, however, when in the early 1990s, Shorris doggedly set "Niece:' She was a high school dropout recalling darkened classrooms and aging out to discover a key to alleviate poverty, who finished her diploma in prison and films whose sound sputtered while yellow crisscrossing the nation and interviewing pursued a college degree in philosophy, scratches wriggled like worms on the more than 600 individuals of diverse helping other inmates with problems of frames. The narrator's , reminding me backgrounds over five years. What he family violence. One day Shorris asked of old cigarette commercials, droned on discovered about poverty was what he her, "Why do you think people are poor?" while tinny trumpets played in the back­ would call an inescapable ((surround of Niece looked at him with a cold eye ground. I cast certain blame, too, on overly force;' relentlessly pressuring the poor and responded, "You've got to teach the thick tomes masquerading as textbooks. I through hunger, illness, isolation, abuse, moral life of downtown to the children. would have never guessed then how much addiction, crime, and racism, among other And the way you do that, Earl, is by taking I would love the humanities today. social ills. 2 What he diddt expect was to them downtown to plays, museums, Humanities in its simplest defi­ find a solution-what he called his "riches concerts, lectures, where they can learn nition means all that tells the story of for the poor" -in the most unlikely way. the moral life of downtown ... a moral 4 humans, all that expresses humanldnd. It would also become a key to unlocking alternative to the street:' Niece didn't It is the study of histories and cultures, the preservation of Indigenous languages mention jobs or money or God or church languages, cultural practices, spirituality, and cultures for tribal people. or family during any of their talks, he art theory and criticism, music, literature, noted. What Niece saw were the human­ philosophy, jurisprudence, and more.' The ities. Niece saw an alternative to poverty humanities are not the act of creating art UNLIKELYSPACE in the opening up of new worlds to the or literature or law or music but the exam~ mind and heart, of new understandings, ination and interpretation of such things. THE LIGHT BULB CAME ON for considering paths outside the surround of They are reflexive in the exploration of Shorris during one of his interviews in force, and entering a wider world in which who we once were-individually and a New York women's maximum-security one sees, reflects, and reacts in new ways. collectively-who we are today, and who prison. He called it his "prison epiphany:' None of that was lost on Earl Shorris. we are becoming. Studying the human­ The prison environment, Shorris Taking Niece's observations to ities can be a journey into wonder, into observed, is a "highly evolved miniature" heart, the author developed an inner• the labors and delights of being human, of the surround of force-a place where city experiment to close the gap between and also into disappointments and pain. there are no constants, no reason, no those in poverty and the humanities in the

L "What Are the Humanities?" Humanities, web. 2. Earl Shorris, "IL As a Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor;' Harper'sMagazine 295, no. 1768 (September 1997): 50. 3. Earl Shorris, Richesfor the Poor:The Clemente Coursefor the Humanities (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2000), 54-55. 4. Ibid, 96-100.

44 I WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM same way that Ivy League college courses functioned. This experimental class first met in lower Manhattan at the Roberto Clemente Family Guidance Center, and Shorris named it the Clemente Humanities Program. It was primarily populated by young people, age 18 or older, whose incomes fell near or below the federal poverty line and who could read a tabloid newspaper. The Clemente program offered the rigor of multiple disciplines by a qualified faculty in liter­ ature, art history, philosophy, American history, critical thinking, and writing, with no cost to low-income, urban

participants. The course provided funds ABOVE Chickasaw Clemente Class and Pan-American Indian Humanities Center for the students' childcare, transportation Organizers. Front row, left to right Geraldine Greenwood, Lona Barrick, Jay Goombi, Earl Shorris, Leerene Frazier. Howard Meredith in doorway with glasses, ca. 2001. on the bus or subway, and even meals. Shorris was convinced that a course in the culture and the restoration of their Mayan Maya. has given me a new life:' Ruby humanities centered in Western classical It language. Among the young people, use thought would help anchor people in a Esmeralda Chay Chuk also spoke about oflanguage had deteriorated and very few sense of self and reflect on the world and her experience: "We had something very could read or write it, so Shorris focused their role in it. And so it did. beautiful, and that is our history. To speak on a revised Clemente Indigenous course In the years that followed, the Maya is to feel strong. Now we know we success of the course would confirm to develop reading, writing, and spoken are Mayas, but when we were born, we K'iche his belief that "people who know the Mayan. Their humanities curric­ did not know it:'' ulum focused on Maya culture, grounded humanities become good citizens, become In 1999, Shorris traveled to Bethel, active, not acted upon;'' and by 1998, the in the milpa-the small communal farm , the center of 56 Yupiit Alaska Clemente courses grew exponentially governed by complex, reciprocal relation­ Native villages, to talk with Alaska from New York's Lower East Side to ships between community members and Humanities Forum leaders and Yupiit 17 sites across North America. Taldng crops-from which many notions of Maya scholars about an Alaska Native human­ notice, Bard College, a liberal arts college culture were formed. ities course. Among the southwest Alaska in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, This new Clemente course was Native people, two people groups bear began providing college certificates to all led by regional United Nations program the names of the Yup'ik languages, Yupiit graduates of the course. director Raul Murguia Rosete, and hosted and Cupiit. Funding was available to such notable faculty as Alejandra Garcia bring Miguel Angel May May from the Quintanilla (Maya), professor of history Yucatan to meet the Yupiit leadership and INDIGENOUSSPACE at the University of the Yucatan, and poet talk about what the Clemente course had Miguel Angel May May (Maya), a Mayero meant to the Maya people. Alaska Native SHORRISTHEN STEPPEDOUTSIDE (Maya speaker). Each traveled a difficult scholars and committed individuals then of the Clemente Western model of the trip to the village to teach the young collaborated to propose a course to the humanities and into the Indigenous students. They were joined by an anthro­ University of Alaska for a year-long, worlds of the Yucatan and Alaska. In the pologist and an ecologist who related multidisciplinary approach focused on small farming village of San Antonio Sih6 science to Maya literature and Maya life. Cupiit tradition, language, history, music, on the western edge of the Yucat:in penin­ The beauty of Maya art also became real dance, art history, and literature. It would sula, Shorris met with leaders to discuss when students were allowed to work on also involve Native elders. the premise of Clemente and how it might pyramids recently discovered nearby. At To gain a grassroots perspective, impact the future of the people in the the close of the first year, the course had some of the collaborators traveled from village. Whereas the courses at that time a zero-attrition rate. village to village to explain the course on taught comparative histories of Western Participant Jose Chim Ku (Maya) local radio stations or in town meetings civilization and classics, something very remarked, "The course has brought me and to gather public feedback. What they different was obviously needed in San knowledge; it has made it possible for me heard was astonishing in depth and intel­ Antonio Sih6. The villagers themselves to come closer to the people that I did lect. These public conver,ations helped identified a need for a deepened under­ not value, like the old ones and children. guide the startup of the new Alaska Native standing of what they called high Maya The school has given me courage as a course, Yaaveskarniyaraq, the Cup'ik/

5. "The Clemente Course in the Humanities;' National Endowment for the Humanities, 2014, web. 6. Shorris, Richesfor the Poor, 232-39.

SUMMER 2019 I 45 Yup'ik Way, in the village of Chevak, the planners felt that Shorris's model to . Shorris wrote about just a few miles inland from the Bering understand Western humanities was c)c meeting Barrick on the night she launched Sea. After only two days of teaching, the "bridge" of interrelationship between the first Chickasaw Clemente class when students did not want to go home. 7 Indigenous cultures and Anglo-American he was traveling across Oklahoma with thought) so classical works and literature Howard Meredith. Barrick invited him to were added for comparative study with attend with Meredith who was scheduled LIKELYSPACE the and Cherokee material. 9 to teach literature. Shorris and Meredith Based on the success of these were also eager to meet Chickasaw fluent IT WAS A NATURAL FIT when Earl courses and another proposal by speaker Geraldine Greenwood and Shorris was invited to a conference in Shorris, USAO became the location for found Greenwood's Chickasaw language Oklahoma in 1999 to extend the idea a Pan-American Indian Humanities fluency and cultural knowledge extremely of similar Clemente programs to tribal Center. Scholars from two Yucatan impQ.rtantin grounding the course. 10 leaders and potential funders in the universities, a Toronto university, and Today, the Chickasaw Clemente state. Oklahoma holds the second­ others from the United States gathered Humanities Studies Courses have grown, largest Native population proportion in in Oklahoma in 2001 to plan the center's and East Central University (ECU) in the United States (12.9 percent), with mission and goals. Mary Ellen Meredith Ada and Southeastern Oklahoma State 39 tribes now federally recognized.' The fondly remembers a second meeting the University (SOSU) in Durant offer three­ conference was hosted by the Oklahoma following year to continue the work at the credit-hour courses each spring and Humanities Council under the direction in Park Hill: fall. The course has also been taught at of Anita R. May and gave Shorris a plat­ "Simon Ortiz (Acoma) read us poetry Murray State College in Tishomingo, form to talk about the Maya program and we stomp danced with Cherokee and at the in and his hopes to reach Native American dancers from the nearby stomp grounds. Norman. Michelle Cooke (Chickasaw) tribes to advance tribal language, philoso­ We traveled to Spiro Mounds, and May instructs two courses at ECU, as does phies) histories, and cultures. Anita May's May and Alejandra Garcia Quintanilla Amy Gantt (Chickasaw), the course determination to introduce Shorris to translated the Maya codices, reading the instructor at SOSU. The Clemente I Howard Meredith ( Cherokee descent, stories aloud to us. David Scott [Cherokee course explores Chickasaw history and 1938-2003), the professor and chair of Nation] was also with us, and he followed culture as compared with other world the American Indian Studies program with the Cherokee oral stories that were cultures and offers basic Chickasaw at the University of Science and Arts of similar. The symbols that we had just seen language instruction. Clemente II exam­ Oklahoma (USAO) in Chickasha, was on the codex seemed to cover everything, ines Chickasaw culture alongside other nothing short of genius. Meredith grabbed and even the layout of the structure Indigenous cultures, with a continuation the idea immediately to incorporate into matched the cultural interpretations we of Chickasaw language. Cooke, a senior USAO's Native American and liberal had just heard from the Maya scholars:' staff writer for the Chickasaw Press, arts educational goals. USAO President The Chickasaw Nation was next coauthored two Chickasaw language John Feaver heartily agreed, and within to launch its Chickasaw Clemente workbooks with the Chickasaw Language a year Meredith had secured funding to humanities courses, with Lona Barrick Committee and has taught the course and launch the Kiowa and Cherokee human­ (Chickasaw) as the facilitator. Meredith language component for four years. ities courses. A Chickasaw course would had invited Barrick, the director for the Like other Clemente instructors, follow later. Chickasaw Nation Purcell Area Office, to Cooke finds that the "seminar style" Kiowa and Cherokee tribal team-teach the course with him through Clemente model of open discussion members helped develop their respec­ USAO, and they agreed that the curric­ of questions from the assignments tive curricula. Jay Goombi (Kiowa) and ulum would offer respect for matrilineal fosters creativity for thought within the Emily Satepauhoodle (Kiowa, 1955-2011) society, the recognition of Chickasaw classroom. Her primary concern at the served as collaborative developers and warrior protocols, perseverance, a strong beginning of each semester is developing a liaisons between USAO and the Kiowa sense of family, and business acumen. circle of trust so that students willbecome Indian Tribes. With the support of Chickasaw Nation comfortable and honest in their responses. instructor Eli Nofire (Cherokee Nation, Governor Bill Anoatubby, Barrick had Some of the toughest topics include forced 1931-2006) and Cherokee National been involved with arts and cultural removal, extermination, and Indian Historical Society president and interim tourism initiatives that opened doors to identity. Each course averages about ten director of the Cherokee Heritage Center, conversation and study of the humanities, students and regularly hosts cultural Mary Ellen Meredith (Cherokee Nation), the environment, and political structures presenters to give students an apprecia­ both assisted Howard Meredith in devel­ past and present. Chickasaw language tion for historical, cultural practices. The oping the Cherokee course. At that time, bearers were also hard at work to revive the classes have been conducted for more

7. Shorris, Richesfor the Poor,240-48. 8. "Demographics: Indian Country Demographics,» National Congress of Americap. Indians, web. 9. Anita R. May, "Commendatory Preface;' in ©Z:i?lJ.hKanohelvhi:The CherokeeHumanities Course,by Eli No fire, Mary Ellen Meredith, and Howard Meredith (Chickasha: University of Science and Arts, 2003), ix-xi. 10. Earl Shorris, TheArt of Freedom:Teaching the Humanities to the Poor (New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2013), 81.

46 I WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM than 15 years under the guidance of the Chickasaw Nation Division of Arts and Humanities and ECU's professor emeritus, historian, and author Thomas Cowger, former Chickasaw Nation Endowed Chair in Native American Studies. The Chickasaw Clemente classes inspired the annual Dynamic Women of the Chickasaw Nation Conference, now a two-day annual event; the Chickasaw Nation Dynamic Woman of the Year Award; and development of the yearly LowakSho'li (Carry the Fire) Humanities Forum, which hosts notable scholars addressing current issues and initiatives affecting Indigenous communities and fostering public dialogue and cooperation across Native and non-Native sectors. The Chickasaw Nation's language program has also borne much fruit since its earliest days through the work of the Chickasaw Language Committee: 50 fluent speakers, dictionaries and workbooks, a Chickasaw language revi­ talization program under director Lokosh (Joshua D. Hinson, Chickasaw), 6,000 users of its Chickasaw Rosetta Stone learning system, and 15,000 individuals using online language resources each year.

ABOVE, TOP Kiowa Clemente Course participants Chelsea White, Dorothy Whitehorse Delaune, RADICAL SPACE Dr. Jim Kennedye, and Dr. Rachel Jackson, Palo Dura Canyon. The Spring 2019 class hiked to the site where the US Army attacked a Kiowa camp on September 28, 1874, during the Red River War.

THE KIOWA CLEMENTE COURSE A.BOVE, BOTTOM Cherokee Humanities Course at the Cherokee Heritage Center, Park Hill, in the Humanities began in Clemente's Oklahoma, At far left: Ryan Mackey, Tonia Weavel, and Wyman Kirk. earliest days in Oklahoma and continues today in Chickasha and Anadarko. The tribal e1ders launched the online video perspectives on their own; the class is course transitioned markedly in 2007 archive, Khoiye Tdoen Gyah, or Kiowa a great example of how that resistance from its original comparative human­ Talk, at kiowatalk.org to close a gap for continues, both metaphorically and ities model to a strictly Kiowa course. a younger generation of eager to practically:' Its instructor, Rachel Jackson (Cherokee learn Kiowa ways, Kiowa language, and Each week the class opens with a Nation), took notice of students signaling the passing down of songs and stories. 11 prayer and shared meal among those a need to focus valuable time on Kiowa , The Kiowa Clemente Course in present: tribal elders, six or so Riverside cultural knowledges, so she intentionally the Humanities has defined its own Indian School students who receive let go of institutional methods to meet the Indigenous space-cultural knowledges, concurrent college credit, and any·where changing demands of the course. While social structure, language, methodology­ from 10 to 30 other Kiowa participants. she curates the language and cultural not just in rewriting former practices and Following Kiowa cultural protocols, the lessons with academic texts, the students standards or utilizing technology, but in headman and elder Joseph Titus "). r:' today study only Kiowa history, culture, embracing more and more of what it Goombi (Kiowa) begins the class and other humanities components, and means to be Kiowa. Jackson posits, ''This shares a story that captures the purpose language. The course is centered around approach makes it a very radical space and value of the course. He then sits in the Kiowa elders and cultural knowledges, stemming from the historical resistance back of the room. Dorothy Whitehorse which are captured on a digital platform that Kiowa people have practiced in the DeLaune (Kiowa) leads language instruc­ to preserve the passing on of Kiowa life­ midst of settler colonial policy. They tion and provides Kiowa perceptions of ways, oral history, and language fluency. have always resisted, as they should, to tribal culture, a role that first began when Jackson and a project team that includes the imposition of Western values and the course started with Alecia Keahbone

11. Khoiye Tdoen Gyah,Kiowa Talk,web.

SUMMER 2019 I 47 serves as Cherokee language curriculum supervisor, believes that Indigenous languages are the primary vehicle and home for culture. "To understand our language is to know our culture. Our deep philosophical values are encoded in the language. It is not a cultural expression; it is the agency of the culture;' Mackey explains to me. The course plays a vital role to introduce language, motivate people to learn, and push "toward language acquisition. "We give people a taste of the language, and they fall in love with it," he says. The Pan-American Indian ABOVE A social during the Meredith Indigenous Humanities C_enter Humanities Center was renamed the conference, Caddo Tribal Complex, Binger, Oklahoma, 2008. Photo: A. Meredith. Meredith Indigenous Humanities Center to honor the late Howard L. Meredith. Gonzales (Kiowa/Kiowa Apache, 1926- humanities removes barriers to confi­ It still supports Native scholarship and 2011), an author, storyteller, and teacher dence, develops critical thinking, and encourages the teaching of Indigenous at USAO. The students ask questions, but broadens interaction with the world, humanities and languages for these over time their questions change as they the requirements to enroll in the course and other tribes, such as the N ahua, uncover nuances in the language, Kiowa include only an ability to read and write. Musqueam, and Ojibwe. Clemente epistemology, and meanings within tribal According to course coordinator and courses have also expanded into prisons stories. "It is like witnessing a kind of Cherokee Heritage Center education and are changing lives for US veterans director Tonia Weave!(Cherokee Nation), enlightenment when students learn the through the Clemente Veterans' Initiative. the course's impact is evident in the cases old stories, returning to a center that An estimated 1,300 students enroll each was lost or obliterated by assimilation;' of at least ten or more Clemente students year in 62 various Clemente courses Jackson tells me. who completed their high school educa­ worldwide in the United States, Canada, The class revolves around the elders tion after taking the course. Mexico, Dominican Republic, Argentina, who keep the course stable. All learn cere­ Inspired by the Cherokee course, Australia, and Korea. 13 The Clemente monial songs in Kiowa and also Kiowa a group of friends created the nonprofit course was awarded the National Medal Christian hymns as they are enriched by Cherokee Arts and Humanities Council for the Humanities in 2000 by President a sense of self as being spiritually Kiowa. and published anthologies of Cherokee Bill Clinton and has been covered by the The sense of community is also evident writing. One student attributes what she New York Times, WashingtonPost, Boston as participants return year after year. "I learned in Clemente with the courage to Globe,Los AngelesTimes, USA Today, and follow their lead to learn how the course graduate with her four-year university CNN, among others. should go. My responsibility has been to degree and become a Cherokee language I became a lover of humanities get out of the way and support them in the instructor in the Cherokee Immersion because I became a lover of Clemente. way they see fit to do things and facilitate Charter School. I facilitated the Chickasaw Clemente that as best we can;' Jackson concludes. Meredith believed that the heart courses for five years at ECU in Ada as Howard Meredith and others also of the Cherokee Clemente course was part of my work with the Chickasaw set a firm foundation for cultural contin­ in the recovery and revealing of "the Nation and then became the course uance for the in the Cherokee rich veins of myth and memory;' the instructor for three years at ECU. I've Humanities Course in Tahlequah and ancient elements beneath the surface gazed into many tribal 1:aces around Park Hill. Sponsored by the Cherokee of the dark soil of Cherokee civilization horseshoe-configured tables and watched Heritage Center, grants, and generous and Cherokee state of mind." Today's lives change. Like Shorris and Meredith donors who fund tuition, student travel Cherokee Clemente course instructors and Niece, I am convinced the humanities expenses, and weekly refreshments, the Wyman Kirk (Cherokee Nation) and Ryan offer enlightenment, an epiphany into the classes are offered each spring and fall for Mackey (Cherokee Nation/Muscogee/ joy and love of cultures, preservation of three credit hours through Northeastern Delaware/Natchez) still carry Merediths Indigenous lifeways, and languages-a State University (NSU) in Tahlequah. original intent and bring that heart and revitalization of people. It is a bridge, a Following the principle that learning the soul into the classroom. Mackey, who connector to new pathways oflife.

12. Eli No:fire, MaryEllen Meredith, and Howard Meredith, 0Z£llli Kanohelvhi:1he CherokeeHumanities Course(Chickasha: University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, 2003), 25. 13. Cherokee Heritage Center, "Humanities Course;' web.

48 I WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM