As seen in the April 2010 issue of WESTERN ART INSIGHTS Personal Journeys Kay WalkingStick’s paintings reveal an exploration of land, history and spirit.

By Christy A. Vezolles, AM

he evocative landscapes To view a landscape by WalkingStick is to have exhorting her—“Make something of yourself, of Kay WalkingStick reveal an immediate realization of her love for the Kay!” Taking the words to heart, she attended a connection with the land that mountains and connectedness with the land. college, earning a degree in fine arts in 1959. Textends far beyond the ancestral homelands “I like mountains for their rugged, bare, raw She married journalist Michael Echols and of her Cherokee father. Although earth quality,” she attests. painted and taught part time at a local college she grew up in Syracuse, New York, without Best known for her powerful diptychs, while raising their two children. her father, her non-Indian mother taught her to the artist portrays jagged landscapes, often WalkingStick made a series of Hudson value and take pride in her Indian heritage. She juxtaposed with more personal imagery of River paintings in the 1960s. She explored learned a love of the land that transcends any dancing figures or distinctive American Indian figures in landscape throughout that specific place—emanating from her birthplace imagery drawn from parfleche patterns or decade and in the early 1970s using in the East and extending to the mountains of woven cornhusk bag designs. hard-edged shapes. the West. WalkingStick recalls her mother continually When the children were pre-teens,

We’re Still Here, mixed media on paper, 25 x 50" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

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Christy Vezolles.indd 56 3/2/10 3:39:05 PM Remembering the Bitterroots, oil on wood panel, diptych, 36 x 72" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

she attended ’s on and other tribes, she began searching other a fellowship. In 1974 and ’75, while in graduate means of expression, colors and forms that school, she began her paintings relating to her satisfied her sensibilities as a contemporary Indian heritage, including her abstract Chief artist and at the same time addressed the need Joseph series. She earned her MFA in 1975. to communicate her understanding of her own By then both parents had passed away. Other duality as a biracial woman. Concerned with profound changes affected her as well. allowing the energy within her to literally “The second wave of the feminist movement flow into her artwork, she loved the sensuous was in high gear,” she says. “The American tactile experience of moving paint about with Indian Movement was making headlines and her hands. Conceptualism and Minimalism were the Influenced by Jasper Johns’ encaustic interesting art movements.” paintings—a process that incorporates paint, These changes left an indelible mark on her wax and heat—WalkingStick experimented and her personal expression. with a similar process using cold (saponified) By her proximity to , it was wax mixed with acrylic, in about 1976. inevitable that WalkingStick began exploring Faced with the need to produce an artwork innovative media and techniques, along with for a thematic exhibit in the mid-1980s, uniquely biographical ideas and concepts. she developed her trademark diptych format. Then, as now, her paintings reflected a deep, The format—incorporating two individual quiet pride in her ancestry and her inborn paintings as a single artwork—lends itself abiding passion for the land. well to WalkingStick’s incessant exploration Kay WalkingStick in her studio. Seeking to better understand and express her of various dualities, particularly addressing IMAGE COURTESY ARCADIA UNIVERSITY, GLENSIDE, PA / PHOTO own heritage and the history of the Cherokee themes of the body and spirit, life and BY MATTHEW A. WOLF

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Our Land, oil on wood panel, diptych, 32 x 64" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

death, history and present, and realism York gallery that represented the painter. intent was to include her in the full edition of and abstraction. Working on the fifth edition of his father’s the book. They began corresponding, leading WalkingStick secured a teaching position at text, he was struck by her work and sought to a lasting friendship. in 1988. This professional to include it in the revision. The gallery sent To fully realize the significance of Kay milestone was soon overshadowed by the off the requested materials but did not inform WalkingStick’s work being included, one must devastating passing of her husband of 29 years WalkingStick. She learned of Janson’s interest first understand the longstanding importance in 1989. In her personal journey through her only upon reading a letter from the publisher in of Janson’s The History of Art. The canonical grief, the artist channeled her anguish into her the gallery’s records, when she changed text has been the cornerstone of the study painting, creating a powerful body of work gallery representation. of art history since it was first published in that employed the diptych format utilizing Because the elder Janson’s earlier editions 1962. Joining the ranks of other women artists heavy wax impasto on one side and oil paint were notorious for excluding women and such as Mary Cassatt and Louise Nevelson, on the other. minority artists, the bewildered WalkingStick WalkingStick is one of only a few women, A few years later, Anthony Janson, son contacted the publisher to question whether and the first American Indian artist—male or of the renowned H. W. Janson, author of the author was writing a supplementary text. female—to be included. The History of Art, happened to visit a New Anthony Janson himself assured her that his From 1996 to 2003, Cornell University’s

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Christy Vezolles.indd 58 3/2/10 3:39:14 PM Arroyo, oil on wood panel, diptych, 16 x 32" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

Gioiso III, New Mexico, oil and gold leaf on wood panel, diptych, 32 x 64" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

Roman Program granted WalkingStick the paintings found its way into her diptychs, Kelly says. “She has received significant, opportunity to spend extended periods in as seen in the sumptuous Gioiso III, New positive reviews from art critics and major Italy on three occasions. She immersed herself Mexico, wherein two gilded figures dance publications and has been included in many in teaching, visiting museums and sketching exuberantly, in contrast to the staid and stolid important museum exhibitions throughout the the classic sculptures, as well as the mountain formation with which they are United States.” Italian Alps. paired. The second painting from this series Indeed, an impressive and diverse cross The artist reveals that around that time, is found in the collection of Indianapolis’ section of prominent museums from coast “I realized that the landscapes depicted in Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and to coast have WalkingStick’s work in their my paintings had become a stand-in for my Western Art. permanent collections, including the body. Although all painting is a portrait of the The artist’s significance was summed Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, artist to some extent, once I had come to this up by June Kelly, when contacted at the the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the understanding of body I felt justified to include New York gallery that bears her name. “Kay American Indian in Washington, D.C., the figures in my work.” WalkingStick is a major American artist Eiteljorg in Indianapolis, the Gilcrease Museum The opulent dramatic effect of gold leaf whose work expresses the universal values in Tulsa, the , the Heard she saw used in the Italian Renaissance and images of our common experience,” Museum in Phoenix, and the Museum of

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Hear the Voices, oil on wood panel, diptych, 12 x 48" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN

Farewell to the Smokies, oil on wood panel, diptych, 36 x 72" IMAGE COURTESY JUNE KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY / PHOTO BY BECKET LOGAN, PART OF THE DENVER ART MUSEUM COLLECTION

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Christy Vezolles.indd 60 3/2/10 3:39:22 PM Contemporary Art in San Diego. emphasizes the protracted journey of the Nez reveal an exploratory journey of the lands, Museum curators know that the Cherokee Perce. The painting represents the Bear Paw the history and the people of this nation, artist’s works, though visually stunning, Battlefield and the site where as well as a personal journey into self are much more than just pretty pictures. surrendered, delivering his eminently eloquent and spirit. WalkingStick’s landscapes are often portrayals “I will fight no more forever” speech. of historically significant places and events. In contrast, WalkingStick joyously In the haunting Farewell to the Smokies, celebrates the continuing viability and Christy Vezolles, founder recently acquired by the Denver Art Museum, endurance of American Indian culture in We're of Art Value LLC, is an tiny figures trudge across the bottom edge Still Here, a colorful painting that combines accredited member of of the painting. WalkingStick recounts the the legs of silhouetted dancing figures and the American Society of tragic Trail of Tears, wherein the Cherokee a primary-colored parfleche design. Richly Appraisers. She specializes people were forced to leave their homelands colored Arroyo displays a daytime view of in American and European and relocated to Indian Territory, now known a mountainous desert environment, divided fi ne art and is a recognized as Oklahoma. diagonally by an arroyo—a dry creek bed expert in American Indian Chief Joseph of the tribe, that fills with water after a spring rain. It is art. She serves on the greatly admired by the artist’s father, figures juxtaposed against a stylized twilight view board of the Western Art Associates at the prominently in her paintings. Our Land and of the same subject, which incorporates Phoenix Art Museum. Christy has traveled Remembering the Bitterroots depict the abstracted cornhusk motifs. Both components nationally and internationally to appraise client unsuccessful 1,100-mile journey on which the of the diptych are life-affirming and ripe collections. She is a member of ArtTable, a chief led 800 of his people in their quest for with possibility. national organization for professional women a homeland in Canada. The tribe was stopped Whether appreciated solely for the in the arts. Christy has served many times as just 40 miles short of the border, where majestic beauty conveyed in the expansive a judge at the Heard Museum Indian Fair and they fought valiantly for five days before mountainous landscapes, or for the deeper, Market in Phoenix and at the SWAIA Indian conceding defeat. more meaningful expressions of historic Market in Santa Fe. The elongated format of Hear the Voices importance, the paintings of Kay WalkingStick

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