IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY
The Indian Arts Research Center celebrates 40 years with a new lecture series.
The Indian Arts Research Center celebrates 40 years with a new lecture series.
SANTA FE, NM
In about 1983, Brian Vallo visited the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the first time. “I was overwhelmed,” he recalls. His accompanied his grandmother and his aunt as well as several potters from Acoma Pueblo.
Today IARC is celebrating its 40th anniversary with Vallo as its director. On his first visit he wondered, “How can all these objects be here in one place?”
The core of IARC’S collection is the 4,280 pieces collected by members of the Indian Arts Fund, a group that had begun in 1922 as the Pueblo Pottery Fund. The collection now comprises about 12,000 pieces of pottery, textiles, paintings, jewelry and baskets from the sixth century to the present day.
When the collection was first being assembled, it was thought that tribal communities were dying out and the process of “salvage collecting,” as Vallo puts it, began.
As a research center, IARC has established a set of guidelines for collaborations with tribal communities to learn more about the pieces in the collections and to repatriate objects when they are “significant to the living culture of a community.”
The objects in the IARC collection are cared for with the highest museum standards to preserve them for future generations. In one photo from the center, Vallo conducts a review with Acoma potters Pearl Valdo and Dolores Lewis Garcia, all of whom wear protective gloves. Garcia is the daughter of famed Acoma potter Lucy Lewis who was with Vallo and his grandmother on his first visit to the collection.
The IARC collection is complemented by the 9,000-volume collection of books in the Catherine Mcelvain Library at SAR as well as an archival collection of papers relating to early 20th century New Mexico. SAR’S programs with artists, scholars and writers in
residence as well as internships and seminars.
The annual IARC speaker series “features topics about the history and evolution of Native American art and the associated issues facing contemporary indigenous people. From advocacy and policy to preservation of language and traditional knowledge systems, the signature series offers scholars, artists, SAR members, and the local community an opportunity to learn and engage with notable experts.” The 2018 series is Trailblazers and Boundary Breakers: Honoring Women in Native Art.
The series begins March 28 with “Native Women in the Arts: History, Family, Community, and the World,” with speaker Dr. Tessie Naranjo. Naranjo is the sister of Nora Naranjo Morse who will give a keynote presentation at the anniversary celebration to be held at the Poeh Cultural Center in Pojoaque, June 22. Naranjo Morse will be presented with a lifetime achievement award for her accomplishments in the arts and her support of the IARC.
On April 4 there will be a panel discussion, “Recovering a Women’s Art History: Edmonia Lewis, Angel De Cora, and Tonita Peña.” The panel will be moderated by America Meredith, artist and founder, First American Art Magazine. Panelists include Dr. Kirsten Pai Buick, professor of art history, University of New Mexico; Dr. Sascha Scott, associate professor of art history, Syracuse University; and Yvonne N. Tiger, independent scholar.
(Peña and her son Joe Herrera are featured in the exhibition Generations in Modern Pueblo Painting: The Art of Tonita Peña and Joe Herrera, an exhibition at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma-norman, through April 8.)
Artists Lillian Pitt and Linda Lomahaftewa will sit on panel moderated by Dr. Deana Dartt, “Fierce Hearts: The Fight for Recognition,” on April 11. On April 18 there will be a panel discussion, “Of Hopes and Dreams: New Paths, New Generations,” moderated by Jaclyn Roessel, founder, Grownup Navajo, with panelists Jordan Craig, artist; Dr. Jessica Metcalfe, owner, Beyond Buckskin; and Eliza Naranjo Morse, artist.
The gala celebration on June 22 “recognizes the creativity of Native American artist fellows, their accomplishments, and the last forty years of innovative programming.”