SWAIA ANNOUNCES TWO MERCHANDISE FELLOWS
SWAIA MERCHANDISE FELLOWS Jason Parrish (Diné) and Tokeya Waci U Richardson (Oglala Lakota)
Graphic designer and painter are 2019 SWAIA Merchandise Fellows
Native art history influenced the designs of the 2019 SWAIA Merchandise Fellows, Jason Parrish (Diné) and first-time Indian Market exhibitor Tokeya Waci U Richardson (Oglala Lakota). This will be Parrish’s fourth time showing at Indian Market. His piece The Antelope Hunt, painted in flat style, will be the 2019 Santa Fe Indian Market poster. “When I went to the Navajo Nation Museum [Window Rock, Arizona] in the summer of 2005, in between my sophomore and junior year in college, I discovered the style through an exhibit on loan from Gilcrease Museum [in Tulsa],” Parrish said. “Most of the artists were Navajo artists who attended the [Santa Fe] boarding school between the 1930s and the 1950s. It was amazing to just walk up to a painting and imagine what they were thinking when they were putting these lines, maybe less than a millimeter apart, just side by side by side. The color application was so perfect. It was so surreal, so magnificent. I said, I want to try painting like this.” Parrish is honored to be chosen as a SWAIA Merchandise Fellow. “I opened the email, and my chest began to pound. I had to breathe a little just to calm down,” he said. “I remembered my late grandmother saying: ‘This path that you’re on. Don’t think that you did it alone. There were thousands of people before you who made their way for you through their sweat, tears, prayers, songs to ensure that you would go through this life and get the most, so you try as hard as you can and get the most out of this life. In that way, you’re not honoring only yourself but the ones who came before you.’ ” Richardson’s ledger art piece Strength reflects the 2019 SWAIA Indian Market theme: “Rise and Remember: Honoring the Resilience of Native Women,” as well as his own history. “While my mom was pregnant with me, she was still out there dancing. And while she was dancing, I was inside her belly moving around to the music, and I would stop whenever the drum would stop,” Richardson said. “I was the first son, so they gave me the name Tokeya Waci U. That means ‘Comes Dancing First.’” Strength is inspired by his family’s dance legacy. “Growing up in the powwow circuit, I didn’t have very many blood-related aunties, and I didn’t have my bloodrelated grandmother,” Richardson said. “I had just my mom and my two sisters, and I watched how each one of them shared the same beaded top that my mom had made for herself when she was young. That got passed down to my older sister, then my younger sister. That dress bounced between whoever felt like dancing that weekend. A lot of teachings went along with that dress ... how you take care of it and how you
compose yourself as being a holder of this dress, because whatever vibes you put into it, someone else is going to pick up the dress and feel those vibes too. So always remember where you come from and that you’re a strong, independent woman.” Richardson said he hopes the piece brings more awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women. “Growing up, I would see the Northern Traditional ladies off to the side, dancing while the rest of the dancers came in. When we would pass them, I would pick up a lot of energy,” he said. “Having all of those lines of women there, keeping an eye out for the men, gives me energy and power and good self-esteem. I hope I can plant that seed in everyone’s mind that this is how real warriors are supposed to think, to stop the violence and harassment toward women.” The designs of the Merchandise Fellows can be found on posters, mugs, bags, T-shirts and other items produced for the 2019 SWAIA Indian Market.