Drawn to SIMPLICITY
Hopi master carver creates ‘old-style’ katsina dolls using natural materials and methods
Master carver Darance Chimerica is maintaining Hopi traditions not just through his art, but also through his artistic process.
The 39-year-old artist was born, raised and still lives in Hotevilla, a village on the Hopi third mesa in Arizona. When he got into the market of creating katsina dolls as a teenager, the contemporary styles and techniques utilizing electric tools and modern paints to create them had already been popular for several decades.
But throughout his 20-year career, he’s made what he calls “old-style” katsinas, like the simple pieces Hopi people were making centuries ago. Back then, Hopis made their dolls with paints made from minerals and vegetables, with yucca plants supplying material for paintbrushes and sandpaper. Hand-made files were used for woodcarving.
Chimerica was drawn to the style, he says, mostly because of its simplicity. All the materials he needed could be found in his surrounding environment.
Instead of investing in dremels, bandsaws and acrylic paints, Chimerica has carved his handpicked cottonwood root from the banks of the Colorado River using old files, saws and knives. He makes his pigments from natural minerals he finds near his home on the third mesa, and he decorates his work with found duck and pheasant feathers.
“It doesn’t take too much,” he said of how he got started with this style. “You just got to know where to find your material.”
A solo show of Chimerica’s traditionalstyle katsina dolls will be on display at the Lyn A. Fox Fine Pueblo Pottery gallery starting tonight.
Katsina dolls, sometimes referred to as kachina dolls, are traditional Hopi figures originally created throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries to teach young Hopi girls about the katsina spirits. Chimerica described the spirits — who are also honored by the Hopi people in ceremonies that include dances — as messengers who speak to the gods for them. These messages often include prayers for rain and good fortune. The katsinas can take various forms and have various meanings, from animals, like bears that represent strength for the Hopi people, to thunder and lightning, which represents rain for the farmers.
“But they all have one thing in common,” he said of the katsinas. “That they all represent life. For everybody. Not just for Hopi. For everybody, no matter what color, race or cultural background.”
Chimerica began carving in 1997. He was around 18 and had just began noticing the dollmaking of his two nowdeceased grandfathers. Irving Charlie and Paul Chimerica were both carvers, but their dolls were never sold and were used only for ceremonies.
In the early days, he just gave his creations to family and friends. It wasn’t until he sold his first doll in 2000 to a Flagstaff gallery — a Warrior Twin katsina for $50 — that the passion started evolving into a career.
Since then, he has established a small number of mainstay galleries, including Fox’s in Santa Fe, while also traveling internationally for Native art shows. He has also been showing at the Santa Fe Indian Market since 2008.
Lyn Fox, who has been showing Chimerica work since 2003, described the carver as “one of the best” in his craft, as he commended the work that goes into contemporarystyle, fine-art dolls and the artists who create them. He said one of the big differences is the price — the modern ones can run up to a couple of thousand dollars each — and the smaller details on the dolls, like defined abdominal muscles
What draws people into Chimerica’s work is the variety of emotions his
dolls convey, said Fox, from the katsinas with serious meaning to ones with humor, like the doll depicting “Kwikilyaka,” or Mocking Katsina, known for poking fun at other dancers and crowd members at Hopi ceremonies.
“He depicts this whole universe of all of these incredible characters,” said Fox. “You can just tell the reverence and love he has.”
Of all of the dolls he creates, Chimerica says his favorite — and the one that often sells the best on the road — is the badger katsina. He says that spirit represents healing and strength, a message he says easily resonates with buyers.
And over the past couple of years, he says he’s noticed the traditional style is making a comeback, even among artists who have made contemporary dolls throughout their career. At various native art shows where he’s sold his dolls, he’s noted that buyers will comment on how they enjoy the authenticity of the traditional style.
“They describe that when they buy the katsina doll, it more or less captures the spirituality of the katsina,” said Chimerica. “They like the minerals and everything used in it, and it gives it that unique feeling.”
But he still doesn’t see too many people his age or younger creating traditional katsinas as a full-time job. He says some lose interest or become discouraged by the strong competition in the market, or they simply find other careers. He considers himself one of the “lucky” ones who has established connections over the years to get into art shows.
Chimerica says he plans to pass the tradition down to his son if there’s an interest. Chimerica is father to five-year-old son Potima and three-year-old Siinmana.
As for his career, he said it’s important to him to continue showing the Hopi culture to the world as a way to “lay your footprints down and leave your footprints down” so tribal traditions will be remembered long from now.
“Everything has an end and eventually Hopi, the culture, will come to an end,” he explained. “With the carvings, that’s how they can reflect back on how Hopi used to be or what katsinas used to be, if it does happen where the culture dies. Just like you see all of these potteries scattered across the Southwest. Ancestors, Hopis and the pueblo people, put them there for a reason. They were marking their territory, saying ‘We were here.’”