Judging the Competition
A guide to the 2019 award judges
When invited to serve as a judge for the Best of Show Competition, people almost always respond with an enthusiastic “yes!” They are happy to participate, while receiving only a small honorarium, in order to judge the variety of fine Native art from some of the most talented artists today. With advisement from Heard Museum director David Roche and curatorial staff, the Guild’s Juried Competition committee selects the judges from a variety of fields including American Indian artists, museum curators, gallery directors, educators and collectors. The goal is to place one Native artist and one returning judge on each team of the nine judging teams. While many judges are delighted to reunite with friends and colleagues during this exciting evening, all are keenly aware of the responsibility to deliberate carefully when selecting pieces to receive ribbons, often accompanied by substantial cash awards. They know that winning a coveted Heard Museum Guild award is a great boost to each artist’s reputation and career.
“I am thrilled to be judging in the category of Paintings, Drawings, Graphics and Photography at the prestigious Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. It’s always humbling to see the incredible depth and breadth of creative output by today’s Native painters, illustrators, printmakers and photographers, and I look forward to seeing what they’ll be serving up in 2019.” —Karen Kramer
Classification I Jewelry and Lapidary Work
Connie Gaussoin (Picuris Pueblo and Diné) Gaussoin, a jewelry artist and educator, has won numerous major awards for her jewelry, including the 2008 Living Treasure Award from the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. As an educator, she has taught jewelry to adult students at the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council, the Pojoaque, New Mexico, POEH Cultural Center, and to children at the Wheelwright Museum. Her works are in collections at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the School of American Research, the Millicent Rogers Museum and the San Diego Museum of Man.
Ken Williams (Northern Arapaho/seneca) Williams is an accomplished beadwork artist and manager of Case Trading Post at the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe. In 2018 he curated the exhibition, Peshlakai Vision: The Creations of Norbert Peshlakai. In 2014 he won the Best of Show award at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market for his beaded bag tribute to Hopi artist Charles Loloma titled, He Was Iconic.
Deborah Slaney Curator of history at the Albuquerque Museum, Slaney’s recent exhibitions include The Leekya Family: Master Carvers of Zuni Pueblo and The Eason Eige Collection: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelry, 1870-Present.
Classification II Pottery
Dwight Lanmon Co-author of several books on pueblo pottery, including The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo (MNM Press, 2008) and The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo (MNM Press, 2013), Lanmon was director of the Winterthur Museum and director of the Corning Museum of Glass, where he also served as curator of European glass. He served as a presenter at the Heard Museum “Prepare for the Fair” in 2016.
Janis Lyon Janis Lyon is a Heard Trustee and guest curator. Over the past 45 years, Janis and her husband, Dennis—a Life Trustee of the museum—established a significant collection of pottery and jewelry that includes important works by Maria Martinez
and Charles Loloma as well as historical and contemporary pieces representing the Acoma, Alco Zia, Cochiti, Puname and San Ildefonso pueblos and more. In 2017, she served as guest curator with friend and Heard Life Trustee Carol Ann Mackay for Beauty Speaks for Us.
Christine Nofchissey Mchorse (Diné) Potter and sculptor Christine Nofchissey Mchorse has received numerous awards at the SWAIA Indian Market, Santa Fe, the Inter-tribal Indian Ceremonial, Gallup, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. Her work, based on traditional Navajo designs and legends, is included in the collections at the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, the Denver Museum of Natural History and the Navajo Nation Museum.
Classification III Paintings, Drawings, Graphics and Photography
Betsy Fahlman, PHD Professor of art history, Arizona State University, and adjunct curator of American art, Phoenix Art Museum, Dr. Fahlman has written more than 30 books, catalogs, articles and essays including the New Deal Art in Arizona (2009) and The Cowboy’s Dream: The Mythic Life and Art of Lon Megargee (2002).
Jacob Meders (Mechoopda/maidu) Meders is a master printmaker at Warbird Press in Phoenix and assistant professor in interdisciplinary arts and performance at Arizona State University. Meder’s work focuses on altered perceptions of place, culture and identity built on the assimilation and homogenization of Indigenous peoples.
Karen Kramer Curator at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, Kramer has curated numerous exhibitions on Native American art and culture. Most recently she curated T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America, which will travel to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York City from March 16 to September 16. Kramer also directs PEM’S innovative Native American Fellowship program.
Classifications IV and V Pueblo Carvings (IV) and Sculpture (V)
Kent Mcmanis Co-director of the Zuni Fetish Museum, Mcmanis has authored five books on Native American art and curated two exhibits on Zuni fetishes for the Wheelwright Museum. He is also the co-owner of Grey Dog Trading in Old Town Albuquerque and has been in the Native American arts and crafts business for 45 years.
Arthur Pelberg, MD, MPA Arthur Pelberg is a chief advisor for Bayless Integrated Healthcare and a Life Trustee at the Heard Museum, as well as an avid collector of art. He earned his medical degree at Temple University in Philadelphia. Greyshoes (Upton Ethelbah Jr.) (Santa Clara Pueblo/white Mountain Apache) Stone and bronze sculptor Upton Ethelbah Jr., was named a Living Treasure by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe in 2009. Sculpture is his second career, which he started after his retirement from working in education and social programs for Native Americans and other minorities. He also has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Southwest Association for Indian Arts from 2002 to 2003 and was a Featured Artist in the Heard Museum shop during the 2018 Indian Fair & Market.
Classification VI Weavings and Textiles
Ann Lane Hedlund Ann Lane Hedlund served as curator of ethnology and professor of anthropology at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, from 1997 to 2013. She is the author of many publications and has curated numerous exhibitions of Native American art. Her book, Navajo Weaving in the Late Twentieth Century: Kin, Community, and Collectors (2004) received the Arizona Highways/ Arizona Library Association Award for Non-fiction. A frequent consultant at the Heard, she presented at the Heard’s 2017 “Prepare for the Fair” lecture series.
Melissa Cody (Navajo) An award-winning textile artist and lecturer, Cody is a specialist in the Germantown Revival style of Navajo weaving who acquired her knowledge and technical skill from a long line of family members who are prominent Navajo weavers. A graduate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, she is a Native Arts and Culture Foundations’ Artist Fellow and a recipient of the Heard Museum Guild’s Conrad House Award.
Jennifer Mclerran Associate professor of art history at Northern Arizona University, Mclerran also served as a curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona for two years. Her many publications include A New Deal for Native Art: Indian Arts and Federal Policy, 1933-1943 (2009) and Tselani/terrain: Tapestries of D. Y. Begay (2018), as well as an article titled, “Navajo Weavings in John Ford Westerns: The Visual Rhetoric of Presenting Savagery and Civilization.”
Classification VII Diverse Arts including Beadwork & Quillwork
Twig Johnson Twig Johnson served as senior curator of Native American Art at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey for more than 20 years. She also taught Native American art history and museum curation methods at Montclair State University and served on the New Jersey Council on the Humanities Horizon Speakers Bureau.
Gaylord Torrence Gaylord Torrence’s merits include the Fred and Virginia Merrill Senior Curator of American Indian Art at Nelsonatkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and professor emeritus at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. His major exhibitions/publications include The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky, The American Indian Parfleche and Art of the Red Earth People: The Mesquakie of Iowa. He was guest curator for Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“All of my life, I have admired and been surrounded by Native American art, some of my earliest memories are watching and assisting my Hidatsa grandmother as she tanned deer hides and collected porcupine quills. Today I am honored and enthusiastic to serve as a judge for the 2019 Heard Museum Best of Show.” —Doreen Duncan (Mandan/hidatsa/arikara)
“The greatest part of judging is having the honor to work alongside so many accomplished Native artists and scholars. Serving as a judge is also a great way to keep abreast of current trends in Indian art.” —Deborah Slaney
William Wiggins, PHD Director and curator of the J.W. Wiggins Contemporary Native American Art Collection on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and collector of Native American Art for over 44 years, Wiggins has donated about 3,000 pieces to UA Little Rock. The collection focuses primarily on artists from the central region of America from northern Mexico to the Arctic Coast, and Wiggins knows most of the artists personally— unusual in a collection this size.
Classification VIII Baskets
Terry Dewald Owner of Dewald American Indian Art in Tucson, Arizona, Dewald specializes in historic Southwest, Great Basin and California basketry, as well as contemporary Tohono O’odham and Apache basketry. He presented at the Heard’s 2016 “Prepare for the Fair” lecture series.
Jeremy Frey (Passamaquoddy) Frey specializes in ash fancy baskets, a traditional form of Wabanaki weaving. He has won numerous awards including the Best of Show award at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2011 and the Best of Show award at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market in 2011 and 2015. His work was featured in the Changing Hands exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. He has pieces in the Smithsonian as well as many other prominent museums around the country.
Diane Dittemore Associate curator, ethnological collections at Arizona State Museum, Dittemore has published numerous articles on the museum’s collections in scholarly journals and popular Indian art magazines over the years, including the Journal of Arizona History. She was the lead curator of the exhibit, Woven Through Time: American Treasures of Native Basketry and Fiber Art.
Classification IX Personal Attire
Susan Kennedy-zeller, PHD Former curator of Native American art, Brooklyn Museum, 1998-2016, Kennedy-zeller has curated many exhibits including, Tipi of the Great Plains, and co-wrote the accompanying catalog. She taught at Columbia University, Long Island University and the New School for Social Research.
Doreen Duncan (Mandan/hidatsa/arikara) Doreen Duncan is a beadwork artist and educator. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Arizona State University, she manages Yellow Bird Production, a Native family based performing arts group. She has worked in educational programs at the Heard and as the director of the Huhugam Ki Museum for the Salt River Pimamaricopa Indian Community.
A.J. Dickey A Life Trustee at the Heard, Dickey has collected American Indian art, jewelry, rugs and objects for many decades. She has a keen interest in fashion design and has welcomed the participation of Native designers into the world of major fashion design.
Classification X Open Standards
Jennifer Complo Mcnutt Curator of contemporary art at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and founding curator of the Eiteljorg Museum’s Fellowship program, Mcnutt has curated numerous Native American art exhibitions in her 29-year tenure at the Eiteljorg. Through her work with the Fellowship program, she has helped build the contemporary Native American art collection at the Eiteljorg into one of the leading collections in the museum world.
Christy Vezolles (Shawnee) Heard Museum Trustee, art enthusiast, appraiser, collector, writer and creator, Vezolles taught studio arts and graphic design at Sinclair Community College and the University of Dayton. She currently serves on national advisory boards of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and the Gilcrease Museum. Joe Baker (Delaware) An artist, curator and educator, Baker currently is the Ceo/executive director at Palos Verdes Art Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, and co-founder and executive director of the Lenape Center in New York. At the Heard Museum, Baker served for five years as the Lloyd Kiva New Curator of Fine Arts. He is the winner of numerous national awards for his leadership and service work in support of Native arts.