Powers Combined
Blue Rain Gallery’s annual Native American art showcase brings together a range of works from top artists.
SANTA FE, NM
Blue Rain Gallery’s Annual Celebration of Native American Art takes place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 15 through 31. A group show includes works by Dan Friday, Jody Naranjo, Chris Pappan, Starr Hardridge, Thomas Breeze Marcus, Hyrum Joe, Lisa Holt and Harlan Reano and Maria Samora. Two additional exhibitions open the following day, August 16—Preston Singletary: New Glass Sculptures and Synergy: A Collaboration in Glass featuring work by Singletary and Reano. Both continue through August 31.
Reano (Santo Domingo/kewa) has been collaborating on making pottery with his wife Lisa Holt since around 2000. His painted designs are derived from traditional patterns and his own invention. In a previous collaboration with Singletary (Tlingit), he created figures based on Cochiti Pueblo figures from the late-19th century. The new collaboration with Singletary features pottery forms developed in collaboration with Holt (Cochiti). A flame or tendril pattern extends from the surface of the pot as in Wildflower Vase, blown- and sand-carved glass. Reano drew the patterns on the pots which were then cut by Singletary and sandblasted.
Singletary says, “Collaborations are something I like to do because I learn how other people interpret their culture, and I learn new forms. My mission is to carve out a place for glass in the contemporary Indigenous art market.”
From a distance, Hardridge’s paintings appear to be Plains beadwork. However, they are made up of thousands of acrylic dots on canvas coated with Venetian plaster. Hardridge (Muscogee Creek) studied Muscogee beadwork and studied painting at Savannah
College of Art and Design. Canyon Creek/strange Canyon merges the figure viewing the canyon with the canyon itself. “I have a special interest in portraying the mysterious relationship between man and environment,” he says. Now living in Connecticut, Hardridge incorporates designs from Creek culture in his work. He says, “The Native art world keeps me connected to my Native heritage and my background.”
Naranjo (Santa Clara) was named the 2017 Museum of Indian Arts & Culture Living Treasure for her pottery. Coming from a long line of Santa Clara potters, she strives to maintain tradition while expressing herself in the modern world. She digs her own clay, builds her pots with traditional coiling and pit fires the finished piece. Her designs are etched into the clay slip, revealing the contrasting clay beneath. Her playful designs recall her childhood when she first played with clay at the feet of her mother, grandmother and aunt. “I try not to take myself too seriously…i use a lot more humor than most potters.”
Pappan is of Kaw, Osage and Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux heritage, and carries the tradition of ledger art into the present. He says, “Traditions have to change and evolve in order to stay relevant and alive.” In the late 1800s when buffalo hides became scarce, Native artists turned to cast off paper used by businesses and the military to keep tabs on their material possessions. The artists recorded their cultural history, drawing over the ledger entries. Now, as then, Pappan contrasts his drawings with the previously used support as seen in Definition 3 (graphite/pencil, map collage, acrylic on Evanston Municipal ledger dated 1924). He says, “I want to speak to the truth and heart of who we were, are and shall be...to bring a sense of humanity that is lacking in so many depictions of us.”