Newcomer shares 3D-printed viewpoint
FALBUQUERQUE ingers tap against a keyboard and a grid comes to life on a computer screen. A graphic design featuring digitally drawn elks and howling wolves, with overlayed geometric shapes, appears on the monitor.
Adrian Standing Elk Pinnecoose focuses his eyes on the computer from his wheelchair, his lavenderhued hair smoothed to the side, tattooed fingers clicking at the keys. He is preparing 3D artworks that fuse traditional Native ideas with modern technology to produce contemporary pieces of art.
“I’m always pushing my creative process,” he says, holding up a transparent triangle printed from his 3D printer.
Among the Santa Fe Indian Market’s newer participants, Pinnecoose is part of a new wave of Native artists — those whose styles, materials and perhaps vision are different from those who came before.
The addition of such artists at
the market, which in part resulted in the departure of other, long-established participants, has been a source of controversy for the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts as it prepares for this week’s show. But Pinnecoose says that while his style is different from market veterans, his meticulous attention to detail and devotion to Native history and culture is the same.
“There are so many ways an individual can make art. … You have to welcome it. It’s not going to go away,” he says, adding he wants “to be someone to start the conversation.”
Pinnecoose, 30, says he sees nontraditional art as a parallel thread — not a disrespectful challenge — to its traditional forebears. Accommodating change, he believes, is vital to ensuring Native art’s future.
“I create new indigenous art for the next generation,” he says.
Last year, he participated in the market for the first time, after earning a complimentary booth through his SWAIA Discovery Fellowship scholarship. This year is the first time he’s applied and been accepted through the jury process, which “really humbled me.”
SWAIA Executive Director Ira Wilson says selecting Pinnecoose was a no-brainer.
“He’s thinking so far outside the box of what is traditional. He’s elevating himself as an artist, by embracing it while also moving past it,” Wilson says. “It’s so different. It’s clean work, and he puts his heart and soul into it.”
Pinnecoose has been in a wheelchair almost all his life as he deals with Werdnig-Hoffman Type 2, a spinal muscular atrophy. The condition prohibits muscle growth throughout his body and causes muscle degeneration.
He says the disability has made him stronger.
“My mom instilled in me not to let my physical disability get in the way,” he says. With the support of friends and family, he allows his condition to motivate and enhance his art.
“It helps me observe life from a different perspective,” he says. “I look at things with a fine eye.”
At this year’s market, Pinnecoose says, he’s most excited to show his jewelry and laser-cut garments in the fashion show — his first couture fashion show. Additionally, he will exhibit part of his most recent project series, titled Cosmic Unity — his first time adding 3D-printed figurines to his graphic prints. The pieces, which tell “past stories and my stories,” depict Native icons, including bears and moons, in an animated graphic aesthetic.
Pinnecoose says he draws his inspiration from his late mother, Laverne Goldtooth, a silversmith who died five years ago after a battle with cancer. She shows up in his work through the “ideology” of traditional Navajo aesthetic, as well as photographs he has used in artworks. One of the pieces in Cosmic Unity is lined with patterns composed of birds of paradise, his mom’s favorite flower. His great-grandmother Mary Werito’s weaving also plays a role in his work; he imitates her use of geometric patterns.
And then there’s Pinnecoose’s own thoughts — very 21st century.
“I developed my own algorithm,” he says, “while still staying true to my own identity and culture.”
Pinnecoose’s aunt Gloria Goldtooth, a traditional jewelry maker, says she’s impressed by her nephew’s fusion of ancestral ideas with modern-day visuals.
“I have no doubt his mom would be very proud of him,” she says, adding that she hopes other Native artisans will be open-minded to what he’s doing — from skull jewelry to laser-cut leather fashion ensembles and multilayered interactive prints. “If people could understand where he’s coming from, maybe they wouldn’t be so negative about his art.”
The process is time-consuming. After countless hours of hand-drawing imagery and adding layers of lines on the computer via various applications, he’s ready to print resin pieces to attach. Printing alone, he explains, can take up to 28 hours, depending on volume. The timer reads 18 hours, 26 minutes until completion for a piece of jewelry printing in the corner of his workspace.
He says some traditional artists, who also put endless hours into their crafts, don’t understand the intense labor required of his work. “People think I spend a couple hours making these prints, but it’s weeks and months of refinement,” he says.
Pinnecoose graduated from the University of New Mexico last year with a master’s degree in architecture, which he says plays a huge role in his technical approach to art.
“That really helped me conceptualize my art, from start to finish,” he says, adding that the “clean, sharp aesthetics” of his 3D artworks aim to bring a viewer into the visuals “from every point of view.”
Though Pinnecoose is energized by the wave of newer artists with similar creative visions, he believes — and hopes — there will always be traditional art. He imagines the future of Indian Market to be more diverse and inclusive of all Native art.
“[They’re] welcoming other people to share their voice,” he says. “Digital techniques are not going to overshadow traditional art. We just have to embrace digital applications and a new generation of artists.”
[They’re] welcoming other people to share their voice. Digital techniques are not going to overshadow traditional art. We just have to embrace digital applications and a new generation of artists.” Adrian Standing Elk Pinnecoose, contemporary artist