Alaska Native Arts: Traditional and Contemporary Non Western Art

During my last post, Rise of Feminist Artists, I had to narrow down my choices. Indigenous artwork was a choice during the assignment for our Mid/Post Modern blog exhibit. So I saved Indigenous artwork for our last post. I chose to explore traditional and contemporary artwork from Alaska Native artists. This semester I am also taking Alaska Native Studies: Indigenous Cultures of Alaska. I was inspired to learn about the traditions and cultural practices. After I watched this video for class,  Lineage: Tlingit Artists Across Generations. https://youtu.be/HIibbUVVJ74?si=Mak7YFRtVgmkKw93 I went exploring to find Lily Hope's exhibit of her completed Chilkat blanket for the Portland Museum and found many links with more information for you to explore and discover. Let's explore more female artists, who are being recognized for their cultural and traditional artwork. 

Resilience Robe

by Clarissa Rizal

2014, merino wool, 64 x 53 inches (Portland Art Museum) https://smarthistory.org/clarissa-rizal-resilience-robe/

Clarissa Rizal and Lily Hope are Tlingit Chilkat weavers who have been able to keep traditional weaving, as well as revive their tradition as a mother-and-daughter team. Above is Rizal's "Resilience Robe"  She learned how to weave from master weaver, Jennie Thlunalt. Chilkat weaving is practiced by Tlingit and other Northwest Coast peoples. 

There are initials ANB on the left and ANS on the right, these represent the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood. A civil rights organization. There are many more details on this ceremonial blanket. The links provided give a better understanding of how they pass on their tradition together from mother to daughter. 

 Below is Rizal's daughter, Lily Hope. They both have their artwork Portland Art Museum. I discovered this duo during my Alaska Native Studies class this semester. Hope was commissioned by the Portland Art Museum to weave a Chilkat blanket in 2016. She combines Ravenstail and Chilkat weaving techniques to create complex ceremonial robes. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Southeast where she teaches Fiber Spinning, Natural Dye, Career Development for the Artist, and all levels of Chilkat Ceremonial Regalia-making (independently), and offers lectures on the spiritual commitments of being a weaver. Here is Hope's Chilkat blanket, "Between Worlds" for the "Sharing Honors and Burdens" at the Renwick Invitational 2023, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

Between Worlds

by Lily Hope

Lily Hope, Between Worlds(Child's Robe). Installation photography of Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American, Photo by Albert Ting

"The Codes We Carry"

by Erica Lord

Erica Lord, The Codes We Carry (installation), 2023, at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023

Erica Lord is an Athabascan and Iñupiat contemporary artist. She grew up in Nenana and learned to dog sled. Her inspiration behind the beaded dog blankets is the from when dog sled teams brought medicines to Alaska Native communities. Lord’s dog blankets show beaded microarrays analysis tests of diseases that have profoundly impacted Alaska Native tribes, such as diphtheria, smallpox, ovarian cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes, and COVID-19. Lord is also one of the six featured artists in Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023. The exhibition focuses on fresh and nuanced visions of Native American or Alaska Native artists who express the honors and burdens that connect people to one another. This is the first time Native Americans and Alaska Native artists have been selected for the Renwick Invitational, dedicated to showcasing emerging and mid-career makers deserving of wider national recognition. She is also a professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts. 

Below is a beaded burden strap. Traditionally a burden strap was used to adorn children in traditional Athabascan culture. Lord uses her beaded burden straps to raise awareness of the diseases that affect Indigenous peoples combining traditional Alaska Native art and raising awareness in a contemporary style. 

Leukemia Burden Strap

by Erica Lord

DNA/RNA Microarray Analysis, 2022, glass beads and wire, 7 1/2 × 94 1/2 × 1/4 in., Courtesy of the artist and Accola Griefen Fine Art. Photo by Addison Doty.

"In her community, woven or decorated hide straps are traditionally used to carry babies or heavy bundles. Lord reconfigured this technologically simple carrying device with materials and patterns representing diseases and conditions that particularly affect Native Alaskans today. Her transformation of customary burden straps and tuppies reflects the invisible and intangible things we carry: from love and pride in family and community to the burdens of historical trauma, colonialism, poverty, pollution, and environmental change."    

- Dr. Lara Evans, Independent Curator & Vice President of Programs, First Peoples Fund, from "Coded Burdens, Coded Honors," in Sharing Honors and Burdens (University of Washington Press)

Beaded Fur Heart

Amelia Simeonoff Medium: Beading, Skin Sewing

I came across this video, I am an Alaska Native Healer, after I finished watching Lord's YouTube video. Amelia Simeonoff is Alutiiq and an artist and traditional healer. Her journey began when her elder, Rita Blumenstein asked for someone to teach Alaska Native Arts at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. From there I found her artwork in a gallery in her hometown of Kodiak. The Alutiiq Museum is a non-profit educational organization governed by the Kodiak Alutiiq community. Their Mission is to preserve and share the heritage and living culture of the Alutiiq people, by celebrating heritage through living culture. Here is a link to the Artist Gallery to explore other local artists. She teaches how to bead and sew, and helps youth and adults through their grief through talking circles and drumming.

I would like to apply my art and social work degree in a therapeutic setting. Listening to Simeonoff talk about her experience while teaching beading and sewing to a student and them recognizing where they were healing their heart as they were stitching, shows how using the hands to create, helps mend a broken heart and heal mental health. Using the body to connect with the heart and mind. Watching her vlog helped me have a better visual and inspiration for helping others with their mental health.

Works Cited: 

Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/invitational-2023

Between Worlds. https://americanart.si.edu/blog/between-worlds

CCNA: Interwoven Radience - Lily Hope. https://youtu.be/YQUMVhBGECE?si=BrXk5Bk6p7HeOnzZ

I am an Alaska Native Healer | INDIE ALASKA. https://youtu.be/MyOIw78pwCA?si=TUSxcGZGWppnOGlT

Amelia Simeonoff. https://alutiiqmuseum.org/alutiiq-people/art/artist-gallery/amelia-simeonoff/ 

COLORES.Erica Lord, The Codes We Carry. Season 30 Episode 9 | 26m 23s https://www.pbs.org/video/erica-lord-the-codes-we-carry-iwxl8m/

Erica Lord. https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/invitational-2023/online/erica-lord

Rise of Feminist Artists

Roots, 1943 by Frida Kahlo

https://www.fridakahlo.org/roots.jsp

    Frida Kahlo was a remarkable woman. She took her adversity and turned it into art. Although they tried to label her a Surrealist, she refused to be labeled. Her remarks were that she paints her reality not dreams. As a Mexican artist, Kahlo painted herself in traditional Tehuana clothing. Self-portraits became her signature. She didn't hold back on the vulnerabilities she experienced. "Roots" was painted after she remarried her husband. The painting below is from her divorce.  Her locks of hair are strewn about and a pair of scissors in her right hand, and a braid in the other. The other braid beneath her yellow chair she sits upon. The words to a song written above. She is wearing her ex-husband's clothes to make an even loader statement of her broken heart. 

    It was really hard to choose 2 of Kahlo's works. She embraced all the life experiences she was facing. Being a woman during the Early Modern times had its own set of challenges. Having deformities from childhood diseases, before there were vaccinations for polio. She also had other physical effects from her accident when was bedridden. All these challenges led her to create portraits of herself and an outlet for the emotions she was feeling. 

    Having a creative outlet is so important. Processing emotions can get overwhelming. Painting allows the mind to speak when the words won't always form. I like the strength she shows in her "Roots" portrait. From all her pain, she birthed a new creation. She is reclined in the nirvana position like Shakyamuni  Buddha before he passed. Both these paintings reveal deeper truths and expose them for the reality as it is for her. She gives us portraits of the pains of a female during modernization. She wanted peace for her people as well.

    Can you relate to these paintings? It would be neat to go to The Frida Kahlo Museum. They turned her old studio in Mexico City into a museum for her artwork. These bold statements that Kahlo created still tell a story today. I would probably not have a copy of  "Cropped Hair". The story behind it, is empowering. When you love someone, there are sacrifices. Painting her hair being cut off allowed her to move through the hurt. Divorce was still frowned upon and Kahlo was not afraid to embrace the hard stuff. I would probably have a copy of "Roots" Here she shows us that she made it to the other side, and made beauty from heartache. Her relationship with her husband was tumultuous, and her paintings reflected so. Why not add some color to the mix, with some independence. 

Self Portrait with Cropped Hair - by Frida Kahlo 1940

https://www.fridakahlo.org/self-portrait-with-cropped-hair.jsp

Ladder to the Moon, 1958 by Georgia O'Keeffe

https://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/ladder-to-the-moon.jsp

    O'Keeffe says, "The images are all of transition: the ladder itself implies passage from one level to another; the moon is cut neatly in half by the bold slicing light, halfway between full and new; and the evening sky is in flux, still pale along the line of the horizon, shading into deep azure night at the top of the canvas. ”  She started out with abstract flowers and then later skulls from the bones she collected from around her ranch in New Mexico. There weren't any flowers so she added them. These later paintings are from her landscape collections. She was mesmerized by the shimmers in the clouds when she was flying in a plane. The colors of the landscapes are captured in that mesmerized gaze O'Keeffe saw through her eyes. 

    The abstract clouds are perfect. instead of trying to get them just right she puts them into a pattern and adds abstract sha to them. This gives the horizon the spotlight. "The Ladder to the Moon" isn't abstract, it's more of a landscape painting. Why is the ladder suspended in the sky? It definitely makes an impression on me. I would definitely enjoy a copy of each in my home. They give a daydreamy experience and you can let your mind drift away while contemplating whichever transition you are in life. O'Keeffee definetly painted her own way and didn't allow critics to sexualize her paintings of flowers. She lived to be 98 years old, with thousands of artworks. 

Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965 by Georgia O'Keeffe

https://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/sky-above-clouds-iv.jsp

Claire Zeisler 1970s

    Claire Zeisler and many other female fiber artists trailblazed a new avenue for the arts and craft world, by taking the craft off the loom and creating sculptures of threads. Zeisler was born in 1903 and studied at Columbia College in Ohio. When her children were older she returned to her studies at the Chicago Institute of Design, formerly known as the New Bauhaus, along with the Illinois Institute of Technology.  She studied with numerous former Bauhaus artists who had emigrated to the US. Zeisler is widely recognized as a post-Bauhaus pioneer. After mastering the loom during the 40s and 50s, she experimented with 3-dimensional space and started shaping different forms. She needed more freedom to explore off the loom. 

    How inspiring to read about Zeisler's life as an artist. She braved her world and made beautiful things out of threads. Her contemporary pieces brings you out of what is ordinary and shapes it into a work of art. A craft that mothers taught their daughters side by side. A tradition and cultural practice that gets passed down by generations. Now Females were being seen for more than their craft. 

1970s

    I couldn't find the title for this crimson waterfall of fibers. While I was exploring Zeisler's art work I was reminded of making friendship bracelets as a kid. Or learning how to work with yarns and fabrics with my mother.  The intentional bunches of threads flow at the bottom and leave an impression. At the top, all the red threads are tied together neatly, but the bottom is free and flowing in bunches. I would love to have a model of this masterpiece, but my cats would have way too much fun!  

Untitled, 1969

https://blog.fabrics-store.com/2023/09/12/off-the-wall-claire-zeisler/

During the Middle of the Modern Art Era, females were able to step into the spotlight. They were no longer hidden in the shadows. What was considered a woman's crafts, could not be shown for the true beauty.  Kahlo, O'Keeffee, and Zeisler are just a few women who paved the way for other female artist in this Post Modern World.

Works Cited:

Frida Kahlo https://artsandculture.google.com/story/rAUBPDLcNAzkJA?hl=en

Gerogia O'Keeffe. https://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/ladder-to-the-moon.jsp

Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women. https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/fiber-art-by-women

A New History Of Fiber Artists Who Tried To Turn Craft Into Art. https://www.wbur.org/news/2014/10/01/fiber-ica

Feminist Artists Whoose Work You Need to Know. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/AQURUC6SwwhEKw

The Early 20th Century: The Age of Anxiety

Broadway Boogie Woogie, by Piet Mondrian,1943

This Mondrian painting is actually a jazz score | Jason Moran | MoMA BBC | THE WAY I SEE IT

Piet Mondrian's work took nearly a lifetime to master. As it goes for most creative genius. As a young adult, he studied Impressionism and later developed a curiosity for cubism. After moving to New York City during WWII he fell in love with the boogie wooogie beat. Which inspired him to create balance and harmony, with color and light, and influenced by jazz music. The way Jason Moran sees it, Mondrian created a jazz score. By breaking down the very nature of the art form, he found inner peace with creating music in colorful cubes. He embraced the uncertainty, leaning into the rhythms of music, and found harmony in the spaces he created with bold lines in their purest forms. 

Mondrian's work evolved over his lifetime and continues to inspire abstract art. His later work became fabric prints for clothing and many other mediums. We can look back at his works of art and see the influences that helped evolve his artwork. During this era, the world was flooded with anxieties from so many different issues that were being exposed through media and modern warfare. 

Now that I know a little more about the influences of this painting, I really dig it even more. How neat that through the inspiration of the boogie blues beats, Mondrian was able to create a musical score through abstract art in its purest form. Music does have a way of uniting, and that is how to combat anxiety. Coming together in harmony to dance off those blues. Mondrian was able to paint his abstract thoughts, showing the word from a different perspective of a musical score. I would like to have a copy for home. 

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction, 1922

https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/318/4118

Taeuber-Arp worked as a teacher of art and was part of the Dada movement. She used her skills in the crafts to express herself in several different mediums. She breaks free from traditional marionette styles, by using more geometric shapes and exposing the connecting joints.

The Dada movement was started in response to WWI. Artists fled to Switzerland during WWI, where they were able to explore new media to understand what led the world to war. Cabaret Voltaire became a safe space for exiled artists who formed the Dada movement, that spread through Europe and New York. 

Using readymade materials, artists created collages and other pieces of art to express what was going on around them. There was a lot of fear growing and uncertainties causing more anxiety around the world. Art became an outlet for expressing what was happening around them. Dadaism gave room for artists to process the growing anxieties of the 20th Century as modernization developed, so did the worries about the future. 

Although Taeuber-Arp was not recognized as an artist until 1977. She was a performer, architect, and many other trades during her career. I would enjoy studying her style of art. There is so much to learn from her works of art. During her time crafts were considered domestic work, but she worked to move beyond that mold with her abstract geometric marionettes. These dancing dolls on strings would be fun to have as replicas for exploration play in 3D art. You can explore her art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York or visit an exhibit video here.

Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale (1924) by Max Ernst

Max Ernst's was part of the Dadaism movement and then moved into surrealism. This masterpiece is one of his known pieces. Surrealism used the study of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Using art, Ernst explored the unconscious and dreams. Painting things to be not always as they seem to give a different perspective. The red gate is coming out of the frame, welcoming you into the dream world. It seems peaceful until you look closer and see the gray figures. One reaches for the door knob and the other figure runs in terror with a knife. There is a long wall that brings you closer to see what's going on in the background. Ernst was able to use collage and paint with other materials to bring the frame into the painting as well. 

The title makes you think, "Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale"? Is this what anxiety looks like? How does anxiety feel during this time era? I can appreciate surrealism for exploring the subconscious by using art to access inner dialog to gain access to the root causes of anxiety. Using art to express emotion is a very helpful tool to process complex emotions. Especially during a time when there wasn't enough knowledge on how to process anxieties. 

I really admire Ernst's masterpiece, and not sure where I would put this piece of art. Maybe in a therapist's office? I wouldn't want to frighten a client though. Perhaps it's best to stay in New York at the Museum of Modern Art? This is a really catching painting or collage? It says it is made with oil-painted wood elements and cut-and-pasted printed paper on wood with a wood frame. I really enjoyed learning about all the different mediums artists explored during the early 20th century. Modernization gave lots of wiggle room to explore in the art world, which helped process all the anxieties that came with the turning of the century.

Works Cited:

Broadway Boogie Woogie. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piet_Mondrian,_1942_-_Broadway_Boogie_Woogie.jpg#/media/File:Piet_Mondrian,_1942_-_Broadway_Boogie_Woogie.jpg

MoMa. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78682 

Piet Mondrian's Artistic Evolution. The Canvas. https://youtu.be/ZRH4a5vzvEM?si=vTcvxKbHbNBOAgzZ. 

HOW TO SEE | Sophie Taeuber-Arp, The Museum of Modern Art. https://youtu.be/6jKnqBa15JA?si=XtKVwIefiWuvkMNf

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: An Introduction. https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/665

Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The making of the marionettes. https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/318/4118

Introduction to Dada. https://smarthistory.org/modernisms-1900-1980/dada-and-surrealism/dada/

Surrealism https://smarthistory.org/surrealism-intro/

Max Ernst, Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. https://smarthistory.org/ernst-two-children-threatened-nightingale/

Artchive. https://www.artchive.com/artwork/two-children-are-threatened-by-a-nightingale-1924-by-max-ernst/