Open Doors: Art in Action’s newest exhibit brings together the work of four Indigenous artists as they explore maternal connections

RESILIENT MATRIARCHY

MARGARITA CRUZ

In Open Doors: Art in Action’s current exhibit, Venaya Yazzie curates a collection of resilience, of movement and migration into healing, and of honoring matriarchs. Artists and poets Tacey M. Atsitty, Avis Charley, Lynnette Haozous, Monica Wapaha and Yazzie herself have each given a part of themselves to this online exhibit.

Bringing together art from Apache, Navajo and Pueblo artists online has created an open door for those who normally would not be able to witness the people who inhabit the high desert. Rather than focus on landscapes typical of Southwestern art, the pieces in Resilient Matriarchy: Indigenous Women’s Art in Community reflect the importance of matriarchs in their cultures and shed light on their own narratives that reveal a resilience that continues on through their daughters. The work in this exhibition imitates and even initiates movement, whether it flows like a river or reminds BELOW: “For Her,” 2020, Color Pencil on Antique Paper, 16 3/4 x 14 inches, by Avis Charley.

“Protectors,” 2020, Color Pencil on Antique Paper, 16 1/2 x 11 inches, by Avis Charley.

us that time is ever shifting. The importance of grandmother, mother and sisterhood are explored through paintings, poetry, essay, photography and illustration. For Yazzie, a focus on matriarchy comes from her love for her grandmother, who she lost to heart failure in February 2020. In an essay introducing her photo journey, “Migration Song, Flooding Narrative,” she reflects on the ways that her grandmother taught her.

“She was the family matriarch and I think that all the women in this show have that content close to them,” Yazzie said in an interview. “These are women [mothers, grandmothers, etc.] who nourished us, and continue to nourish us as adults. I really wanted to make sure that this show was paying tribute to those women. Personally, it’s for my grandmother. I’ve been able to curate some shows before but this is the first time it’s been very personal. Putting it together was almost like healing myself.”

Yazzie wrote in the artist statement which begins the exhibit that this space becomes a collective form of healing through migration and, in ways, a decolonization. In work like Wapaha’s photography, the ways in which Indigenous women hold humor as a weapon against colonization is captured. In utilizing humor, these artists are actively denying stereotypes that have portrayed Indigenous women as merely silent and serious figures. Photographers like Edward S. Curtis, known most for his staging of Indigenous women living in the Pacific Northwest, have long been a culprit in prolonging this stereotype. Wapaha’s “500+ Years and We are still laughing at the White Man” is a stunning photograph of two women laughing with what appears to be a reflection as if one is looking at the image through a glass frame. Her work reclaims the people she portrays.

“Every community I’ve come into contact with has come out in color or humor and I think that speaks volumes about resiliency of ourselves as women and coming matriarchs of our families. We find that colorfulness of a dire situation,” Yazzie said. “A lot of it might be black and white and with color here and there, but somehow and someway, we try to find the good in the bad.”

Both Charley and Haozous use bright colors to paint strong women in traditional garments. Haozous paints mothers as they travel with their children, in a sling or cradleboard. She blends her love for art with that of advocacy in her reflection. Haozous places an emphasis on the ways traveling across the continent, living in harmony among plants and animals who also freely migrate, has been disrupted and harmed by man-made borders. Charley uses colored pencil on ledger paper, illustrating women in traditional clothing as they protect and give hope to one another. The work of ledger art has historically been associated with the masculine as it derives from art made by those imprisoned—usually male—around the “Bizhi’ba Trekking through Ancestral Grief, Offering Migration as Healing II— Human,” Digital Photo, 2020, by Venaya Yazzie.

1860s. Charley not only uses the ledger behind the art to make it a point that this art does not belong solely to men, but in illustrating women she is asserting their narrative and presence in both history and the present.

“All of this art that these women are bringing to the table is helping us to heal from past traumas,” Yazzie said. “I hope that that will reverberate and help viewers who look at this work and really understand that there is some ceremonial act we all recognize. Some ritualistic tradition that we’re working through.”

Atsitty’s poetry winds like a river throughout memory and time. She places the reader in the past in several pieces, reflecting on familial ties and especially those with women—a mother, grandmother, a sister, a teacher—but brings them to the present through a sort of grieving for memories. In the poem “A Blood Letting”—the title a reference to the practice in which someone suffering, usually from illness, lets themselves bleed as a form of therapy—Atsitty utilizes white space to demonstrate a pause or cut through the sentence, brilliantly combining the themes of fragmentation as well as a ritual for healing. In this poem, she mourns a mother and looks toward one ritual of many in healing. Practices and ceremony can also be linked to Yazzie’s own path navigating the loss of her matriarch.

Yazzie’s photo journey, a hybrid collection of poetry, essay and photography, brings both a close and opening to the exhibit. Since the art is online, it is a choose-your-own-adventure as to where visitors begin, but it’s recommended that one either begins or ends with Yazzie’s powerful documentation of her own grandmother as it weaves together all of the moments touched on throughout this exhibit.

Not only does the work these women create ask viewers of the exhibit to rethink the way ceremony and tradition are used to heal, but it also asserts the resiliency deeply embedded in matriarchy. Sue Norris, a founder of Open Doors: Arts in Action, reminds us that the show itself is an act of resiliency in this time. Far from the unique in-person exhibition experience, the new space in the virtual world continues to link others to educational opportunities—a key part of the mission of Open Doors. At the bottom of the exhibit’s introductory page are links to several organizations with causes related to Resilient Matriarchy—“Adopt a Native Elder,” “Missing & Murdered Diné Relatives,” “Diné Studies Conference” and, close to Norris’ heart, “Changing Woman Initiative.” As an advocate for home births, Norris is especially excited for others to learn about this nonprofit which concerns midwifery and maternal health.

“A lot of times,” Yazzie said, “when I talk to people, they have a lot of good things to say about our landscape but they don’t have a chance to see what the people here are doing. Being virtual gives it that chance.”

Whether from northern Arizona or across the country, visitors will not have to travel far to experience this work. Resilient Matriarchy: Indigenous Women’s Art in Community is on virtual display through April 15. Visit www.opendoorsartinaction.com for more information and to tour the exhibit.