David M. Roche Chair Vice-Chair Secretary Treasurer
Dickey Family Director and CEO
TRUSTEES
Tony Astorga
Nadine Basha
Jeri Y. Ben-Horin
Matthew Boland
Gregory H. Boyce
Susan Esco Chandler
Adrian Cohen
Dr. Craig Cohen
Judy Dworkin
John Graham
Joe Gysel
Dr. William Howard
LIFE TRUSTEES
Kay Benedict
Arlene K. Ben-Horin
Howard R. Berlin
Dr. George Blue
Spruce, Jr.
Mark B. Bonsall
Robert B. Bulla
F. Wesley Clelland, III
Norma Jean Coulter
Robert J. Duffy
Mary G. Hamilton
Patricia K. Hibbeler
Joel P. Hoxie
Mary Hudak
Dr. Thomas M. Hudak
Carrie L. Hulburd
James R. Huntwork
Gov. Stephen R. Lewis
Edward F. Lowry
Sharron Lewis
Marigold Linton
John F. Lomax
John Lucas
Janis Lyon
Shelley Mowry, Guild President
Christy Vezolles
Frank Walter III
Virginia Furth Weisman
Trudy Wiesenberger
Frederick A. Lynn
Carol Ann Mackay
Clint J. Magnussen
Robert L. Matthews
Mary Ellen McKee
James Meenaghan
John Melamed
Dr. Wayne Lee Mitchell
Susan H. Navran
Scott H. O’Connor
Dr. Arthur L. Pelberg
Leland Peterson
Wick Pilcher
David E. Reese
William C. Schubert
Sheryl L. Sculley
Richard H. Silverman
John G. Stuart
HEARD MUSEUM, HEARD MUSEUM SHOP
2301 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004
Open Every Day, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Closed Easter Sunday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day & Christmas Day
Main: 602.252.8840
Events Hotline: 602.252.8848
Shop: 602.252.8344 or 1.800.252.8344
THE COURTYARD CAFÉ
Open Every Day, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
COFFEE CANTINA
Open Every Day, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
WE APPRECIATE THE SUPPORT OF THESE SPONSORS:
EARTHSONG
Kim Alexis Adversario Associate Director of Membership & Circles of Giving
Sarah Moore Graphic Design
Sean Ornelas Director of Marketing & Communications
Deborah Paddison Copy Editing
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:
Kim Alexis Adversario, Allison Avery, Dan Hagerty, Mario Nick Klimiades, Lucia Leigh Laughlin, Ann Marshall, Marcus Monenerkit, Roshii Montaño, Diana F. Pardue, David M. Roche, Mike Webb
December 26, 2024, marks the Heard’s 95th anniversary, and we have much to celebrate. Some highlights of the new fiscal year will be six exhibitions, two publications, and dozens of in-person and virtual programs in addition to the presentation of annual major events including Indian Fair & Market and the Hoop Dance Contest. All these activities are designed with our members’ experience in mind.
We have already opened two new exhibitions this fall that were preceded by special member previews. Meryl McMaster: Bloodline, which opened in October, presents 65 works by Canadian artist Meryl McMaster, whose pioneering large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed Plains Cree, Dutch and British ancestry. Bloodline explores questions around memory, containment, erasure and selfdetermination filtered through the imagination of one of Canada’s most insightful and creative minds. This is the first major solo exhibition of McMaster’s work outside of Canada.
Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art opened in early November. This exhibition examines the mid-century American art movement known as Indian Space Painting and the relationship between those non-Native painters, the Indigenous visual and material culture that inspired them, and the artists from the modern Native art movement who expanded upon such creative explorations through their own visual heritage. The exhibition was organized by the Crystal Bridges Museum.
Dr. Ann Marshall, the Heard’s Director of Research, is authoring a publication on the history of the Heard’s collection. This book is timed to coincide with our 95th anniversary and is going to be a beautiful document of our collection as well as a tribute to its status as a national treasure. As always, members can use their discount in Books & More to acquire the publication, or it will be available in the Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives for members to peruse.
If you visited the museum over the summer, you no doubt saw the Shop under construction. The beautifully renovated Shop reopened to our members on October 27. The renovation elevates the retail experience for acquiring authentic works of Native American art in Phoenix and enhances the Shop’s existing reputation as a stand-alone shopping destination. Every dollar spent in the Heard Museum Shop will continue to support the Heard Museum’s mission of connecting Indigenous creativity to the world.
On the north side of the museum campus, in the Hearst Foundation’s Children’s Courtyard, our members will be greeted by a major new installation, the Friendship Totem. Created in 1977 by the Nisga’a First Nation sculptor Norman Tait, the Friendship Totem was originally a gift from British Columbia, Canada, to the city of Phoenix. When the totem, which was carved and painted in a gallery at the Heard Museum, was completed, the city of Phoenix entrusted it to the museum. The Friendship Totem has been part of the Heard’s collection since that time.
The word “totem” comes from the Algonquian word odoodem, meaning “his kinship group.” In keeping with this tradition, the Friendship Totem represents Tait’s clan. The artwork features an eagle at the top, followed by a beaver, and at the base a human figure. The eagle is the symbol of Tait’s clan, the beaver is one of his clan’s crests, and the human represents membership to his clan.
The Northwest Coast Indigenous people created totems out of cedar wood for centuries to showcase their nation, their family or an individual’s history. Other totems have been used to tell stories. By the latter part of the 20th century, the art of carving totems was nearly extinct as federal governments attempted to force Indigenous people to assimilate, at times burning totem poles and banning the traditional ceremony to raise the sculptures. The Friendship Totem can be seen as a symbol of not only friendship between cities, nations and peoples but of the survival and resilience of Native American cultures. Norman Tait has been credited with reviving the art of Nisga’a totem pole carving.
By installing the Friendship Totem, the Heard Museum will provide an opportunity for the public, and especially all the schoolchildren who enter the Heard campus through the Courtyard gates, to learn more about traditional Northwest Coast carving and view the work of a master carver. I want to extend special thanks to Bank of America for supporting this project, which will impact tens of thousands of visitors every year, and to Ron Harvey of Tuckerbrook Conservation, who, in partnership with Tait’s family, helped to conserve this important work.
The Heard Museum could not have made it to our 95th anniversary without the support of our members. Thank you for all that you continue to do to make the Heard Museum the community icon that we are.
David M. Roche Dickey Family Director and CEO
Lillian Tait (Nisga'a) and Alver Tait (Nisga'a, hereditary chief of the eaglebeaver clan) in front of the Friendship Totem Pole. Photo: Zee Peralta
On View Now
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline
Through March 2, 2025
ROSHII MONTAÑO | ASSISTANT REGISTRAR
This October, the Heard Museum became the first U.S. venue to present Meryl McMaster: Bloodline, a sweeping survey of the artist’s powerful large-scale photographic works. Organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in collaboration with Remai Modern, the exhibition traces McMaster’s 15-year career, highlighting exploration of her mixed heritage, encompassing nêhiyaw (Plains Cree), Siksika, Dutch and British ancestry.
The exhibition traces McMaster’s practice from her early series Ancestral (2008) leading into her most recent work, including her poignant 2022 series Stories of My Grandmothers, which focuses on the lives of her paternal grandmothers from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation. These layered, performative photographs invite viewers to enter McMaster’s richly imagined world, one where personal and ancestral histories intertwine.
McMaster’s exploration of her complex identity has been a lifelong pursuit. She recalls poring over family albums, listening to the stories shared by her parents and grandparents, and grappling with the entwined histories of Indigenous and settler cultures in Canada. Bloodline offers a compelling visual narrative of this personal journey, featuring 12 works from In-Between Worlds (2010-13), a series that marked McMaster’s transformation breakthrough. These works articulate her unique approach to world-building as a means of examining identity and belonging, transcending binaries of heritage. As McMaster reflects, the series gave her “an opportunity to express my bicultural heritage, not as a struggle but as a strategic way of thinking about how they connect.”
The photographs in Bloodline are grounded in McMaster’s process of reinterpreting memory, where personal and collective histories are revealed through multi-layered, large-scale images. They blend truth with imagination, creating a liminal space between truths and half-truths.
The Stories of My Grandmothers series was inspired by the diary of McMaster’s great-great-grandmother Isabella “Bella” Wuttunee (1898-1980). Wuttunee’s writings document her everyday life on the Red Pheasant Cree Nation, but within the mundane details, McMaster unearthed traces of a larger history shaped by colonialism. A particularly resonant moment in this series, I Listened as the World Became Silent (2022), is haunting: A central figure dressed in concealing protective gear emerges from an encroaching darkness. The unsettling presence evokes both menace and guardianship, inviting the viewer to question whose fear is being confronted.
The image recalls a brutal historical moment: the mass hanging of eight Cree men at Fort Battleford in 1885, witnessed by McMaster’s great-great-grandmother Matilda “Tilly” Schmidt (1870-1955), then a student at the Battleford Industrial School. McMaster memorializes this traumatic event with a fluttering of butterflies around the figure’s mask, a Plains Cree cultural reference to ancestral presence, which transforms the foreboding atmosphere into one of protection and resilience. The work challenges colonial narratives, making space for ancestral memory and offering a reframing of historical trauma.
The strength of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline lies in the artist’s ability to distill the complexities of memory, history and identity into still, yet vividly evocative, moments. Through her imagery, McMaster facilitates an intergenerational conversation. “By establishing a dialogue with my grandmothers, I keep their memories relevant and alive,” she says. “By bringing them into the present, I make them visible … By reactivating them through images, a transfer of knowledge between four generations of women is no longer hidden.”
In Bloodline, McMaster’s photographs become vessels of transformation—creating a bridge between the past and present, between the individual and collective, and between silence and voice. This exhibition stands as a testament to the resilience of memory, asserting its enduring presence through McMaster’s visionary practice.
ORGANIZED AND CIRCULATED BY
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
WITH SUPPORT FROM
Meryl McMaster (nêhiyaw [Plains Cree]/Siksika/Dutch/British, b. 1988), I Listened As The World Became Silent, 2022. Digital chromogenic print, 101.6 x 152.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain.
Exhibition openings of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline
On Oct. 4, the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Grand Gallery opened to the public a stunning new exhibition called Meryl McMaster: Bloodline. This traveling exhibition, cocurated by Remai Modern and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, examines the work of Meryl McMaster (nêhiyaw (Plains Cree)/ Siksika/Dutch/British). Her photographs offer a reflection on her family histories, evoking themes of memory, containment, erasure and self-determination.
Heard Museum Members and Circles of Giving Members received an exclusive opportunity to meet Meryl McMaster and hear wonderful presentations by the artist as well as Heard Museum Assistant Registrar Roshii Montaño (Diné); Emily Henderson, Associate Curator of Indigenous Art and Culture at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection; and Tarah Hogue (Métis, white settler ancestry), Curator of Indigenous Art at Remai Modern.
Photos: Zee Peralta
Left to right: Emily Henderson, Tarah Hogue, Meryl McMaster and Roshii Montaño.
Left to right: Javier Torres, Ginger Sykes Torres, Meryl McMaster and Kristine Jones
Left to right: Valerie Piazza, Peter Piazza and Lynn Endorf
Members enjoying the panel discussion with artist Meryl McMaster
Kelso and Rachel Meyer
Sharron Lewis
Las Guias Docent Jeff Ross points out a work of art
Members Opening of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline
Members Exhibition Opening Panel Discussion
Libby and Joel Cohen
Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art
DIANA PARDUE | CHIEF CURATOR
On November 8, the Heard presented the exhibition Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art. Organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, the exhibition chronicles a littleknown art movement that developed in the mid-20th century in New York City. Guest curator Christopher Green, visiting assistant professor of art history at Swarthmore College, worked with the curatorial team at Crystal Bridges and a group of museum and community consultants to tell the story of this art movement and to select paintings and historical works to illustrate the exhibition.
An art movement began in the early 1940s when a group of artists at the Art Students League in New York City were inspired by textiles, pottery, baskets and other Indigenous arts that they saw in books and in museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History. The artists were drawn to the abstract design styles they saw, and they began incorporating similar design elements into their paintings. The artists referred to these new interpretive works as “Indian Space.” A groundbreaking exhibition titled Semeiology or 8 and a Totem Pole, which opened in 1946, marked the development of the Indian Space Painting movement.
One of the Indian Space Painters, Seymour Tubis, moved to Santa Fe in 1962 to teach at the newly established Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Students at the Institute were encouraged to draw upon their cultural heritages when creating works of art. Through his teachings at the Institute, Tubis drew upon some of the Indian Space concepts. One of his students was Benjamin Harjo Jr., an artist who is recognized for his distinctive paintings. The exhibition includes paintings by Harjo and other students of the Institute and their peers who were working in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as works by the Indian Space Painters and
some of the historical works of the type that the Space Painters were referencing.
Through this exhibition, the Heard offers our members and visitors on opportunity to see a bridge between modern American art and Native American art.
Benjamin Harjo, Jr., Honoring the Spirit of All Things, 2001. Opaque watercolor, 39 3/4 in. x 27 in.On loan from Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, Oklahoma.
IAIA Continues to Shape New Generations of Artists
MIKE WEBB | PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
Space Makers opened with a free First Friday event, highlighting the exhibition’s connection to the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) with an evening of performance and dialogue by recent IAIA graduates. IWAA (Piipaash, Quechuan, Gila River Indian Community)—a featured artist at the event—spoke with the Heard’s Mike Webb about the impact of his IAIA experience.
Tell us about yourself.
I am IIWAA , and my pronouns are he/they. My tribal affiliations are with the Piipaash and Quechan peoples, and I’m an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, representative of District 7 Maricopa Colony. I graduated from IAIA with a master of fine arts in creative writing with a poetry emphasis.
How did you end up attending the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)?
I was only familiar with it in a larger-than-life sense, thinking about it as the stomping grounds of Joy Harjo, Fritz Scholder, TC Cannon and other prominent Native artists. It was not necessarily a space I saw myself in yet, but a friend suggested I at least apply to IAIA and check it out. Leading up to that conversation, I had been writing poems every single day. This started in October 2017, and it was maybe two or three months of writing poems daily.
Reflecting back on it, was your journey as a student at IAIA helpful for your path as a musician?
I was going through so much privately, like letting go and uncovering my sense of self. Being a student there was opening so many doors for me in my life. At the at the start of each semester, I was spending a week on campus in dialogue with Indigenous people who are incredible creatives, amazing writers, but also just people, you know, having a lived experience of bowing under the weight of all the oppressive systems in the world
that Indigenous people move through collectively. These people were defying the odds in a lot of ways to make their art, and I just really appreciated the conversations.
The summation of the experience was transformative because of those great people around me. Ideas around what it means to be queer were so gently presented, and I had people there walking me through what facets of queerness could mean or look like. It presented a new color palette to identify experiences and emotions through.
How does IAIA continue to influence you right now and into the future?
In the right now, IAIA is influencing my role as an educator. I educate students in grades 6 to 12 in music. It is important for me to stay near the pulse of community and continue create from that space. It shows me that my body of work is really important and impactful and has brought me to a very important place. Beyond that, I have come to accept the imperative of continuously interacting with other Indigenous creatives. The landscape of Indigenous music is broader and more accessible than ever before.
Who Was the First Heard Museum Librarian?
Early Days of the Heard Museum Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives
MARIO NICK KLIMIADES | LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES DIRECTOR
For the 95th anniversary of the Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives, I thought it would be interesting to reminisce about the origins of the library and its history during its first decade. When the Heard Museum opened its doors in 1929, the Heard Museum Library occupied one of the rooms in this new cultural institution. Unfortunately, no photographs exist of this room or of the early days of the Heard Museum Library. The library was in a room immediately to the left once you passed through the iron gates of the Monte Vista Road entrance.
The library’s mission was captured in the original Articles of Incorporation of the Heard Museum, dated June 18, 1929, and expressed as follows, “To promote study of, to develop knowledge of, and to encourage and broaden public interest in the primitive arts and works of mankind … shall have power to acquire, publish, circulate, and distribute papers, circulars, periodicals, and books, to conduct lectures, hold meetings, and organize and hold classes for individual or organized study.” The mission was further acknowledged in the first informational brochure about the Heard Museum, published in 1931, “The Museum co-operates with city and County Schools in placing its library and other
facilities at the disposal of History and Art Classes for research and study.”
The library’s original collection consisted of books and magazines from the family library of museum founders Maie Bartlett Heard and Dwight Bancroft Heard, which reflected a cosmopolitan couple interested in international travel, world anthropology, ethnology and folklore, Spanish Colonial architecture and the American Southwest. The Heards subscribed to numerous specialized periodicals including Travel, The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Art and Archaeology, and Records of the Past. The monograph collection was much larger and included titles like the 1903 first edition of Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, Havasupais by George Wharton James; the 1929 first edition of The Story of the Red Man by Flora Warren Seymour; the 1920 edition of Prehistoric Egypt: British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian Research, by W.M. Flinders Petrie; and 10-volume set of SpanishColonial Architecture in Mexico by Sylvester Baxter, published in 1901. Logic tells us that these documentary resources guided the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Heard Museum and served as inspiration for the Heard’s travel to Egypt and Sudan, a trip documented in his 1926
book An Arizona Traveler. As each work found its new home at the Heard Museum, a decorative bookplate featuring a Navajo sandpainting with an encircling rainbow figure was perfectly mounted on the inside front cover; the design of the bookplate was commissioned and attributed to Harry Behn.
The Heard Museum Library quickly grew, playing an active role in the museum’s activities from its beginning. As a space, it hosted the meetings of the Heard Museum Board of Trustees, over which Maie Heard presided as president of the Executive Committee and Acquisitions Committee. New acquisitions were regularly reported in the meeting minutes. The first purchases were noted in the February 16, 1932 minutes as follows, “7 vols. Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology ($48.50); 1 vol. American Indians by W.K. Moorehead ($5.00); 1 vol. Indian Races of North and South America by [Charles D.] Brownell ($15.00); and 2 Books (Southwestern History) ($10.00).” Donations were also an important source for acquisitions; in the October 8, 1935, minutes, the donation of “a portfolio of plates of Navajo weaving presented to the Museum by the Thirteenth Regional Committee of the Public Works of Art Project and the New Mexico Relief administration” was reported; another donation noted in the January 26, 1937, minutes was described as an “old Report on Explorations and Surveys in Nevada and Arizona, from donor Garth W. Cate.” Arizona newspapers reported on the Heard Museum Library and its holdings; an article in the Phoenix Gazette dated October 1, 1937, carried the headline “Many Books Added by the Heard Museum” and reported that “The library contains several hundred reference books on archaeology and kindred subjects.”
true to Maie Heard’s high standards, was specially ordered or commissioned. Today one can admire some of these early furniture pieces in use in the Library and Archives, though many pieces are in storage. One in particular currently in use is the beautiful wood library table against the east wall, which has two built-in file cabinets and numerous small drawers with old Spanish drawer pulls. This clever piece served both as a desk and a card catalog. Another example is a wood filing cabinet designed by architect H.H. Green.
Library associations were no strangers to the Heard Museum’s early deliberations and activities; museum facilities were provided to the Salt River Valley Librarians Association, the Arizona Library Association and the American Library Association. One notable example was reported on February 8, 1938, when City of Phoenix Head Librarian Miss Jane Hudgins presented to the Heard Board of Trustees a list of books on Arizona and the Southwest that she had compiled; it served as a collecting strategy.
The care taken in the acquisitions process was equally applied to the selection of library furniture, which,
As founder of the Heard Museum Library, Maie Heard single-handedly nurtured its development and growth during her lifetime. Her vision from the beginning was that the Heard Museum would have a museum library that would be integral to its mission. So, as to the question of who was the first librarian of the Heard Museum, Maie Bartlett Heard (1868-1951) would be the answer.
James, George Wharton. The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, Havasupais Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1903. Cover.
RBK: E78.A7J25 1903.
Travel, volume XXV, number 3, July 1915. New York, New York: McBride, Nast & Co., 1915. Cover. PEF: Travel, v. 25, no. 3 (July 1915).
95 Years
Collecting at the Heard Museum of
ANN MARSHALL | DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
If you had visited the Heard Museum on its opening day, December 26, 1929, you would have seen exhibits in 11 galleries, presenting nearly all of the international collection of Indigenous art that Dwight and Maie Heard had developed through their travels to Africa, Hawai'i, Mexico, the Pacific and the western United States. The Heards’ daughter-in-law, Winifred Heard, recalled her first visit to the Heard home in 1921.
She saw room after room filled with their collection and urged the Heards to create a museum where they could share the art with the community. Fortunately, the Heards were persuaded to undertake the project. Viewed in context, presenting Indigenous art of the world was something no other museum in the state was doing.
Having decided to build a museum, the Heards began augmenting their personal collection. By at least 1927, Herb BraMé and Allie Walling BraMé of the Arizona Curio
Maria and Julian Martinez (P’o Woe-geh Ówîngeh, 1887-1980 and 1879-1943), vase, c. 1935. Clay, slip, 19 x 14 inches. NA-SW-Si-A10-2.
Company were working on commission, purchasing Indigenous art of the western United States. Allie would become the museum’s first curator. The Heards also purchased from local American Indian art stores and major dealers, including the Fred Harvey Company. It is important to recognize that their collecting approach was measured and small-scale, quite different from that of large Eastern museums, which had expeditions in the field collecting on a massive scale.
With the museum building completed in 1928, exhibit installation began. When Dwight Heard suffered a fatal heart attack on March 14, 1929, it was left to Maie to make the museum a reality. Maie shaped the collection’s growth. Relying on the guidance of curator Allie BraMé, she also sought advice from a distinguished unofficial advisory group. The group included Southwestern archaeologist Dr. Emil Haury of the Arizona State Museum, Tucson; Harold Colton, founder of the Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff; Frederick Webb Hodge, director of the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles; Frederic H. Douglas, curator of Native arts at the Denver Art Museum; and Rene d’Harnoncourt of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Maie’s interest in growing the collection focused on cultural arts rather than painting and sculpture. Her correspondence regarding acquisitions reflects an emphasis on aesthetic and technical quality. Throughout her 22 years of guiding the museum, Maie’s conservative approach to quality over quantity did not waver. She did not want to add an artwork that wouldn’t be exhibited. Also, regard for “authentic” did not blind her to “contemporary.” Her acquisition of a superb Maria and Julian Martinez blackware vase, a departure from earlier San Ildefonso polychromes, was an example of collecting and appreciating change in cultural art. At the time of Maie’s death in 1951, the museum collection was a slightly expanded version of the Heards’ personal collection. That changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s with the gift of major collections.
Foundational Collections
Perhaps the museum’s best-known collection was donated in 1964 by Senator Barry M. Goldwater. His collection of more than 430 Hopi katsina carvings
included carvings created in the late 1800s. The most recent were 50 carvings that Goldwater had commissioned from Oswald White Bear Fredericks in an effort to include as many representations of the Katsinam as possible.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the museum received collections that were critical to expanding the stories that exhibitions could tell. The Fred Harvey Fine Arts Collection, given in 1978 by the heirs of travel entrepreneur Fred Harvey, may be the most impactful gift received by the museum to date. The gift of more than 4,000 artworks of unsurpassed quality extended the Heard’s original, primarily 20th-century collection back to the mid-19th century. The gift included spectacular examples of textiles, jewelry, katsina dolls, ceramics, and beadwork by artists of the western United States.
Artist Once Known (Hopi), Wakas (cow) katsina doll carving, 1930s-1940s. Cottonwood root, paint, feathers, cloth, 13 x 9.75 x 6.5 inches. Gift of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, NA-SW-Ho-F-327.
Ending Anonymity
A review of the museum’s collection in the 1950s would have found that very few works were associated with the artist’s name, apart from pottery, which increasingly was signed. Two important collections of the 1960s and 1970s added art that changed those circumstances. In 1975, Charles Garret Wallace, longtime trader at Pueblo of Zuni and on the Navajo Nation, donated 500 pieces of jewelry with information on 95% of the collection, included artists’ names, dates of creation within 10 years, and identification of stones. His gift meant that the museum had the best-documented collection of Zuni and Navajo jewelry in a public collection at that time.
Between 1961 and 1978, Heard Museum trustee Read Mullan gave 87 Diné textiles by named artists, many of whom had won awards in juried competitions. The majority of Mullan’s collection spanned the period from 1950 to 1970, the high point of regionalism, when textiles were being appreciated as cultural art rather than floor coverings. Mullan also donated sandpainting weavings by Hastíín Klah (18671937), which are the earliest works done by this master weaver.
Collecting
Contemporary Fine Art
It was not until the 1960s that the museum began to address the original collection’s lack of painting and sculpture. A series of contemporary solo artist sales shows in the 1960s was followed, beginning in 1973, by invitational
Leekya Deyuse (Zuni Pueblo, 1889-1966), fetish necklace, 1926. Turquoise, shell, jet, coral, longest strand 31.5 inches. Gift of Mr. C.G. Wallace, NA-SW-Zu-J-277.
sculpture and painting exhibitions that were also sales shows. Invitationals included artists from across the United States and Canada. Over the years, art purchased at these exhibitions has been given to the museum collection. These gifts and exhibitions started the museum on a distinctive collecting path, making it a leader in its field and becoming institutionally defining.
Valuing Innovation and Heritage
Appreciation of innovation in art, regardless of the medium, is a continuing collecting value moving forward from Maie Heard’s time. It is based on the celebration of living, changing cultures and valuing creativity in all its forms. Many of the knowledgeable collectors who have given to the museum from those mid-century decades to the present have built their collections through meeting artists at events, such as the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. The Heard Museum Shop has, since its founding in 1958, been a source for innovative
artworks, sought by collectors, who ultimately donated them to the museum. The collectors have over the years developed expert knowledge of technical and aesthetic aspects of the art and personal friendships with artists whose careers they have followed. Those gifts have been essential to the museum’s ability to exhibit the latest and best of artistic innovation. Beyond gifts of collections, the opportunity to purchase is extremely important. While collections may take decades to build, the gift of purchase funds has made it possible for the Heard to purchase art at the cutting edge. As contemporary artists have expanded areas of interest, including fashion and photography, the museum has been fortunate to receive gifts and the means to purchase from artists such as Will
Wilson, Cara Romero, Meryl Mc Master and Tanya Lukin Linklater.
Valuing innovation in the museum’s collecting is complemented by recognizing the Indigenous artistic heritage that inspires many contemporary artists. The museum continues to welcome into the collection gifts of cultural art from the 19th and early 20th centuries that influenced the wider art world. The importance of this heritage has been most recently explored through Virginia G. Piper Grand Gallery exhibitions.
Looking into the future, it is clear that while much has changed since the Heard Museum’s opening day in 1929, celebrating Indigenous artists’ voices and visions through exhibiting the museum’s impressive collection has not changed. Maie Heard would be pleased.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Enrolled Flathead Salish, b. 1940), Indian Head Nickel, 1994. Mixed media, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches. Gift of Lynne and Albion Fenderson, 4611-1.
Jamie Okuma Scarf Collection
18 Karat White & Yellow Gold Star Pendant BY RAY TRACEY (NAVAJO)
Pendant 4" long, 1 1/2" wide, chain 22" long
$14,500.00
Antler & Multi-Stone Inlay Maiden Fetish BY CLAUDIA PEINA (ZUNI)
3 1/4" tall x 1" wide x 1" deep $475.00
Blanket BY LYNDA TELLER PETE (NAVAJO) 16” x 22” $6,400.00
Child's
Soaps by SHIMÁ of Navajoland
Scents: Grandmother Mountain, Clear Sky, Mint Clan, Navajo Tea, Blue Corn, Prickly Pear • 4 oz
$12.00 EACH
Beaded Earrings BY JANE ALEX (NAVAJO)
3 3/4" long (including earring hook) x 1 1/2" wide
$80.00
Multi-stone inlay earrings BY MARY TAFOYA (SANTO DOMINGO)
Beaded Fringe Keyring BY MARLIN HOPPER (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)
Handmade Fleece Stuffed Animals BY AUDRIS JOE (NAVAJO)
Sizes & Colors Vary • 9 1/2" - 14" tall
$32.00 - $60.00
Archie the Jackrabbit Heardlings T-Shirt
Unisex fit. 50/50 cotton/ poly blend. • Youth Sizes
XS - XL
$32.00 - $60.00
Moondance 2024: Celebrating the Museum Shop Reopening
DAN HAGERTY | CHIEF ADVANCEMENT & ENGAGEMENT OFFICER
On Saturday, Oct. 26, the Heard’s annual gala, Moondance, celebrated the museum’s new season with the reopening of the Howard R. and Joy M. Berlin Museum Shop after an extensive five-month renovation. The 430 attendees were the very first to have the opportunity to explore the spectacular new Shop while also enjoying the museum’s major fall exhibition, Meryl McMaster: Bloodline Guests were welcomed by cellist Jaden Chavez; Craig Bohmler (Cherokee) played selections on Maie Bartlett Heard’s 1930 Mason & Hamlin grand piano; and Mario Garcia (Akimel O’odham/Pima) serenaded guests with his jazz guitar in the Pritzlaff Courtyard. Sydney Marian (Navajo) performed a beautifully delivered rendition of the national anthem. M Culinary presented a selection of hors d’oeuvres and a delicious dinner topped off with a chocolate caramel mousse. Guests danced into the late hours to tunes that spanned the decades performed by nine-piece band The Instant Classics. Thanks to the leadership of Moondance chairs Merle and Steve Rosskam, supported by an outstanding gala committee, proceeds from the gala and Shop reopening surpassed $1 million. A special highlight were the works for sale in the Shop made by members of the gala’s Artist Committee, including Barbara Teller Ornelas (Diné), Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Jared Chavez (San Felipe Pueblo), Steven Yazzie (Laguna Pueblo/Diné) and Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo). It was a spectacular evening to launch the new Shop!
If you would like to receive an invitation to next year’s Moondance, let us know, and save the date! Moondance 2025 will take place on October 25, 2025, and we hope you’ll join us!
Chairs Steve and Merle Rosskam with family members
Janet and John Melamed
The Heard Museum Shops' new Texile Room
Tom and Mary Hudak with Director David M. Roche
Dr. Thomas McClammy and Life Trustee Mary Ellen McKee
Architect Erik Peterson with Kimberly Peteson and Nancy Kitchell
Harry and Rose Papp with Stephanie and Michael Correia
Honoree DY Begay with family and friends
Art Education: Inspiring Hearts and Minds
MARCUS MONENERKIT | DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
In the surveys completed by students attending the Heard Museum’s cultural art workshops over the last 10 years, the most common answer to the question How could the workshop be improved? is “More time!”
What is it about an art class that makes people want more? Many studies point to the sense of accomplishment and creative inspiration we get when we make things. Finding fulfillment through making art is an important lesson from the classroom, but I suspect there is something bigger happening in these expressive experiences that keeps people wanting more.
In his 1981 essay “Leisure and Socialization,” psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains how authentic experiences such as playing games, having a good conversation or crafting a basket set the benchmark for what feels good and satisfying in life. The engagement we feel when practicing the arts makes us want more. We feel naturally good when totally immersed in the art classroom because it takes
us away from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives. It is where we lose ourselves and find “flow,” a concept Csikszentmihalyi coined in the social sciences in the 1980s. This is the sublime and inexplicable state many of us have experienced when we are so focused on an activity that effort is easy, background noise is reduced and time seems to stand still. It is a common phenomenon found in sports, music and all forms of artmaking.
It is also an integral component within the laws of nature. Flow is necessary to sustain life. Adrian Bejan, physics professor at Duke University, formulated the concept of Constructal Law, which says that every animate and inanimate object has flow.
Thinking about how these universal life-nourishing activities are found in the art classroom begins to answer my question, What is it about the art classroom that keeps people coming back? They are coming for the flow, they are coming for life.
Red Willow basket workshop with Jilli Oyenque, (Ohkay Owingeh),
I n the Meryl McMaster: Bloodline exhibition, butterflies can be seen throughout the gallery. Butterflies are special to McMaster because they remind her of her grandmothers.
Take a walk together and gather fall leaves from your neighborhood. Use the leaves you gathered to decorate the butterfly below. Use a glue stick to cover the butterfly wings and stick leaves or flowers on the wings. Have fun playing with shape and color!
Member Exclusives & Family Programs This Season!
ADVERSARIO | ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP & CIRCLES OF GIVING
Members are the lifeline of the Heard Museum. When you step onto campus, we hope you see all that you make possible—the exhibitions, the programs and the Heard’s mission to connect Indigenous creativity to the world. Your continued support through your attendance, dedication and interest in our events makes this work even more meaningful, and we look forward to seeing you throughout the year.
As a Heard Museum Member, your support grants you exclusive access to behind-the-scenes looks at exhibitions, deeper insight into the permanent collections, and special benefits at programs and events. Don’t forget to use your 10% discount at the Heard Museum Shop, Cantina and Café each time you visit!
This season we have much in store for you. Mark your calendars for another fantastic year of membership!
DECEMBER 2024
THURS. 5 P
Curator Talk: Art & Sole with Olivia Barney
Curator Talk: Space Makers with Diana Pardue FRI. 6
THURS. 12 Drum in South Courtyard with the Cozad Singers
KIM ALEXIS
SAT. 14
THURS. 19
M Director of Research Ann Marshall
Heardlings Art Cart: Paper Dolls
W Makerspace: Special Edition— Sewing
M Members Holiday Party
E Opening of Hoop Dance! Exhibition
FRI. - MON 27-30 P Holidays at the Heard JANUARY 2025
THURS. 2
Heardlings Art Cart: iSpy
3 P First Friday: Concert Series
THURS. 9 P
SAT. 11 M
THURS. 16
THURS. 23 P
Curator Talk: Hoop Dance! with Velma Kee Craig
Chief Curator Diana Pardue
Heardlings Storytelling LIVE
Drum in Piper Courtyard with the Cozad Singers
Curator Talk: Third Dimension with Olivia Barney E Circles of Giving + Member Preview of Storyteller: The Photography of Jerry Jacka
SAT.. 25 W K-12 Educator Night SUN. 26 P
Skate Hemapai: Celebration of Skateboarding, Culture, Art & Community
KEY CODE:
Donor Event
Members only
Workshop
Public Event E New Exhibition Family Program
FEBRUARY 2025
SUN. 2
Heardlings Art Cart: Hoop Dance! THURS. 6 P
Curator Talk: Space Makers with Diana Pardue
First Friday: Storyteller Exhibition Opening
Opening of Adorned with Memory: Jewelry from the Basha Family Collection of American Indian Art
Assistant Registrar Roshii Montaño (Diné)
Curator Talk: Bloodline with Roshii Montaño
35th Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest
Drum in South Courtyard with the Cozad Singers
Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market: Best of Show Reception
MARCH 2025
- SUN. 1-2
1
67th Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market
Members’ Early Entry: Saturday
Curator Talk: Third Dimension with Olivia Barney
Curator Talk: Adorned with Memory with Roshii Montaño WED. 12
Heardlings Art Cart: Jacla Necklace
APRIL 2025
Member Spotlight:
Norma Jean Coulter
KIM ALEXIS ADVERSARIO | ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP & CIRCLES OF GIVING
You have been a Heard Museum Member since 1964. Why did you decide to join?
In the 1960s, young wives who did not work outside the home were expected to be involved in community activities. With a degree in post-colonial Southwest history, and newly located in Phoenix from Tucson, I could find nothing of interest to me until a friend brought me to the Heard. Although I knew little about Native culture, I saw an opportunity to learn more about the Southwest from a different approach. And everyone seemed welcoming, unlike several other organizations to which I had been introduced.
What motivated you to become even more involved with the museum by being a Heard Museum Guild Member and a Life Trustee of the Heard Museum Board?
After joining the Guild, I quickly became involved in as many learning experiences as I could, enjoying every minute. Eventually I chaired some programs, including the Fair, and eventually I became Guild president. Traditionally the Guild president served her term as an exofficio member of the Heard Board of Trustees, a big honor. During my year I was asked to do a project for two board members, Les Shaefer and Bud Jacobson; when my year was finished, I was invited to serve as a regular member of the board, and I was excited! After serving 12 years I was asked if I would be interested in becoming a Life Trustee, which I gratefully accepted. Staying involved at this level has been a central part of my life outside of family, and I continue to be involved on two board committees as well as attending board meetings.
When you reflect on your time with the Heard Museum, what would be your biggest takeaway from your years of involvement?
My experience is that any area in which you participate in the museum’s programs gives you much more than you give. Every area, from [tour] guiding and [working in] the Shop to the information desk and lectures in the Artist Series, provides a learning experience. Volunteering in each of these areas gives you the opportunity to share the museum with guests from all over the world.
The Heard Museum is celebrating its 95th anniversary this December 26. What has been your favorite exhibition or program?
As a history major, any exhibitions focused on history are favorites, and especially for me the ones done about the Harvey Houses and collection. That being said, the contemporary art exhibitions have given me an appreciation of an area for which I had no prior knowledge. There have only been one or two exhibitions in 50 years that I have not enjoyed. And I look forward with enthusiasm each time I set foot on the grounds of the Heard.
What
are your hopes for the future of the organization?
I see nothing but good things for the Heard Museum in the future. Our reputation is firmly established and we have a great staff. But more importantly, the staff has recognized the importance of programming for a younger audience while maintaining our standards. This should ensure the continued positive future path for the Heard.
Every area, from [tour] guiding and [working in] the Shop to the information desk and lectures in the Artist Series, provides a learning experience. Volunteering in each of these areas
gives you the opportunity to share the museum with guests from all over the world.
The Photography of Jerry Jacka Storyteller:
OPEN JAN. 24, 2025
Storyteller: The Photography of Jerry Jacka celebrates the life and work of Jerry Jacka through nearly 134,000 photographs gifted to the Heard Museum by his family. The exhibition highlights his renowned photography featured in Arizona Highways Magazine and his intimate portraits of American Indian artists at work.
These photographs will be paired with pieces of the artists’ jewelry, pottery, Katsina dolls, and baskets from the Heard Museum’s collection.
The exhibition aims to celebrate Jerry Jacka’s major contribution to art and photography, showcasing how he introduced a wide audience to the beauty of Arizona and the talents of major American Indian artists, primarily from the Southwest. Visitors will see artists working in their studios, collecting materials, and firing pottery, providing a view of the art-making process. The photographs span several decades, offering glimpses of well-known artists in their younger years, and are paired with biographical information about Jerry and his wife, Lois Essary Jacka, who collaborated with him on popular books about these artists.
