West by Southwest Ernie Bulow

LEEKYA

MASTER CARVER OF ZUNI PUEBLO

Deborah C. Slaney created a magnificent tribute to the Leekya family with a show last summer and fall plus a beautiful book that is a treasure in itself. Sadly, the book only had a small print run (around 750 copies), and it will become an instant collector’s item. The gift shop at the Museum of Albuquerque has some for sale, and I urge anyone interested in the Leekya family, Zuni jewelry, and Indian art in general to purchase one today.

Deb Slaney, Curator of History at the Albuquerque Museum, has considerable museum experience and has worked with the Wallace collection at the Heard Museum and written about it. She was he bought his fetishes by the bucket for a dollar apiece. Another said he paid fifty cents. Take your pick. Recently a four-strand necklace of his sold for more than twenty thousand dollars, more money than he made in his whole lifetime.

Questions about names, dates, influences, and the veracity of informants plague the biographies of all the early Zuni artists. Slaney takes on each of these questions and gives an excellent overview, mostly letting her sources speak for themselves, and then

FREDDY LEEKYA HAS CREATED SOME GREAT FIGURES INCLUDING THIS FLUTE PLAYER. HE HAS ALSO DONE A CHIEF HOLDING A PEACEPIPE. THIS BOOK CELEBRATES THE WORK AND CONTIBUTIONS TO ZUNI ART.

the curator of the Leekya show, as well as the writer and producer of the book. Wallace becomes rather significant in the Leekya story because of the famous Sotheby Parke

Bernet catalog (1975), documenting about half the Wallace collection. She points out that Leekya has ninetynine pieces there, nearly ten percent of the total.

The Museum of Albuquerque exhibition gathered a marvelous collection of 350 pieces borrowed from 42 lenders; museums and private collections. Slaney interviewed all the surviving members of the original Leekya family. Sadly, Sarah, who carved in her father’s style, passed away late last year.

Probably no other carver was ever as prolific as Leekya—not much doubt about that. One trader told me LEEKYA STONES AND DE DIOS SILVERWORK. THIS BRACELET IS STILL OWNED BY THE PERSON WHO BOUGHT IT DIRECTLY FROM LEEKYA IN THE FORTIES.

Ernie’s Selfie

West by Southwest

by Ernie Bulow

THIS HUNTER BY ENRIKE LEEKYA SHOWS THE COMPLEX STYLE THAT MOVES FETISHES TO SCULPTURE. leaves the reader to draw the conclusions that best suit.

The question of dates is probably the most confusing. Any Zuni born in the nineteenth century or the early years of the twentieth has an uncertain birth date. Often these folks don’t know the date themselves with any certainty. There seems to be general agreement on 1889 for Leekya.

The name is a much bigger problem. It has been claimed that the name was Leak (Wallace’s house name) or even Leekity, which is an entirely different, but justifiably famous family. It seems like this should be a non-issue. The 1919 census is the first census listing him as Leekya. In the 1940 census, the last one available publicly, the name is still plain Leekya. Family members say he did not like the Deyuse name and gave all his children Leekya as the patronymic. Anglos demanded two names when a person entered school, an occupation, or the army. Correct spelling optional.

In the 1930 federal census, he gave his occupation as “laborer.” This is odd because he had large holdings of sheep and cattle. In the 1940 census, he called himself a silversmith. Slaney says this was a designation commonly used by carvers, but in the same census Leo Poblano uses “turquoise cutter” and Teddy Weahkee called himself “gem cutter.” There are several men who offered “turquoise grinder.” Regardless of his real name, date of birth, and title, Old Man Leekya was important for several reasons. People have described him as a happy man with a great sense of humor. A sense of humor is a tribal characteristic. But few artists have made it so much a characteristic of their work. His chubby, friendly, smiling animals call down a variety of adjectives, but I like “whimsical” because there is nothing forced about it, just reflecting the way he saw the world. Besides the popularity of his fetishes, he was also probably the first commercial carver in Zuni, and that gave others the inspiration to work for cash. Who was first to go public with their carvings? The other top contenders are Theodore Kukate and Teddy Weahkee. If Leekya sold his first carvings in 1910 or shortly after, he is the leader. In 1910 he was twenty-one.

It is well established that early in his career, necklaces, especially the tab type with large flat beads, were in demand, both in the village and outside. Joseph Tanner, the original J.B., had developed an ancient turquoise digging in Arizona not far from Tombstone, known as Turquoise Mountain. His actual deposit was known as the Tanner Tunnel. He would eventually sell the mine to C. G. Wallace.

Each time he came back from Arizona with a fresh load, one of his first stops

HAYES LEEKYA BEARS HAVE THE LEEKYA TOUCH.

THIS LONGHORN BY ENRIKE

LEEKYA OF PICASSO MARBLE. was at Leekya’s. There J. B. would give him a quantity of turquoise, and Leekya would give him back half the stone made into beads, keeping the rest for himself. This was not the soft, low-grade stone he

was known to carve. Joe Tanner still has one of these necklaces.

Besides acting as an inspiration for the emerging Zuni jewelry trade in the village, he added some great artists to the roster with his children, and it has passed down to third and fourth generations. Because of growing up with and helping with his fetishes, most of his children learned to carve the little animals; all of them, with the possible exception of Sarah, switched to silversmithing. Son Francis and daughter Alice both worked in a style known as random pattern, fish scale, or snakeskin.

Francis has been highly regarded in the jewelry business and has won many awards. Two of his most intriguing creations are little known. He was co-creator of a prize-winning chess set. His most ambitious piece was never finished. Joe Wells was one of the owners of a Vegas casino, the

Thunderbird, erected in 1948, second hotel on the Strip. Wells gave Joe Tanner the commission of creating a jeweled replica of the Thunderbird sign. Tanner gave Francis the job, but the piece was never completed after the hotel changed ownership.

Most of Francis’ eleven children became carvers. Son Francis Jr. does mostly silver work, and daughter Orina Netsa is also a jeweler. Freddy, Delvin, and Hayes have all become renowned carvers. Now Hayes’ son Joshua and Enrique Leekya, Freddy’s son, are carrying on the tradition. In typical Zuni fashion, each generation adds something. Hayes has stayed closest to Old Man Leekya’s style, and his animals have the sly smile his father was famous for. Freddy has added some memorable characters with his boy scouts, humanistic frogs, and animals like happy frogs that were never part of the original pantheon. His buffalo, bears, and bulls are distinctively his own. Enrique has carried innovation to new heights with carvings of African lions, giraffes, funny pigs, and antlered creatures like elk and moose. He solved the problem of delicate horns by making them out of cedar and removable. This means they won’t break in shipping. My personal favorite is the kangaroo rat, common to the southwest with its long, tufted tail. He carves the tails separately to avoid breakage. All the family carves in Zuni stone, Zuni rock, or Leekya rock, a travertine mostly known for its off-yellow coloring. It comes in many shades from almost white to a dark brown, which is rare and its source a guarded secret. One could only wish that other families received similar attention.

THUNDERBIRD CASINO’S SIGN, 1948. FRANCIS LEEKYA TOOK UP CARVING WHEN HE WAS NO LONGER ABLE TO MAKE JEWELRY.

- ernie@buffalomedicine.com

THE THUNDERBIRD FRANCIS WAS MAKING FOR THE VEGAS CASINO.

Gallup Native Arts Market Artists

Aaron John - Navajo

Started: I started working on my art in 1980. I am self-taught. Students under my tutelage are my sons, Alonzo and Colt John.

Styles: The styles I use are: Tufa Casting, Overlay, and Lapidary. My favorite designs are Hummingbirds and Dragonflies.

Galleries: Galleries that carry my work: Perry Null Trading, Ortega’s on the Plaza, Garland’s Indian Jewelry, and Wright’s Gallery.

Derrick Gordon - Navajo

Started: Summer 1990

Styles: Traditional, Contemporary, and one-of-a-kind pieces

Awards: 2009-1st place, 2012- 2nd, 3rd place, 2015-1st place Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial

Galleries: Bonecutter Trading Company, Perry Null Trading, Running Bear Trading, Gallup Trading

Gabriel Gonzales

Started: I started making pottery in 1990. My teachers have been my mother, Presingula Chinana, and my uncle, Donald Chinana.

Styles: My style is Contemporary Pueblo Pottery, Traditional Burnished with stone and fired outdoors.

Awards: 1997 - Indian Market - 1st Place. 1998 - Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council, Arts Craftsman Show – 1st Place. 1998 - Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council, Arts Craftsman Show – 2nd Place 1999 - Indian Market – 1st Place 1999 - Indian Market – 3rd Place

Started: I started silversmithing in 1986. I learned silversmithing from my parents, John and Fannie Mike, and learned the Contemporary Style design while working at The White Hogan in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona. I taught my son Troy Hubbell Mike to silversmith, and I am currently teaching the art to my granddaughter, Phoenix T. Lewis.

Awards: 1995 Pueblo Grande Museum First Emerging Artist award, 1996 The Leona King Gallery Award for Best Indian Jewelry and Metal Craft, 1998 Two Best in Class awards from Lovena Ohl Foundation, 1999 won the Curator’s Award at Navajo Market at Museum of Northern Arizona, 2008 Two Best in Category at Fort McDowell Indian Market.

Galleries: Heard Museum, Bill Faust Gallery, Perry Null, and Navajo Arts & Craft/ Window Rock, Az.

Jovanna Poblano

Started: I started making my art a lifetime or two ago in 1990. I am presently teaching my youngest son, Leonardo, to carve. My mother, Veronica Poblano, and I taught Zuni High School students this past school year, where my son was one of the students.

Style: My style of art is one-of-a-kind beaded wearable art and older stylized Zuni Carvings. My beaded art is selftaught, and it was my first form of art I started creating, with the encouragement of my mother Veronica when we lived in California. I started carving about 10 years ago on-and-off. This year I have decided that it will be the focus of my art career.

Awards: Heard Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, and Gallup Ceremonial.

Galleries: Keshi The Zuni Connection, Heard Museum, Smithsonian Museum Gift Shop, and NYC. Wright’s Indian Art.

Kevin Coriz

Started: I was about 13 when I started creating art. I like to share ideas and techniques with my family.

Style: I enjoy creating both contemporary and traditional. I learned Inlay/Lapidary from Francisco F. Coriz, my grandfather, and Jolene Bird, my aunt, silversmith - various classes/workshops, and self.

Awards: I have not yet won any awards.

Galleries: You can see my art at Turquoise Skies, Inc. on their website.