HEARTS OF OUR PEOPLE: Native Women Artists

Anita Fields (Osage, b. 1951), Osage Wedding Coat, 2018, wool, satin, silk, embroidery, beads, clay buttons, top hat, feathers, Coat: 45” x 58” x 18”, Hat: 20” x 20”, Photo courtesy of Anita Fields, L2018.194, Photograph: Tom Fields

“Everyone takes these beautiful black and white photos of our men. The women—the grandmas, mothers, and aunties created what the men wore. They were carrying the power and the legacy, silently.” —Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Dakota and Nakoda)

It’s been expressed that this exhibition has been in the making for over a decade, or even that the art in it spans the last one thousand years, but in reality, this exhibition has been in the making since the first indigenous woman was created. With over 115 pieces of art, Hearts of Our People is creating the change for Native women artists, for North America, and even creating change within our fine art museums and institutions. The positive outpouring on social media, the press, and the shift in museum operations because of this landmark exhibition is taking root all around us. During her interview, Teri Greeves (Kiowa), co-curator of Hearts of Our People, said that when institutions only have white culture saying what we as Native women artists are—we need to tell in our own voice, what we are. The material culture is what man can hold. Our voice is through our story, our dances, our ceremony. Not our beads.” It’s exciting that this essential need in the fine art world for Native women is happening right here in Oklahoma with the Philbrook Museum of Art, and includes so many of our own artists, writers, and curators.

Alongside this exhibition celebrating, honoring, and acknowledging all of the beautiful cultures of the indigenous peoples of North America, this exhibition also shows the true histories of the cultures through the voices of Native women. Native people across the United States and Canada face histories of both past and present on-going traumas, genocides, murder, violence against women, and loss of indigenous identity. Non-Native governments, institutions, and people are still fighting present day to erase the indigenous peoples from North America. “We will not be erased, our spirits are led by those who came before us, and prayed us into the present,” words by Anita Fields. These women are using their voices to speak for their families, their ancestors, and their tribal cultures that did not always have the voice to do so. They don’t do this selfishly; they do this for all people, past, present, and future.

Five years ago, the curators invited twenty-one artists and scholars from many different nations from all over North America to Minneapolis to begin the radical process to culturally curate the ground-breaking exhibition, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. Rather than a museum curatorial staff designing an exhibition and inviting a single Native artist to an initial meeting only, Hearts of our People was collaboratively created together with all the voices of all the women, Native and non-Native, throughout the curatorial process. Every single woman interviewed expressed how this exhibition’s creation is an extension of the vast Native cultural norms of collective consensus within community decision-making versus a typical institutional museum’s singular curation. The Oklahomans on the local advisory board are America Meredith (Cherokee), Juanita Pahdopony (Comanche), Christina Burke, Ruthe Blalock Jones (Peoria, Shawnee, and Delaware), Mary Jo Watson (Seminole), and Anita Fields (Osage and Mvskoke Creek).

Christina Burke, the curator of Native American and nonwestern art at Philbrook explained that the exhibition is divided into three parts: Power, Legacy, and Relationships. During her interview on Legacy, Joyce Growing Thunder (Nakoda and Dakota) said, these women have not always had their voices honored, respected, or even acknowledged throughout history. We work on our legacy daily. We are carrying on what our grandmothers do. We’re carrying on their work. It’s a blessing to do what they did in the same way and same manners.” Joyce, her mother Juanita (Nakoda and Dakota), and her daughter Jessa Rae Growing Thunder have their collaborate piece, Give Away Horses (dress and accessories), in the Legacy themed section. Jessa Rae expressed how excited she is that the museums have all created the artist cards in each person’s tribal language, and then has them translated to English. The audio tracks for spoken word throughout Philbrook will also be in the Native languages of the women in the exhibition. Joyce Growing Thunder Fogarty (Dakota (Eastern Sioux)/Assiniboine (Nakoda), b. 1950), Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Dakota (Eastern Sioux)/Assiniboine (Nakoda), b. 1969), and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Dakota (Eastern Sioux)/Assiniboine (Nakoda), b. 1989), Give Away Horses (dress and accessories), 2006, deer hide, glass beads, canvas, thread, leather, moose hide, German silver, porcupine quills, feathers, elk hide, brass bells, ribbon, silk ribbons, and brass thimbles, 67 7/8” × 28 11/16” × 43”, Collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution 26/5818-5821

Valjean McCarty Hessing (Choctaw, 1934–2006), Choctaw Removal, 1966, watercolor on board, 7 7/8” x 21 1/2”, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Museum purchase, 1967.24

The pieces are not grouped like a typical exhibition is chronologically, but through those three themes transcending again, how Native art is viewed and experienced. With Philbrook being a smaller space than some of the others on the exhibition route, Christina curated a smaller selection of the overall show, but also honored the local tribes surrounding the Philbrook Museum of Art. Philbrook and the local advisory board are acknowledging the Mvskoke Creek people were inhabiting and living on the specific land where Philbrook now sits. The layout of the exhibition itself is designed with Mvskoke Creek curvature for the community to physically walk through rather than traditional squared gallery walls and walkways.

16 During one of the many conversations with Christina she said, “I included work by any artist whose tribe is affiliated with Oklahoma, including Arapaho and Seneca. I think this shows the diversity of Native nations in Oklahoma and the inclusivity of the exhibition.” When the community enters the space, they will be viewing a piece by Choctaw artist Valjean McCarty Hessing entitled, preview

Choctaw Removal. This piece was important for Christina to open the viewer to as it is a pertinent and difficult part of the history of Oklahoma. Some of the other Oklahoma artists are Joan Hill (Mvskoke Creek and Cherokee), America Meredith (Cherokee), and the late Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokees). Shan wrote about her hand-woven basket, Hearts of our Women, on her website before her passing. Shan wrote, “I was struck with the realization that most of the studio portraits featured men, not women. And most of the women who were photographed were identified as if they were the chattel of men. I felt very fiercely that these beautiful, strong women, who were representative of a variety of Indigenous Nations, deserved recognition and honor beyond these labels.” The piece by Joan Hill, Women’s Voices at Council, is from the Betty Price Gallery at the Oklahoma State Capitol. During his interview, Alan Atkinson, Oklahoma Art Council, stated that “it was given as a gift to commemorate the creation of the Oklahoma State Commission of Women in 1990.”

Anita Field’s piece, Osage Wedding Coat & Hat, will be in the Power section of the exhibition, and was commissioned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Anita said, “This piece is about the continuum of Osage philosophies of the earth and sky. I wanted it to show the transformation, the good and the bad, the treaties, and have the ribbon work and embroidery symbolize our women.” During her interview, Anita powerfully expressed, “Art is the thread that holds everything together. It’s why we create things.” Anita Fields is an Osage and Mvskoke Creek woman artist. Anita serves on both the Native Exhibition Advisory Board (NEAB) and local the advisory board with Philbrook Museum of Art for Hearts of Our People. Anita discussed how it felt to hold the historical Osage wedding coat and other art pieces in the archives at the Osage Museum and at the Philbrook Museum of Art. She discussed how things were made by ancestors and even some things we make as artists now don’t always have names or signatures on them. A woman would make their child’s moccasins, but there would be no signature as these things were not created to sit in a museum or archive. Looking at these items in an archive she said, “It’s so powerful

CLOCKWISE (left to right): America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), Bambi Makes Some Extra Bucks Modeling at the Studio, 2002, acrylic on cradled hardboard panel, 24” × 30 ½”, National Collection of Contemporary Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shan Goshorn, Hearts of our Women, 2015, Arches watercolor paper splints printed with archival inks, acrylic paint, copper foil, center basket approx 8” X 8” X 26”, 10 smaller baskets approx 4” X 4” X 4” each. Joan Hill (Muscogee (Creek)/Cherokee, b. 1930). Women’s Voices at the Council, 1990, acrylic on canvas, 38 ½” × 28 1/2”, Oklahoma State Art Collection, courtesy of the Oklahoma Arts Council, Gift of the artist on behalf of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1990

because you feel the energy of the maker. Their love, compassion, the justice or the injustice.” Hearts of Our People is a raw experience that shows all walks of real life that we have to endure. Anita said the exhibitions is a representation of, “the happiness, the joys, the sadness, and the hardships of life.”

There is a book accompanying the show with Anita Field’s work on the cover as well. Teri Greeves said that, “the book is a body of scholarship, and this exhibition is a survey show—absolutely not the definitive book of Native women’s art. This exhibition and book are a launching point, and not an ending or landing.” This influential exhibition, curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves, is organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and is part of a four-gallery tour, with the last stop being the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma June 28 th to September 20 th , 2020. The Local Advisory Board members and Philbrook Museum have many communities-led and local Native artist events this summer for the community locally, and those coming in from all over North America. n

Kristin Gentry is citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, an artist, writer, educator, and curator of art. She also notes that she chose to not use the English spelling of Muscogee Creek, and used Mvskoke Creek for this article.