Good Reads About American Indian Art

If you are interested in American Indian Art—and of course you are, or you would not be here, right?–you might be interested in the following tidbits.

Events

Turquoise

Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show, American Indian Expo, Flamingo Quality Inn, Stone Avenue, Tucson AZ, January 31-Feburary 14. Featured artists and craftsmen, dancing, food.
Tulsa Indian Art Festival, OK, February 11-13, Juried art show and performances and demonstrations.

American Indian Music Festival, Casa Grande National Monument, Arizona, Feburary 12 and 13. This event was new to me, but it is only the third annual. The website promises food and crafts as well as music. Now if the weather will cooperate.

Southwest American Indian Art Fair, the Arizona Museum on the campus of University of Arizona, Tucson, February 19 and 20. Juried show with finest in crafts from around the country. Performance area with music, craft demonstrations, and food booths.

Indian Fair and Market, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ, March 6 and 7. Juried art show, book signings, music and dances.

Both the Denver Art Museum and the Boston Museum of Art have recently opened enlarged Native American collections. In fact, Denver claims to be the first museum to collect American Indian art.

Reading

I’m currently reading  A New Deal for Native Art: Indian Arts and Federal Policy, 1933-1943 by Jennifer McClerran. It is a must read for anyone interested in the development of American Indian Art starting in the 1930s. We have invited Jennifer to stop by Tahoma Blog and talk to us about the book because it intersects with Tahoma’s life in art.

Travelers in the Southwest should not miss Canyon de Chelley, and the nearby Hubbel Trading Post National Monument at Ganado.  On my reading stack, I have a beautiful book, Tséyi’ / Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly, about Canyon de Chelley by Navajo poet Laura Tohe and photographer Stephen E. Strom. If you say Tséyi’, the Navajo word for “place deep in the rock”) will come out sounding like what the Spanish heard–Chelley (in Spanish pronounced Shay).

I treasure a copy I acquired recently of an older book, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site , by our friend David Brugge, who wrote the foreword for Quincy Tahoma, The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist.

If you want to keep up to date and get good tips about collecting American Indian Art, you need to tune in to the informative, short and snappy posts on the Savvy Collector Blog. Phoenix appraiser Corinne Cain provides the authoritative voice. Her latest post introduced me to the new Google Art Project, where you can visit major museums and see the paintings in the room in which they are displayed, or zoom in for an incredible close-up of the painter’s brush strokes.

This post above is by Vera Marie. The photo is by “Cobalt123,” used from Flickr with Creative Commons License.

Would you like to share places to go or things to read? We would love to hear from you. And we are still waiting to learn if you would be interested in having the opportunity to buy a Tahoma mousepad or other things with his paintings printed on them. So if you are reading this on Facebook or in your e-mail, please click through to the blog page and make a comment.