Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque

I’ll be heading to Albuquerque later this week in order to speak at the BookWorks book store about Quincy Tahoma’s life and art.  I’m delighted that David Brugge, who wrote the foreword to Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist will be appearing with me. David will be available to answer questions from the audience about his acquaintanceship with Tahoma at Ayani in Old Town Albuquerque in 1951.

Jim Wilson at Ayani Traders, under the buffalo sign Quincy Tahoma painted, Albuquerque, 1951, Courtesy of Dan Fannell

Since the talk is in Albuquerque, I’ll be talking perhaps a little more than usual about Tahoma’s short stay in Albuquerque with Jim Wilson and David Brugge. Along with other paintings by Tahoma, I’ll show slides of the ledger that Tahoma decorated with a buffalo head. I also have a page out of the ledger that enumerates several paintings purchased by E.R. Porter, the nature photographer who first met Tahoma at Ayani, and remained friends with him through the rest of Quincy’s short life.

Ledger Page, courtesy of Mark Rosacker

We have only been able to trace a few of the paintings listed in the Ayani ledger, but I will show a photograph that Charnell took of David’ Brugge’s “Buffalo Hunt,” which is marked in the ledger as NFS. So if you know of any paintings by Tahoma dated 1951, be sure to let us know, because they might be listed in that ledger, along with the name of the original purchaser.

We only know of three other specific times that Tahoma’s life path took him to Albuquerque, but they were all important markers in his life. He spent one year in the Albuquerque Indian School in 1929.  On New Year’s Eve 1947, he went to Albuquerque with a young girl and their partying got him in the most serious trouble of his life.  In October, 1956, he won the Indian watercolor painting competition at the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque, and attended the fair with Eppie Montoya’s family, just days before his death.

It is a wonderful time to be in Albuquerque, because it is American Indian Week at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and next weekend the city hosts The Gathering of Nations, the largest Indian PowWow in the country.  I know I will be frustrated that I cannot stay longer, but at least I hope to visit the Cultural Center and see a Navajo dance while I am there.

If you are going to be in Albuquerque for American Indian Week, I hope you’ll come by BookWorks Book Store at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 28 to say ‘hello’ and see the slides of Tahoma paintings that I will be showing.

Is there an Indian PowWow or fair in the place where you live? Have you attended PowWows before? Tell us about the most interesting things you have seen.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Ayani Sign

We are continuing the story of Tahoma’s wanderings from Santa Fe, which started with this post about going to Albuquerque.

When Quincy Tahoma left Albuquerque, and the apartment that David Brugge and Jim Wilson had supplied for him, he took along the paintings he had made for Ayani. The Navajo artist was about to develop a new market. Jim Wilson had contacted Pop Chalee and Ed Natay in Scottsdale for help with Tahoma.

Pop Chalee

Quincy had met Pop Chalee, a Taos Indian, at Santa Fe Indian School, where she attended as an adult student. Because Dorothy Dunn wanted to encourage any talented Indian artist to study art, the Studio was open to students of all ages. Pop Chalee was married and had two children when she took some classes at the Studio at age 29 in 1935.  Tahoma was then in 7th grade.

Pop Chalee later divorced her husband and married Ed Lee Natay, a Navajo man who had taught woodworking at the Indian School. So Quincy Tahoma knew both of them when they invited him to join them in Scottsdale in the 1950s. In fact he gave a painting to them inscribed to his “cousins.” It

Canyon Records Album by Ed Lee Natay

seems he had found another family.

(A bit of trivia: In the 1950s, Ed Natay, a singer, became the first recording artist for Canyon Records, and you can see his recordings here.)

Scottsdale, like Santa Fe,  was fast developing into an important arts colony, with patrons like Mr. and Mrs. Fowler McCormick who owned a large ranch in what is now central Scottsdale.

John Bonnell at the White Hogan was just one of the gallery owners who hired Indian artists to paint in front of the display window in his store in order to attract customers.  Bonnell welcomed Tahoma into his store, and according to John’s son Jon, who was then in high school, Pop Chalee, Ed Natay and John Bonnell opened a bank account for Quincy so they could manage his money.  He could deposit all the money he earned, but he could not draw it out without the signature of one of his friends.

Like Jim Wilson in Albuquerque, they were trying to keep Quincy sober and productive.  He must have enjoyed his winter in Scottsdale, where he would have seen other friends from Santa Fe like Navajo artist Andy Tsihnahjinnie who also lived part time in the Arizona city. But when the weather started to get warmer in the spring, he returned to Santa Fe.

But he returned at least one more summer and again painted either at the White Hogan or at Pop Chalee’s store.  Besides making money from the art lovers who flocked to Scottsdale, Tahoma made a new friend of an eccentric trader who lived far out in the desert.

Today golf courses, resorts and pricey homes sprawl northward past Pinnacle Peak north of Scottsdale, but in earlier times, you would see nothing but creosote desert between the small city and the distant mountains. Near the corner of Pinnacle Peak Road and Scottsdale Road, a man who called himself Don Pablo had established a desert store. A ramshackle building housed an eclectic collection of odds and ends.  Don Pablo was a refugee from middle class, mid western life. He was, said Jon Bonnell, strait laced and hated drinking, which made his friendship with Tahoma most amazing.

But friends they were, even to the point of taking a cross country road trip together. But that is a story for another day.

Photo Credits: Top photo is complements of Dan Fannel. Natay album cover is from Canyon Records and the Pop Chalee photo comes from Flickr, used with Creative Commons license.

Do you come from Scottsdale? Do you remember back to the 1950s and 1960s in Scottsdale? We would like to know more about the artists who lived there then and particularly about Don Pablo. Do you have stories form Scottsdale to share?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1951, Jim Wilson at Ayani Traders in Old Town Albuquerque, Courtesy of Dan Fannell

The two young men who had been roaming through the southwest and Mexico collecting crafts and artifacts got to the point where they had accumulated more than they could handle. Although they had traded, like ancient American Indians, feathers for beads, baskets for turquoise, they still had enough to start a store. So they opened Ayani in old town Albuquerque.

San Felipe de Neri Church anchored Old Town from its beginning in the 1793. The Spanish El Camino Real connected Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but that old oad had been eclipsed by the early 1950′s by Route 66.  The “Mother Road”brought  carloads of tourists to Albuquerque and most of them were interested in seeing “real Indians” and buying Indian arts and crafts. Old town thrived as a picturesque home of gift stores and restaurants.

Skull, detail from "Buffalo Hunt" (1949), Courtesy of Placido Ortiz

On a trip to Santa Fe, Wilson met the Navajo artist, Quincy Tahoma.  Tahoma wanted to study a cow’s skull for inclusion in one of his paintings, and Wilson just happened to have one. You can see that skull show up in several of Tahoma’s paintings.

On one of his visits, Wilson found a distraught Tahoma. According to the story that Wilson later told David Brugge, Tahoma was badly frightened. The artist said that he had been partying (drinking) with friends one night and when he woke the next morning, he found blood on the skull.  He had no recollection of the night before and did not know how the blood got there. It frightened him.

Wilson invited Tahoma to come to Albuquerque to live. There, he said, Tahoma would be able to spend his time painting, away from the bad influence of friends who enticed him to drink too much. We can imagine Tahoma asking where he would sell his paintings, since that was always his number one concern. He had established a market and customers in Santa Fe.  Wilson no doubt  promised that he could sell all the paintings that Tahoma produced at the little Ayani shop.

When Tahoma arrived in Albuquerque, he was amused at the crude sign hanging over the door.  David Brugge, admittedly not an artist or sign painter, had fashioned a rough Ayani sign.  So Tahoma went to work and produced a new sign for the store.

Installed in a small apartment which the shop owners paid for, Tahoma was extremely productive. He entered the names of completed paintings in the ledger himself. The still existing ledger shows us where customers came from (entered by the shop owners) and the prices for the paintings.

Ayani Ledger

The first page is a neat list of his paintings and their prices. As the owners add the names and address of buyers, the pages get more crowded. Finally, we learn from the ledger that Tahoma took some of his paintings to Scottsdale.

David Brugge told us that Tahoma had soon begun to drink again, and neighboring store owners in Old Town Albuquerque complained to Wilson and Brugge that he was annoying them. Wilson prevailed upon artist Pop Chalee to invite her friend Tahoma to Scottsdale, and that move began a new adventure in his life.

You will read more details about Tahoma’s stay in Albuquerque in Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. The book will be available approximately mid-April. Do you want to be one of the first to read the story of Tahoma’s life and see a collection of his beautiful art? Contact us to get on the preorder list. Just send us a message.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

What other artists say about Quincy Tahoma:

“He stands out. He’s like a Picasso or Renoir or a Gauguin.”

Irving Toddy, Navajo artist and son of Jimmy Toddy (Beatien Yazz)

“I loved his horses, and the color he used…the motion and the movement..I think he was one of the greatest Indian artists in his time.”

Rance Hood, Comanche artist.

What people say about this book:

“Quincy Tahoma was a Navajo artist whose artistic abilities and understanding of his native culture and his native land have earned him a great reputation for his paintings. The authors of his biography have done an excellent job of following all the leads suggested to them. I highly recommend this book.”

Ramos Sanchez (Oqwa Owen), artist and friend of Tahoma, San Ildefonse Pueblo.

“Many of the quandaries faced by those in the story are with us still and wanting our attention. This is, in short, a good book worth reading.”

David M. Brugge, anthropologist and author of many books and journal articles on Navajo culture.

“We benefit from the tireless efforts of biographers Havens and Baderstscher who painstakingly sifted through multiples sources and art collections to give us an opportunity to know something about the life and artistic talent of one heretofore invisible gifted Navajo artist.”

Jennie R. Joe, Navajo, PhD, MPH, University of Arizona.

When you select a book, do you like to read what other people have been saying about it? Do these quotations persuade you to order Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist? See the Contact Us section on the right and send us the information so that you will be one of the first to get a copy. (If you are reading this in your e-mail, RSS, or Facebook, you will have to go to blog to sign up. Just click on the title of this post at the top of the page.)

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

We first saw it on the back of his paintings. Not on the front, because very early on he developed a specialty signature, and that is another whole story, which we tell in our book.

Don’t forget, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist will be available in the Spring of 2011.

But on the back of paintings, he would often write a dedication to the person receiving the painting. He gave away a lot of paintings to fortunate friends. And he would often add where he was when he painted it, so we have found references to “Santa Fe Indian School,” the “Santa Fe Indian Hospital”, “Tahoma of Santa Fe,” Tahoma of Tuba City,” and even “Scottsdale” on one. We never saw one that said City Jail or State Prison, although he painted there as well.

Inscription on back of a 1947 painting, Courtesy of The Family of Richard G. Jones

Since there was so little paper trail, and he was something of a drifter, we really did not expect to come up with correspondence, which is the mainstay of much biography.  However, by the time we had talked to a hundred or so people and visited who knows how many history and art intsitutions, we had amassed a rather surprising number of things in Tahoma’s own hand writing.

The first example we saw was a framed letter owned by the Christian Brothers of Santa Fe. In it, Tahoma is asking his friend, one of the Brothers, for money to pay bail. Later, at the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, Charnell found a letter and a follow up telegram to famous photographer Elliott Porter, also asking for money.  Porter had befriended Tahoma, and this time it wasn’t bail, but money to get out of Santa Fe and away from people Tahoma thought were a bad influence on him.  (It is a good story, but we have to leave something for you to read in the book.)

Not all of the Tahoma correspondence is about money. My favorites are the love notes and letters that former girlfriends shared with us.  We interviewed those girlfriends and in the book we  tell the story, as well as reproducing a hand-illustrated Christmas card and a page of a love letter.

1943 Christmas card, Courtesy of Jean Wallace McSwain

Two other outstanding examples of Tahoma’s handwriting showed up.

One had survived in New Mexico. David Brugge and his friend Jim Wilson took in Tahoma at their Albuquerque Indian store. David, who told us the story (and later wrote the Introduction to our biography of Tahoma), did not know if the ledger still existed.  Tahoma made some entries in the hand-written ledger of sales of his paintings, and Charnell came in contact with the then-owner of the ledger, the stepson of Jim Wilson.

The second find completed the story of Tahoma’s fancy penmanship. We were contacted by the owner of a sketchpad that belonged to Tahoma.  An artist’s sketchpad tells so much about how an artist works, and besides telling us how he created paintings, this one showed us that Quincy Tahoma created his fancy penmanship. He must have been taught to write in grade school, like all of us, but the artist in him was not satisfied to just follow the forms in the writing book at Santa Fe Indian School.  He created his own gorgeous swirling “Q” and majestic “T” along with the lesser letters of the alphabet.

1944 drawing from sketch book, Courtesy of Frank Tropiano

If you own a Tahoma painting, have you looked at the back of it to see if he wrote on the back?  Have you ever discovered interesting stuff on the backs of paintings by other artists?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

One of the problems with not knowing one’s clan includes not knowing who one can properly marry. Is that why Tahoma apparently never married (although he seemed never to be without a girlfriend)?

With the help of Mark Rosaker, and David Brugge, we kept following the clues. The Santa Fe Indian School records for Quincy Tahoma, incomplete as they were, at least had a registration form  that said “no parents” and listed a guardian, “Manuel Sagantizo.” Someone had written “brother” in pencil. School records indicated Tahoma came from Tuba City. That record also listed Tahoma’s birth date as December 25, 1918 (the 18 was written over top a typed twenty-something)

David Brugge explained that he had never heard of the name Sagantizo, but Saganitso was a rather common name, particularly around Tuba city. A pause here to complain that mis-spelling of names on records complicates research enormously.  And in the case of non-Indians trying to write down what they think they hear a Navajo say, or Navajos using a different variety of their names each time they are asked–well, confusion reigns.

Mark took the information about Manuel Saganitso and ran with it. Digging into on-line birth and death records, he came up with dozens of Saganitsos–most of them demonstrably not connected to Tahoma. To be continued…

Have you had personal experience with a Navajo who was raised by someone other than his/her parents and did not know his or her own clan? We would like to hear such stories.

Posted by Vera Marie Badertscher, May 17, 2009

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Several people recommended that we talk to David Brugge, who, they said, knew more about Navajo genealogy than anybody. David lives in Albuquerque, and although he is retired, he still continues his scholarly study and makes presentations to professional bodies. I was going to Albuquerque, so I contacted David and we got together for lunch. We sat on a bench waiting to be seated at a crowded Mexican restaurant, and I wondered where to start on my long list of questions about Navajo relationships and genealogy.

David casually said, “When I knew Tahoma…” and I did not hear the rest of the sentence. He personally knew Tahoma. At that point, the only person we had talked to who personally knew Tahoma was Harrison Begay. Our reliance on David quickly grew from mining his academic knowledge to drinking in the personal recollections that he could add to our story.

Throughout the process of researching the book, I consulted frequently with David, visiting him every time I went to Albuquerque. We sampled the best East Indian restaurant, the best Mexican, Pueblo Indian at the Pueblo Cultural Center and the neighborhood Chinese along the way. He corrected our errors in explaining Navajo culture and Navajo history, and he told us the story of two young men who tried to help the artist as they were starting a gallery in Albuquerque’s Old Town, a story which I will return to later.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.