Navajo Grandma, hand-crafted doll by Sylvia Begay

When I went to the Keshmish (Christmas) Festival at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, I could not resist bringing home this grandmother doll. This hand-made beauty resembles Pueblo story-teller dolls, but this doll has a distinctly Navajo grandmother. Sylvia Begay( who also made the Christmas ornaments I showed on Facebook) calls these “story dolls.”

Since both Charnell and I are grandmothers, I wanted to learn the Navajo word for grandmother. Some of the people stopping by the table where I was showing the Quincy Tahoma book tried to teach me. I am a visual learner, and trying to remember, or follow the pronunciation of a Navajo word evades me.

One woman explained that the Navajo have two names for grandmothers. Most of the references on the Internet will give you one or the other, but not mention the difference–critical to a Navajo who pays attention to relationships! Where they do show up on the web,  ”My father’s mother” shows up  as ama’ sani and “my mother’s mother” –shima sani. (Rendered as Shah-mah’ tsah’nih at Navajo.org–not quite as simple as English speakers might like.) And Sylvia Begay who crafted this grandma, called them ma sani in an interview. So take your pick.

Earlier in the day, a girl about five years old had stopped to look at the Tahoma paintings I had rotating on my small computer’s screen.  When one of his “Navajo Madonnas” came up, she happily pointed and said “Shima“.  I was proud of myself for knowing that she meant “mother”–one of the very few Navajo words that I have actually have conquered, because we talk about it in the book.  Tahoma used the word shima to refer to women in families that befriended him–perhaps always searching for a mother of his own.  But as far as we know, Quincy Tahoma never was able to experience the spoiling of a grandmother.

Since Charnell has only daughters, she will always be a shima’ sani. Since I have only sons, my grandchildren all will know me as ama’ sani.

Navajo Grandma

I welcome Navajo-speakers comment and corrections on the rendering of these words, as I have seen slightly different words used, also–so I continue to be confused. But then, I’m a grandma, and we tend to be confused a lot.

By the way, Tahoma did speak Navajo, and by the time he started to school at Santa Fe Indian School, students were no longer punished for speaking their native languages.

If you are not Navajo, do you know any Navajo words? If you ARE Navajo– do you speak your language? Who taught it to you?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Santa Fe Indian Market

We met many artists at the Santa Fe Indian Market last week. One in particular made the trip complete for me.

Back in May, as Charnell Havens and I were deep in a blog tour promoting the book Quincy Tahoma: the Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, I wrote at A Traveler’s Library about some books that would help you get acquainted with American Indians.

One of those books was about Geronima Cruz Montoya, The Worlds of Potsúnú: Geronima Cruz Montoya of San Juan Pueblo.

Quincy Tahoma, a Navajo (Diné) honed his artistic talent at the Santa Fe Indian School.  Teacher Dorothy Dunn started what she called The Studio, where young (and not-s0-young) American Indian Artists came to learn to apply new techniques to their talent and old traditions.  Geronima Cruz was a student at the school, and the slim, quiet young woman became Dorothy Dunn’s right hand, helping to teach younger students.  When Dunn left to get married, Geronima Cruz took over as the head of The Studio.

Quincy Tahoma was in high school when that happened. Miss Cruz got married and became Mrs. Montoya. Although her style of painting could not be more different than Tahoma’s–she painted the typical Pueblo way with geometric designs, flat figures, and no background while Tahoma painted roiling action against deserts and mountains– Geronima Cruz Montoya admired the young man’s talent.  She once said that he just sat in the back of the room and painted and painted.

When Charnell and I were gathering information about Tahoma’s life, we interviewed many people who knew him, but we never had a chance to talk to Geronima Montoya. She does not like to do interviews since she has become quite deaf.  But imagine my delight when I discovered her name on the program for the Santa Fe Indian Market. She shared a booth with an artist son. Appropriately placed for such an icon of Indian art, her booth was under the portal in front of the Governor’s Palace on the north side of the Plaza.

Geronima Cruz Montoya at the Santa Fe Indian Market

She sat on a lawn chair in a line with some of her family members, dressed in a patterned blouse and tan slacks, her gray hair pulled back in a bun. I looked at some of her recent paintings in a bin, and then  I approached and said “Geronima Montoya?” She nodded. A relative sat beside her and took in everything I said, and later wrote it all out for the 96-year-old artist.

This woman has lived from the era when Pueblo men were just beginning to paint images on paper for sale to outsiders–mostly ethnologists and anthropologists–until this event that draws 100,000 people each year. She has seen women become a force in the Indian Art World. She has seen the 90-year-old Santa Fe Indian Market grow from a Saturday gathering of Pueblo potters under the portal of the Governor’s Palace in Santa Fe to a sprawling wonderland of 1100 artists from many tribes, many of whom have graduate degrees from universities across the country. And she has seen the market for Indian art grow and diversify–with the traditional art that she practiced fading from view and then having a rebirth.

When I spoke to Geronima Cruz Montoya, I was speaking to the history of American Indian art.

John King, Navajo painter, in front of his Indian Market booth

While teachers like Dunn and Montoya influenced Tahoma, Quincy influenced other artists. We chatted with three artists who are quoted in the book as saying that Quincy Tahoma inspired them. Upton Ethelbah, Jr. (Apache/Santa Clara) of Albuquerque won a blue ribbon for a stunning white sculpture; Anthony Emerson Chee (Diné) has a studio in Farmington, New Mexico and John King (Diné), painter of horses, says he was strongly influenced by Tahoma’s paintings.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Continuing to thumb through the school file that we received from the National Archives, we discovered that the school and Indian Health Service made sure the children were healthy with frequent check-ups. Children living in close quarters at a boarding school had to be carefully observed. Here is a passage from the book:

“Health officials thought that the Navajo love of meat and infrequent access to fresh vegetables caused the scourge of trachoma that was rampant among them.

Each morning after breakfast, Tahoma trouped to the clinic with all the other Navajo children to have his eyes checked.  Trachoma had spread across the Navajo reservation causing sore, bumpy eyelids and, if untreated, left its victims blind.  After many false stars and blunders caused by ignoring native culture, the Indian Health Service was able to eradicate the disease.

The careful medical attention included periodic physical exams at the nearby Indian Hospital for all students.  In November, 1933, Tahoma visited W. G. Lewis, M.D. at the U.S. Indian Hospital in Santa Fe. The poking and prodding by white-coated doctors presented one more humiliation to the child from a culture that shies away from physical contact even among friends and family members.  However, by the time Tahoma had survived four years of bureaucratic exercises, so the procedure was no longer new to him and the experience added one more lesson to his growing ability to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.”

Harrison Begay, Navajo artist who was Tahoma’s friend, had told us that Tahoma had a damaged arm, and some other people had mentioned it. No one knew how it happened, and our initial assumption that it was a birth injury was reinforced by this 1933 medical report, where Dr. Lewis said, “Left arm atrophied (birth accident?) ankylosed at blbow [sic] in 90 deg. position–has use of hand and fingers.” “That part of the examination,” the book goes on, “must have been upsetting, since Tahoma tried to hide his deformed arm from everyone.”

No other physical problems were discovered, but at 16 (now in 6th grade) Tahoma carried only 113 1/2 pounds on his 5’6″ frame.

The next physical exam record in the file dates to 1940, the year he graduated from high school (at 22 years old) He has grown taller–5’9″ and weights 140 pounds. Among the vaccinations and tests listed, we were surprised to see the Wasserman, a test for syphilis, in both 1939 and 1940.

These fragmentary health records from Tahoma’s school days gave his biographers much food for thought. Now we knew what the arm injury was, and could imagine more exactly what it looked like. We could see that although he was pretty skinny and small for his age when he entered school, he grew taller and presumably stronger. His overall health seems good. We learn as much about the attitude of the BIA adminstrators and health care officials as we do about Tahoma. We know what diseases they were concerned about and that they apparently were attempting to keep the students healthy, even if they lacked understanding of Native customs and sensitivity to rights of privacy.

Some people get angry that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services invaded the privacy of the children in their care. Other people see their work as essential to improving the health of the Diné. Which side do you take?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

In the previous post about Tahoma’s school days, I told you how the National Archives file provided a valuable resource to understand Tahoma’s life. In that post, I focused mainly on the yearly reports of grades. An intriguing form dated November, 1936–6 years after he first entered Santa Fe Indian School, substituted for the first day enrollment form we had been hoping for.

Two young Navajo boys roaming the sheep ranch that Tahoma called home. Photograph by Charnell Havens

From this 1936 form, we learned that Tahoma attended Tuba City Day School, “graduating” in May, 1928. Someone had filled the other blanks on the form  with the same information on the earlier record, dated June 1930, so the information presumably just was passed on from year to year. Except that by 1936, Tahoma (or someone) had decided to change his birthday to Christmas day, December 25, 1918. Most importantly, this form included his “Roll No.” 71,254.

During the early years of the 20th century the BIA ran a separate census on the reservations every year. While there might be confusion about the spelling of names, and birth dates were iffy before birth certificates were common, roll numbers ran consecutively within families, and stayed with one person from year to year. This would be our greatest help in finding any family that Tahoma might have had.

Besides grade reports and enrollment forms, other pieces of paper in the file gave us a poignant picture of life at a boarding school.

To recap what we knew at this point, someone enrolled  a 9-year-old orphan boy in Tuba City Indian School.  Three years later, the boy was taken to Albuquerque Indian School and the next year he was transferred to Santa Fe Indian School.  In October, 1930, school officials enrolled him at SFIS in the fourth grade, which told us that he either missed a year of school or repeated one of the first four years. In June, 1931, the teachers told him that his English was not good enough and he would have to repeat fourth grade.

At that point he was probably discouraged, sad and lonely. We do not know how he actually felt, but we do know that he told the principal that he wanted to go home.  The principal wrote a letter to C. L. Walker, Superintendent of the Western Navajo Indian Agency in Tuba City, pleading for information. His early school records spelled his last name as Tahome (with an ‘e’ on the end.)

“Last fall one of your boys, Quincy Tahome, was sent up here from the school at Albuquerque.  We have no regular enrollment blank for him and can not say what his term of enrollment may be.  He is asking to go home and we shall be glad to have you let us know what arrangement you can make for his transportation.”

The officials seem to be saying, ‘Who is this kid and who is responsible for him?’

Mr. Walker replies (correcting the spelling of Tahome to Tohannie, a closer approximation of the To’a'hani clan that Quincy was named for). He refers to Quincy’s enumeration number (roll number) and says,

“Our records indicate that Quincy was transferred October 1, 1929 and therefore is not entitled to return home this year at Government expense, and we do not have any funds to defray his expense home.  If  he wishes to come from personal funds, however, we have no objections.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that paragraph heart-breaking.  This little boy, who doesn’t speak English well, has just been told that he flunked fourth grade, and barely understands where he is, has been away from home for two years, but  it is too soon for the government to pay for him to go home. Never mind that the government was willing to pay to get him to Albuquerque and then to Santa Fe in the first place.

And “personal funds?” How is a small boy, isolated from his people, supposed to have personal funds?

Without question, this represents the lowest point in Tahoma’s school days, but as we will see, he conquers the bureaucracy, the money problem, and definitely overcomes his initial loneliness.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Back in 2005, I received an envelope in the mail that contained possibly the most important documents of all the research that we have done on Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma. A librarian at the National Archives, Rocky Mountain Region Archival Office in Denver mailed us copies of the entire file entitled:

Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Santa Fe Indian School

Student Case Files 1937-1970

8NN-75-90-003, Box #71

Translated, the numbers indicate any records in the archive that mentioned Quincy Tahoma from the time he entered school through years afterward when people tried to contact him through the school. Therefore the file shed light not only on his size and physical condiiton (medical reports), studies and aptitudes (grade cards), finances (letters regarding money), but told us something about his post-school activities as well.

The first thing I did was arrange the stack of papers in chronological order.  At first I was disappointed that there did not seem to be paperwork from  Tahoma’s registration when he transferred from Albuquerque to Santa Indian School, but the first report in the file mentioned that he entered 4th grade at SFIS on October 10, 1930. (Ironically, the same date that his obituary would run in the Santa Fe paper just 26 years later.)

On the school form, date of birth is given as 1918, although census records later told us it was actually 1917.  So he was 12 or 13 years old, depending on what month he was born, and he weighed only 85 pounds at the beginning of the school year and 90 at the end.

The next record gives his grades for that first year, and the information that he failed 4th grade because of “lack of English”  and was held back. This record shows a birth date of May 24, 1918–although he was later to claim he was born on Christmas day. The form lists

• Mother: Dead
• Father: Dead
• Guardian: Manual Siganitzo, brother
• church preference: Catholic
• Home post office: Tuba City, Ariz.

We would later learn that his mother was not dead, and although the Siganitzo (Saganitso) name led us to an adopted family, Manual, younger than Tahoma, almost certainly should not have been listed as guardian. The Saganitso family was not Catholic and the people we talked to have no idea why the school records would list Tahoma as Catholic. The first and last facts listed here were correct.

1935 Navajo Country, Courtesy of Charlotte G. Mittler

As would be the case throughout school, Tahoma got his best grades in art, and high grades in deportment.  His examination scores were abominable. He seemed to be one of those nice, well-behaved kids, who struggled in class and  panicked at test taking. We found it interesting to see what he was studying: Arithmetic, Drawing, English, Geography, Penmanship, Spelling, Physical Education, Reading, History and General Education.

The second time that he took 4th grade, Music was substituted for General, and the grading system changed from a 100-point scale to 1 through 4. Straight “1′s” in drawing and a solid 2 in English, along with deportment that still rated high, meant he was promoted to 5th grade at the end of his second year at SFIS.

He continued as a solid C student, with the exception of art and music classes where he won B’s. Unlike the schools that you and I attended, starting in junior high school, teachers gave grades in such things as Farm, Laundry, Kitchen and Dining Room.

All students at the Indian Boarding Schools were assigned work periods, with the stated aim of teaching them valuable work habits and skills, but with the side benefit to the school of providing unpaid labor for the self-sufficient schools.

A good reference for the development of boarding schools, and particularly Santa Fe Indian school, is History of Indian Arts Education in Santa Fe by Wanda Garmhausen. Sally Hyer’s story based on oral history from Santa Fe Indian School students, One House, One Voice, One Heart, provides invaluable insights into how attendees at the school viewed their own experience. In addition, we interviewed a dozen or more of Tahoma’s friends from school days to learn about their own reactions to the school and their memories of Tahoma the school boy.

I’ll be sharing more about Tahoma’s school days in the days to come.

Were you surprised to learn that students at the boarding school did most of the work that kept the institution in operation?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Artist in the Louvre

Did you ever stop in front of a painting in a museum and wonder, “How did he/she do that?” How did they make the action so compelling? How did they draw our eye just where they wanted? How did they achieve a special effect? What tools and what techniques?

From our reading and talking to other people who had attended Santa Fe Indian School, we knew quite a bit about what Dorothy Dunn taught in her classes, and how things were done in The Studio.  In our last post,  Where Tahoma Painted, we pointed out that the lack of easels and the prohibition against using models simplified where he could paint.

Dorothy Dunn had other influences on her young artists.  She preferred that they paint in tempera or gouache (both water color), because it fitted her idea that natural Indian painting should be flat like the paintings on pots or Kiva walls, and suspended in space like this painting of pueblo dancers by Fred Kabotie.

Fred Kabotie painting of Pueblo Dancers

As far as we can tell, Tahoma painted in water color only. Although a few pencil sketches remain, he apparently did not think of them as saleable art. And although some other people made prints of his paintings, he himself never experimented as his friend Harrison Begay did with producing prints.

But Quincy Tahoma differed sharply with his teacher when it came to the concept of space and depth.  One of his earliest existing paintings shows a small boy watching over sheep, with a vast landscape behind him.  Although while he was in school  Quincy obligingly experimented from time to time with paintings with figures suspended in space, his real style evolved with complex foregrounds and backgrounds, many layered figures, and a sense of depth that he developed all on his own.

How did Tahoma achieve the sense of balance and the critical direction of the viewer’s eye? He did not depend on directly applying paint, but sketched his scene in pencil until he got it just right, and then filled in with paint, outlining figures in a heavier line. (Another technique that Dunn did not sanction.) Sometimes he would add quick water color sketches of small details like a rabbit or a bunch of grass in the foreground, but the overall design was not left to chance.

Cartouche. 1940 The Hunt, Courtesy of Turney's, Inc.

How did he paint those tiny miniatures (about the size of a quarter) that formed his unique signature–the cartouche that he called “the next chapter”? According to Eve Elias, who watched him paint when she was a little girl, he had a brush that looked like it had only one hair.

These tiny paintings, sometimes astounding in their detail (as in the one shown) identify Quincy Tahoma paintings, and illustrate his meticulous approach to his art.

Tahoma had an innate sense of design that shows even in his earliest work. From Dorothy Dunn he gained confidence in his ability and learned about the tools of his trade. For techniques not taught at the Studio, he experimented and practiced. And practiced. And practiced.

Photo Credits: The top picture from the Louvre was taken by Vera Marie; the Kabotie picture is from Flickr, used under Creative Commons license. You can click on the photo to learn more about the photographer. Charnell photographed the Tahoma cartouche.

Do you have questions about the artist Quincy Tahoma? Ask away and we will try to answer. (Remember if you are reading this in your e-mail, you need to click on the title to go to the blog site, first.) You can ask us questions on our Facebook page too.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

When we think of an artist’s studio, the first thing that comes to mind is a high-ceilinged room with light streaming in the window, illuminating an easel. A model or a still life arrangement sits on a platform. The floor is spattered with paint and finished canvases lean against the walls. Tahoma’s reality was quite different.

Tahoma Painting

We learned where Tahoma painted by reading about The Studio, by interviewing friends of the Navajo artist, and by pictures that he handed out to friends. We found his many apartment addresses in old city directories.

After his years painting at The Studio at Santa Fe Indian School, Quincy Tahoma never moved back to Diné Bikeyah (Navajo Land).

By the time he left Santa Fe Indian School, Tahoma knew that he wanted to spend his life painting, and if he were going to be an artist rather than a rancher, he needed to stay in Santa Fe.

After graduation he stayed on at the school another year, unwilling to let go of the security blanket of the school with its ready supplies and place to paint. When he did decide to move out of the school, he was fortunate to have established some customers and important mentors. T. Harmon Parkhurst provided his first post-school studio space, a makeshift balcony in the photographer’s studio just off the Plaza of Santa Fe.

At the SIFS Studio, which was always underfunded and had no easels, Tahoma was used to spreading his preferred Strathmore paper on a table and bending over it to paint.  That habit enabled him to paint almost anywhere without fancy equipment. Furthermore Dorothy Dunn discouraged the reproduction of still life or live models as being too European–not real Indian painting, so Tahoma learned to paint from his imagination and images stored in his mind.

He lived in a succession of small apartments and rooming houses, always within walking distance of the Plaza, and those made do as a studio when he was not working in the Parkhurst photography studio. Off and on, he worked at the New Mexico Museum of Art where Kenneth Chapman had established the tradition of inviting young artists to paint, partly for the entertainment of the visitors. For a short period he worked at the Laboratory of Anthropology, then located behind the Palace of Governors on the Plaza.

When World War II started and most of his friends enlisted, Quincy, with his damaged left arm, was left behind, classified 4-F. Margretta Dietrich, a wealthy patron of Indian causes, became a  new supporter, buying up many of Tahoma’s paintings. She founded the Indian Club as a social meeting place and encouraged Tahoma to use space as a studio and gallery for his art.

He visited and painted in the studios and homes of other artists like Abel Sanchez at San Ildefonso Pueblo and Al Momaday at Jemez Pueblo and in Santa Fe with Navajo artist Harrison Begay, who says they were careful not to copy each other.

One year he spent several months in Albuquerque, but his drunken sprees reflected poorly on the shop that invited him there, and the shop owners prevailed upon Pop Chaleee and her husband to invite him to Scottsdale. In Scottsdale during two winters he worked at John Bonnell’s White Hogan on Main Street and also at Pop Chalee’s store/studio.

1953 The Navajo Scout, Courtesy of Mark O. Rosacker, was painted while Tahoma was in Santa Fe's US Indian Hospital

Wherever he was, Quincy Tahoma created art. He painted when he was in jail (but never while drunk). He painted when he was in the hospital.  He painted in a trailer while traveling in the Midwest with a Scottsdale trader. He never stayed long enough in one place to establish THE Quincy Tahoma studio, but instead, as with the images he painted, his studio was wherever he went.

Sticker on back of The Navajo Scout

What would you most like to know about Quincy Tahoma, the Navajo artist? Ask and we will do our best to answer.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

*Santa Fe Downtown map

*The numbers on this map do not show Tahoma’s stops. To see what the numbers mean, click on the map to go to its source, WikiMaps.

As we plan our trip to the Santa Fe Indian Market this coming August, I am thinking about the way that Charnell and I were able to walk in Quincy Tahoma’s footsteps as we looked for clues to his life in our many visits to Santa Fe. Thanks, Quincy, for giving us a tour of Santa Fe.

Stop One: Santa Fe Indian School

Santa Fe Indian School, new building

The first and most obvious place on the Tahoma Trail is the campus where he went to school from 5th grade to post graduate.  The school is not open to visitors, but you can drive by on Cerillos Road. Alas, the board of governors of the school decided in 2008 to destroy some of the historic buildings.  Architect John Gaw Meem, who changed the look of Santa Fe, added the Santa Fe  Pueblo Revival look back in the 1933. You can see some historic SFIS photos here. The faculty housing being demolished in these pictures was built in the earlier “Eastern” style (possibly dating back to the 1800′s), but additional buildings torn down that year included some with murals painted during Tahoma’s time at the school (and by Tahoma). However, the property is managed by the northern Pueblos who have sovereign rights to do what they decide is proper, regardless of the cries of historical preservationists.

Stop Two: The Plaza Area

You can visit several locations here that are related to Tahoma. For instance, he frequently showed paintings at the Gallery, which is now the New Mexico Museum of Art on the NW corner of the Plaza.

Proceed north on Lincoln to Federal Way and turn left. That area contained court buildings and law offices where Tahoma sold his paintings.

Back on the Plaza, you can see The Palace of Governors along the north side of the Plaza. Tahoma worked at the Laboratory of Anthropology when it was located behind the Palace of Governors which runs along the north side of the Plaza. (Today it stands on Museum Hill, off the Santa Fe Trail south of the city.)

When he had a studio with photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst, he went to work each day at 112 Don Gaspar Road, just off the Plaza.

In later life he struck up friendships with Jim Silva who owned a nightclub near the Plaza, and Marie Strosser, who owned Meridian Jewelers on the Plaza. It was Marie’s paintings that Charnell inherited and started her search for the story of Tahoma.

1946, Quincy and Nina Bogard walking in Santa Fe. Photo courtesy of Nina.

The Lensic Theater, where he sometimes took girlfriends on dates still stands at 211 West San Francisco Street, where it is now a non-profit concert venue.

On the opposite corner of the Plaza, behind the house at the corner of Palace and Washington would have been a small building that housed the Indian Club where Tahoma hung out during World War II.

Stop Three: Location of The Jail

Proceeding up Washington away from the Plaza, you will see the Santa Fe Library on the right. That is the site that used to be occupied by the Santa Fe City Jail where the Navajo artist was frequently incarcerated for drunkeness.

(Tune in tomorrow for Stop Four and Five as we tour Santa Fe on the Tahoma Trail. In the confusing way of blogs, you can find Stops Four and Five ABOVE this post.)

The photo of Santa Fe Indian School comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons License. Please click on the photo to see more about the photographer.

Experts on Santa Fe, who write a lively blog, have done a walking tour. You can see their Santa Fe Traveler’s Blog with a walk around the Plaza here.

Have you visited Santa Fe and The Plaza? Do you like to follow in the footsteps of a famous former resident when you visit a place?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.