Don Mangus' "It Only Hurts When I Smirk.": Native American art

Showing posts with label Native American art. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Charles Loloma: Pendant

Charles Loloma

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Charles Loloma: His Name Means "Beauty"

Charles Loloma

Gold and pearls -- works for me!

Charles Loloma maintained a deep reverence for Hopi beliefs and the ceremonies. He lived by the Hopi calendar, its cycles of birth, death, and regeneration. In Autumn, the fields behind his studio were filled with ripening squash and melon, and on the crest behind it, he was found with relatives roasting corn to provide for the winter ahead.

There is a seeming disparity between this way of life and the sophisticated world in which he moved. His answer to this was -- “We are a very serious people and have tried hard to elevate ourselves, but in order to create valid art, you have to be true to yourself and your heritage”. He also said: -- “I felt a strong kinship to stones, not just the precious and semi-precious stones I use in my jewelry, but the humble stones I pick up at random while on a hike through the hills or a walk along the beach. I feel the stone and think, not to conquer it, but to help it express itself."

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Hosteen Klah

Hosteen Klah

Navajo boy babies are given the name "Away Eskay,” meaning “Baby Boy” until they exhibit some characteristic or some unusual mark is discovered on their bodies to suggest a name.

It was four or five yeas after his birth that Hosteen Klah was given a name that would remain with him the rest of his life. It was noticed that he used his left hand more readily than his right, so he was called “Klah” which means “left handed.”

Klah is the best recognized of all Navajo Medicine Men of the 20th century. It was he who undertook to learn all the sandpaintings associated with various healing ceremonies, and it was he who was the first to record a healing sandpainting in tapestry form. Prior to his doing this, it was fervently believed by the Navajo that doing so would result in serious illness to the perpetrator. When Klah escaped serious illness following weaving a sandpainting rug, he continued making them.

The Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe was built specifically to house all of Klah’s tapestries, ceremonial effects, and drawings of his sand paintings. It was built in the shape of a Navajo hogan, or traditional house. Unfortunately, Klah passed away just months before the museum was dedicated in his honor. The museum’s name has now been changed to Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian to better define its expanded mission.

Klah was invited by the State of New Mexico to attend the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1934 as the official Medicine Man for the exhibition. He accepted. This photograph was taken shortly before his departure for Chicago.