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By Darren Thompson

August 15, 2023

SANTA FE, N.M.—On Friday, August 18, the U.S. Department of the Interior will host its final public meeting on efforts to change regulations to the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The Act protects the authenticity and marketability of products claiming to be Indian-made.

The meeting is part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) effort to change aspects of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA), by including additional items that would be eligible to be marketed as an Indian Product, who can produce Indian arts and crafts products, and if Native Hawaiian Organizations should be included in the law. 

Meridith Stanton, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Director Indian Arts and Crafts Board, said in an email to Native News Online that the BIA’s proposed revisions to the current IACA regulations focus on expanding what is considered Indian art and craftwork to include products ranging from non-Indian made products to agricultural and food items. Besides expanding the definition of Indian arts and crafts, Stanton said she cannot discuss other pending changes. 

Suzan Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, spoke of the changes to regulations of IACA in an interview with Native News Online and said many of the changes would expand protections for mediums, or Indian products, not previously protected, but still fall short. The proposed changes also include protections for film, television, podcasts, books, cartoons, and news media, but do not include performing arts or academia.

“Why stop at hot dogs and leave out academia and performing arts?” Harjo asked about the additional proposed Indian products. “If you take care of performing arts, it takes care of a lot of the Hollywood problem.”

Harjo, who lobbied for the passing of IACA’s 1990 Amendment, has been advocating for additional protections and enforcement of law for many years. When IACA’s Amendment was signed in 1990, it expanded the original 1935 law by providing criminal and civil penalties for marketing products as “Indian-made” when products are not made by Indians, as defined by the Act. Under the law, an Indian is defined as an enrolled member of any federally or officially state recognized tribe in the United States, or an individual certified as an Indian artisan by an Indian tribe.

In other words, it’s a federal Indian law that acknowledges state-recognized tribes. Members of state-recognized tribes are authorized to exhibit, promote, market, produce, and sell Indian arts and crafts like members of federally recognized tribes. Other federal Indian laws do not apply to state-recognized tribes; the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 does not apply to state-recognized tribes.

Since the law was passed, Tribal Nations have not had input of enforcing the law when individuals pose as a member of a tribe. In 2021, the National Congress of American Indian passed a resolution asking for the Indian Arts and Crafts Act Board (IACAB) to update its regulations of who is protected under the law because of the widespread use of “Indigenous,” “Descendant,” “Ancestral Ties to,” or “Adopted by.” The resolution was aimed to prevent fraudulent artists from mis-representing protected Indian arts and crafts and to emphasize that the IACA, a public law, is not enforced. 

NCAI also passed a resolution in 2020, opposing the use of “Indigenous affiliation” or “Indigenous” in the same manner as someone enrolled in a federally recognized tribe or a state recognized tribe for employment or grants in the arts.

“NCAI calls on museums, research institutions, arts organizations, and employers who promote the history, art, language, and culture of the United States’ Tribal Nations to require proof of tribal enrollment in a state or federally recognized Tribal Nation from individuals who present themselves as Native professionals and artists, and as a prerequisite to eligibility for grant funding or any professional alliance as a Native professional or artist with said museums, research institutions, federal or state grant programs, and prior to any public listing as Native American (American Indian or Alaska Native) affiliation,” the resolution states. 

 The 1990 law also paved the way for an individual Indian person, a federally recognized Tribe, or an Indian arts and crafts organization to file a civil suit in federal court against a perpetrator. 

“Is this enough authority for an individual, or a Tribe, to go after a perpetrator on their own?” Harjo questioned the protections, noting that the matter is a civil and not a criminal action. “In order for Tribes to have authority to enforce this law as well, they must be permitted across jurisdictions, across state lines, to pursue offenders.” 

By allowing Tribes to bring the cases in Tribal court, the law would also recognize Tribal jurisdiction, as the Tribal Section of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that returned some criminal jurisdiction to Tribes. 

“This also allows Tribes to go after offenders who defame the Tribe’s name and image,” said Harjo. 

If successful, the Indian Tribe, individual Indian, Indian arts and crafts organization, or United States may request that the court order the relief including actual damages, punitive damages, and/or forfeiture of proceeds, but not a quantifier. “If the law includes triple the damages, that’s a good intent for Tribes and others to bring their lawsuits against perpetrators.”

“Given that the Department of Interior is in the comment period, citizens, Tribal Nations and Tribal citizens should closely review the revisions,” said Honorable Danielle Tasheena Finn, an Adjunct Professor at Sinte Gleska University and Judge for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in an interview to Native News Online. “Civil actions may have big implications for enforcement.” 

“It only took 33 years to bring revisions to the people for discussion,” Harjo said.

 “Updating the regulations does not make changes to the existing law. Our goal in updating these regulations is to better support Native artists and craftspeople, so it is critical that we hear their feedback,” said BIA’s Director of Public Affairs Joshua Barnett in an email to Native News Online. “This draft rule is intended to be a starting point for this conversation.”

Tribal consultations began in early April and will end in August. The DOI is accepting written comments until the end of business day on Friday, September 1, 2023 and should be emailed as soon as possible to [email protected].

The meeting at the Santa Fe Indian Market is scheduled from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm Mountain Time at the Institute of American Indian Arts’ (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, in conjunction with the 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market.

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The artwork of Native American artist Juanita Growing Thunder is more than just a form of expression. It’s a celebration of family tradition.

For Native American artist Juanita Growing Thunder, art is a family tradition and responsibility. Renowned for her traditional Plains Indians beaded artwork, she was born into a world where beaded belt buckles, shoes, and clothing were as common as milk and eggs. The daughter of a Sisituwan/Wahpetuwan Dakota and Wadopana Tuwa Nakoda (Assiniboine) mother, Growing Thunder says some of her first memories are of being surrounded by art and watching her mother weave colorful little beads into patterns that had meaning for her tribe.

“I remember my mother doing beadwork in the car when we traveled all over the West to go to art shows and museums,” Growing Thunder says. “I think that if you grow up this way, and you see someone doing this every day, and that’s the way they live their life, then it becomes the way you live your life, right?”

Nature, nurture, destiny. 

Walking This Good Way of Life Together, 2022, smoked moose hide, rawhide, otter pelt, wool, porcupine quills, beads, bells, thimbles, silk ribbon, ermine skin, horse hair, brass sequins, and pigment, hide, beads, wool, cloth, and yarn, 1995.

An award-winning and honored artist who has shown at dozens of galleries and museums throughout her career, Growing Thunder is second-generation Dakota and Nakoda from the Buffalo Nation. Her work consists of traditional Northern Plains clothing and accessories adorned with beadwork and porcupine quill embroidery, as well as soft sculpture figure dolls. Immersed in the art of her people, Growing Thunder and her family are culture bearers.

Growing Thunder was born in 1969 in Castro Valley, California. Her Irish father, Jim Fogarty, was a Western art painter studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland when he met and fell in love with Joyce Growing Thunder, who was living at the Dakota and Nakoda reservation in northeast Montana. 

“When he met my mother in Montana and brought her directly from the reservation to California, she said she didn’t know what a taco was. She grew up very impoverished on our reservation and went directly into the 1960s Bay Area lifestyle,” Growing Thunder says. “She was immersed into the art world right away, and I grew up spending the summers in museums and going to art shows and Western art shows.

“We got to know a lot of Native American Indian art collectors, and my mom was beading every day.”

Growing Thunder began beading with her mother and making her own little beaded items starting at age 6. But it wasn’t until some friends convinced Joyce to enter the Santa Fe Indian Art Market in 1985 that the art world opened up for her and her mother. 

“Until that time, my mother had never sold anything or made anything like that for sale. She always made things just for friends and family — she made like 300 to 500 belt buckles for friends,” Growing Thunder says. “So we went to the [Santa Fe] Indian Art Market, and she won Best of Show that year.”

Hismasma, 2021, buffalo and deer hide, sinew, trade cloth, glass seed beads, porcupine claws and human hair.

For the first time, Joyce Growing Thunder realized she could sell her art; that same year, Juanita joined the Santa Fe art market as a youth entrant alongside her mother. By submitting her own beadwork in the youth category, she gained valuable experience not just as an artist but as a representative of her culture. “That just opened up the whole Native American Indian art world to us, because Mom realized she could make a living and help support me and my four brothers. The art market was good for me, too. Some of the judges were so helpful with me as I was learning. They would say, ‘You really need to get this right — you’re representing your people.’ That really helped me grow.”

Since that first show in 1985, Growing Thunder has earned numerous awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Her work has also been included in museum exhibitions, most recently, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists as well as Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses and A Song for the Horse Nation, both curated by Emil Her Many Horses from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. She created the Growing Thunder Collective to showcase the work of her family, which now includes her daughters, granddaughter and nieces. Their work was shown in the traveling exhibition The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky. 

In addition to traditional Plains Indian beadwork, Growing Thunder is known for soft-sculpture figure dolls that emulate historical Oceti Sakowin attire. While the traditional dolls have soft bodies, Growing Thunder says she has evolved the style over the years, through circumstance, to become free-form standing figures and a new art form. Her soft-sculpture work earned her the honor of being one of five artists featured in the exhibition Grand Procession: A Collection of Contemporary Native American Soft Sculpture.

“My work enables me to practice our women’s traditions that embrace artistic expression,” says Growing Thunder, who still lives with and beads alongside her mother in Northern California. 

“I’ve learned from my mother, who learned from her grandmothers and their grandmothers stretching seven generations back.” In turn, she has instilled these teachings in her daughters, Jessa Rae and Camryn, both of whom have become award-winning artists, as well as her niece Paytyn Growing Thunder. Her oldest daughter started creating and selling her pieces when she was 3 years old, and now Growing Thunder’s 3-year-old granddaughter, Nuna, is already stringing beads and making things.

Beaded Pad Saddle, 1995, hide, beads, wool, cloth, and yarn.

“Everything is usually just focused on my mother and me, and that’s not what it’s about. Our entire family has fantastic artistic skills, and we want to be able to showcase them. We also hope that we’re encouraging young people to do the same thing and firing up our people to carry on the traditional arts.”

Growing Thunder will be showing for her 38th year at the Santa Fe Indian Art Market this August, surrounded by her daughters and nieces, who have also taken up the mantle of beaded Native American art through the Growing Thunder Collective.

It’s a huge honor to be a culture bearer, Growing Thunder says. “That was something that my mother has always stressed to me and my daughters and my nieces and my nephews. It’s very important to represent our people as well as we can and do the best that we can with that. Being a beadworker and quillworker is who I am. I spend every day creating work that honors our traditions and culture in hopes that my work will help preserve future generations’ connection to their culture.”

See Juanita Growing Thunder’s work at the 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market, August 19 – 20. Her soft sculptures are also on view permanently in Grand Process: Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection at the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

This article appears in our August/September 2023 issue, available on newsstands or through our C&I Shop.