Artist and designer Jessica Wiarda saw a gap as she observed different fashion weeks taking place in Utah.

“There was no Indigenous-specific fashion week this year. I was seeing all these other cultures represented, but Indigenous wasn’t there,” said Wiarda, who is Hopi/Tewa.

The realization came as Wiarda began wrapping up a yearlong artist in residency program through nonprofit Utah Diné Bikéyah and the Leonardo Museum. Instead of a farewell event celebrating just her residency, Wiarda decided to gather other Indigenous artists and models for Utah’s first Indigenous Fashion Week.

This year’s fashion week will consist of one night featuring work from artists representing half a dozen tribes — including Hopi, Navajo (Diné), Ute, Northern Ute, Apache and Anishinaabe Ojibwe — as well as a section featuring powwow regalia. But Wiarda hopes the show will be the start of an annual tradition.

“It just is going to get bigger and better,” she said, adding that the event is entirely Indigenous-led and -run.

“There are no stereotypes here; it’s just us as ourselves — and that’s why it’s a really important event,” she said. “It’s open to everybody and it’s a rare look into something that I feel like a lot of people are afraid to ask questions about because it’s such a marginalized community. We’re still here and we’re reclaiming our culture through fashion.”

Michael Haswood, a Diné artist who is helping organize the show, said although the event will very much be a modern fashion show, many of the pieces will incorporate traditional designs.

“Every Native American is raised to be proud of your ancestors and what they’ve done and this is the reason why we’re having a fashion show because we want to show the old art and the old designs,” he said.

Haswood added that although fashion week happens on the Navajo Reservation, there’s nothing similar in Salt Lake City.

“We want to bring that energy, that power and that art up here,” he said. “I think Salt Lake City needs something like this, to have the Native Americans voice who they are now. We’re still here; the Native Americans are still here. We’re still thriving, we’re teachers, astronauts, baseball players, designers and artists.

“That’s one thing I want to say is that we’re here, we’re proud and we’re still thriving in the community.”

Michelle Brown, an Indigenous designer who will be modeling during the show, agreed that the event will be impactful for Salt Lake City.

“I think it’s a really important event for Salt Lake City to have because we are so attuned to looking at European designers or New York designers, but there’s not a lot of Indigenous representation here in Utah where you have so many talented designers from several tribes putting out their work,” she said. “There’s so many designers across Europe and the U.S. that borrow Indigenous designs when they weren’t really permitted to do so. So I think it’s really important to see firsthand what First Peoples are producing and the stories that they’re still telling.”

Brown encouraged those attending the show year-round support for the artists, a number of whom will be selling their work before and after the show.

The fashion show will take place on Saturday, April 15, from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Leonardo. Tickets are $5, and the profits will go towards paying the models and staff and to the Hopi Education Endowment Fund.

With a new wing years away, the Met will highlight cutting-edge art with Nairy Baghramian on its facade and Jacolby Satterwhite in the Great Hall.

Estimated read time: 3-4
minutes

SALT LAKE CITY — Artist and designer Jessica Wiarda saw a gap as she observed different fashion weeks taking place in Utah.

“There was no Indigenous-specific fashion week this year. I was seeing all these other cultures represented, but Indigenous wasn’t there,” said Wiarda, who is Hopi/Tewa.

The realization came as Wiarda began wrapping up a yearlong artist in residency program through nonprofit Utah Diné Bikéyah and the Leonardo Museum. Instead of a farewell event celebrating just her residency, Wiarda decided to gather other Indigenous artists and models for Utah’s first Indigenous Fashion Week.

This year’s fashion week will consist of one night featuring work from artists representing half a dozen tribes — including Hopi, Navajo (Diné), Ute, Northern Ute, Apache and Anishinaabe Ojibwe — as well as a section featuring powwow regalia. But Wiarda hopes the show will be the start of an annual tradition.

“It just is going to get bigger and better,” she said, adding that the event is entirely Indigenous-led and -run.

“There are no stereotypes here; it’s just us as ourselves — and that’s why it’s a really important event,” she said. “It’s open to everybody and it’s a rare look into something that I feel like a lot of people are afraid to ask questions about because it’s such a marginalized community. We’re still here and we’re reclaiming our culture through fashion.”

Michael Haswood, a Diné artist who is helping organize the show, said although the event will very much be a modern fashion show, many of the pieces will incorporate traditional designs.

“Every Native American is raised to be proud of your ancestors and what they’ve done and this is the reason why we’re having a fashion show because we want to show the old art and the old designs,” he said.

Haswood added that although fashion week happens on the Navajo Reservation, there’s nothing similar in Salt Lake City.

“We want to bring that energy, that power and that art up here,” he said. “I think Salt Lake City needs something like this, to have the Native Americans voice who they are now. We’re still here; the Native Americans are still here. We’re still thriving, we’re teachers, astronauts, baseball players, designers and artists.

“That’s one thing I want to say is that we’re here, we’re proud and we’re still thriving in the community.”

Michelle Brown, an Indigenous designer who will be modeling during the show, agreed that the event will be impactful for Salt Lake City.

“I think it’s a really important event for Salt Lake City to have because we are so attuned to looking at European designers or New York designers, but there’s not a lot of Indigenous representation here in Utah where you have so many talented designers from several tribes putting out their work,” she said. “There’s so many designers across Europe and the U.S. that borrow Indigenous designs when they weren’t really permitted to do so. So I think it’s really important to see firsthand what First Peoples are producing and the stories that they’re still telling.”

Brown encouraged those attending the show year-round support for the artists, a number of whom will be selling their work before and after the show.

The fashion show will take place on Saturday, April 15, from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Leonardo. Tickets are $5, and the profits will go towards paying the models and staff and to the Hopi Education Endowment Fund.

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Most recent Multicultural Utah stories

Opens May 18, 2023

Independent New York

Independent New York is one of my favorite ways to see a wild and wonderfully curated mix of contemporary art, lots of it, known and unknown, in one place. It’s back this year on May 11 for four days at Spring Studios in Tribeca, with 120 artists and 74 galleries chosen from around the world. Twenty New York artists will have their debuts here. Founded by Elizabeth Dee fourteen years ago, Independent New York offers up a cornucopia of themes that include: gender as a social construct, a return to childhood, post-figuration and magical realism, and career reassessments and rediscoveries. 

May 11-14, 2023

Maiden Voyage at Clearing

After a dozen years in Brooklyn, Clearing, one of the most influential young galleries that put Bushwick on the art scene, is moving to Manhattan, in a three-story building on the Bowery across the street from the New Museum. All grown up, Clearing is opening on April 26 with Maiden Voyage, a group show of every artist in its stable. Known for identifying and nurturing such emerging talents like Harold Ancart, Calvin Marcus, Korakrit Arunanondchai, this is a gallery to continue to watch.

April 26, 2023 – May 21, 2023

Bob Thompson

Bob Thompson gets a double header: Agony & Ecstasy at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and So Let Us All Be Citizens at 52 Walker. Thompson’s life was cut tragically short by a heroin overdose at the age of 28 after gallbladder surgery, but in the eight years he painted, he managed to make about a thousand paintings and drawings—figurative, often reinterpreting works of the Old Masters, put through the mix master of his imagination using fauvist-like colors. Five large paintings from 1963, an important year in Thompson’s oeuvre that summed up the two years of his travels in Europe, along with ten other paintings in addition to works on paper, and archival photographs and sketchbooks, are in the Rosenfeld show. At 52 Walker, Thompson’s jazz-influenced style will be on view. His particular use of color, line, and figuration contrasts with the prevailing abstraction of his time. 

Bob Thompson: Agony & Ecstasy at  at Rosenfeld Gallery, April 1 – May 26, 2023; Bob Thompson: So let us all be citizens at 52 Walker, April 21 – July 08, 2023; 

Ellsworth Kelly at Glenstone

Ellsworth Kelly would be 100 this year and Glenstone, Mitch and Emily Rales’ idyllic museum in Potomac, Maryland, is celebrating him and his career with one of the biggest retrospectives he’s ever had. Ellsworth Kelly at 100 will show nearly 70 works—paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, and photographs—across his seven-decade life as an artist, from the 1950s to the 2010s, confirming his deep contributions to the language of abstraction. His dedication and ever-playful probing of shape, line, color, and space will be on full display. Yellow Curve (1990), Kelly’s monumental floor painting covering about 1000 square feet will be exhibited for the first time in thirty years. After nearly a year at Glenstone, the party will continue: first stop Paris at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, next, Doha at the Fire Station. 

May 4, 2023 to March of 2024

Uman at Nicola Vassell Gallery

Uman’s show I Want Everything at Nicola Vassell Gallery is a romp through this self-trained, multidisciplinary artist’s very painterly practice over the past decade. Uman was born in Somalia, grew up in Kenya, spent her teenage years in Denmark, her twenties in New York City, and now lives in upstate New York. She brings all this and more to the lexicon of mythical beings and geometrical symbols that mingle on her canvases. Uman is an artist who has many stories to tell and this show presents a new chapter. 

May 4 to June 17

Finding freedom in highlighting the nature of gender expectations, La Jolla artist Christiana Updegraff is showcasing a collection of three-dimensional works at an exhibit in Solana Beach.

The show, called “Tether,” also features works by Rancho Peñasquitos artist Alexandra Carter. It opened April 8 at Oolong Gallery and continues through Friday, May 5.

The exhibit focuses on the ways in which the artists — both of them mothers — feel bound to their children, partners and others’ expectations.

To flesh out the theme, Updegraff employs many materials in her projects, using industrial supplies such as cement or wood and “a lot of domestic objects that are deconstructed [and] items that have a certain gender affiliation or expectation,” she said.

Christiana Updegraff’s “Dangle, Tangle, Drop” is one of the works in the exhibit “Tether.”

(Christiana Updegraff)

Updegraff’s works include string, textiles and fabrics designed to bring focus to the body and elicit “a visceral response in the viewer,” she said.

Her creations in the exhibit explore the isolation and unmooring Updegraff felt after she and her husband, video editor and La Jolla native Tucker Bass, moved to La Jolla from Los Angeles in August 2020 with their newborn and 2-year-old.

The family moved to be closer to Bass’ parents, and while that has been a boon, the restrictions early in the COVID-19 pandemic meant isolation for Updegraff.

But she was able to create in her art studio in the garage in close proximity to her children, all the while probing the concepts of loss and caretaking.

“The minutiae of caretaking is ever-present in my work,” Updegraff said, “particularly during this time of staying at home and having to provide for these two little people and their needs all day and then not being able to leave and come back. … It’s literally like dishes and cleaning and giving of myself to these other two people.”

“There’s such a loss of community for parents in general,” she said, but the pandemic quarantines compounded her feelings. “The loss of myself … was really difficult for me because there was no other community. There was nothing to turn to.”

Updegraff, who earned a master’s degree in fine arts from San Diego State University in 2011 and creates art while teaching full time at Long Beach City College and SDSU, also explores “gender constructs and how society places expectations on men or women … and how those differences shape our experience in the world.”

Christiana Updegraff’s “1005” is another of her creations on view at Oolong Gallery in Solana Beach through May 5.

(Christiana Updegraff)

As a mother, Updegraff said she sometimes feels pulled to conform to expectations of gender that compel her to be a caretaker while also pursuing her career.

Updegraff was raised in Kentucky and says she was confronted by Southern society’s differing expectations for her and her brother.

“I felt that very acutely growing up, so I’ve really tried my hardest to dispel those notions of gender constructs and fight against those,” she said.

Updegraff also references fertility in her works, as well as “how people present themselves to the exterior world,” she said.

The idea that one must maintain “an air of perfection … is particularly pervasive in today’s culture when dealing with women,” Updegraff said. “You can [try to] check all the boxes that you’re supposed to check. I think we all bravely try to fulfill [that], but it’s unattainable.”

That notion is exemplified in many of the works in “Tether,” she said.

“It’s amplifying that not everything has to be OK,” she said. “Some of us are coming unglued and pushing against the idea of being perfect.”

Oolong Gallery is at 349 N. Hwy. 101, Solana Beach. For more information, visit oolongallery.com.

An emerging Indigenous artist from Treaty #3 is being recognized for their work in the north.

Storm Angeconeb has been awarded the 8th annual Barbara Laronde Emerging Artist Award from Native Women in the Arts, taking home the top prize of $5,000.

“Miigwech,” Storm wrote on social media. “I am so thankful and honoured. I want to pursue this path in the arts. I’m thankful for my team and those that pushed me to take steps out of my comfort zone. This was a huge step. When I found out I was cooking soup and burnt my bannock and cried.

Angeconeb is an Ojibwe visual artist from Lac Seul First Nation, born and raised in Winnipeg and currently lives in Red Lake. Over the past few years, her artwork has been featured throughout Winnipeg on murals and lightboxes.  

“Storm Angeconeb was selected from a number of nominees from across Northern Ontario. NWIA’s Artistic Director, Ariel Smith remarked. “On behalf of the Board and staff of NWIA, we are thrilled to present this award to Storm Angeconeb and to recognize her commitment to the development of her artistic practice. We are confident that Storm has a great future ahead of her.”

The Barbara Laronde Emerging Artist Award was created to honour the legacy of NWIA founder Sandra Laronde and her vision and commitment to Indigenous artists. It celebrates the career of one outstanding, emerging Indigenous artist based in Northern Ontario.

You can find more of Storm’s work on her website HERE.

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Protecting the creative works of Cherokee artists

Monday, April 10, 2023

Cherokee Nation

For too many generations, citizens of tribal nations around the country, including Cherokee Nation citizens, saw their language, their culture and their artistic expression suppressed and eroded by policies of the United States. Meanwhile, many non-Indians have profited from art based on stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native Americans.

The federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, first passed in 1990, finally put some long-needed protections in place. It is a truth in advertising law intended to protect Indian artists and consumers. Unfortunately, the law still defines “Indian” and “Indian tribe” too broadly. Instead of reserving the label of “Indian art” to members of federally recognized tribes, current law extends that protection to state-recognized tribes, which have not passed any of the important federal safeguards against falsely claiming tribal identity.

Recently, I sent a letter urging Congress to strengthen the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act by reserving its protections to members of federally recognized tribes. I called for Congress to include these changes in the proposed ARTIST Act.

The list of fake tribes and state-recognized tribes is long. At least 10 state-recognized groups across the country make a false claim to Cherokee history and culture. These groups pose as Cherokee tribes and issue membership cards, usually for a fee. Rather than earn federal recognition through a rigorous examination of history, facts and the law, they perpetuate a fraud.

Unfortunately, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act — a law intended to protect Native artists — helps these “tribes” in their quest for legitimacy. Under the law, artists with membership in these fraudulent organizations compete alongside Cherokee citizens in selling art under the federally protected “Indian art” label.

This is an offense to our ancestors, an offense to our artists and confusing to art patrons. As Chief, I will not tolerate it. So, let’s do something about it. Let’s tell Congress that our ancestors endured too much to allow fake tribes to undermine our culture and lifeways. Let’s tell Congress that our artists, and artists in all federally recognized tribes, deserve to be respected. Let’s tell Congress that if a person is going to sell their art as Indian art, they ought to at least be an Indian.

Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and I took an oath of office to preserve and defend Cherokee sovereignty and culture, which are threatened by the countless examples of people falsely claiming Cherokee Nation citizenship and ancestry. Our oath compels us to speak up to federal leaders.

We need your help, too. Genuine Native artists across the Cherokee Nation and across the country need your help. I’m asking you to join me and Deputy Chief Warner in calling on Congress to remove non-federally recognized tribes from the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The law must be changed to protect actual Cherokees, including thousands of Cherokee artists, artisans and craftspeople who are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians or the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.

Tribes like the Cherokee Nation — which has been continuously federally recognized since the founding of the country — and other tribes and bands recognized later under federal law are the only legitimate tribes. If groups posing as tribes under state law want the unique rights and responsibilities of Indian tribes, including protections for Indian artists, these groups should go through the rigorous process of federal recognition, just like the other 574 federally recognized tribes.

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is seeking comment on the proposed ARTIST Act of 2023. Now is the time to push for changes in federal law that give Indian artists the respect and protection they deserve.

You can visit the Cherokee Nation’s Citizen Action website for a template letter showing your support for the strengthening of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. Email your letter and comments to Artist@indian.senate.gov. The deadline to let your voice be heard is Friday, April 14.

Chuck Hoskin Jr.
is the 18th elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the largest Indian
tribe in the United States. He is only the second elected Principal Chief of the
Cherokee Nation from Vinita, the first being Thomas Buffington, who served from
1899-1903. Prior to being elected Principal Chief, Hoskin served as the tribe’s
Secretary of State. He also formerly served as a member of the Council of the
Cherokee Nation, representing District 11 for six years.

Related Stories

Finding freedom in highlighting the nature of gender expectations, La Jolla artist Christiana Updegraff is showcasing a collection of three-dimensional works at an exhibit in Solana Beach.

The show, called “Tether,” also features works by Rancho Peñasquitos artist Alexandra Carter. It opened April 8 at Oolong Gallery and continues through Friday, May 5.

The exhibit focuses on the ways in which the artists — both of them mothers — feel bound to their children, partners and others’ expectations.

To flesh out the theme, Updegraff employs many materials in her projects, using industrial supplies such as cement or wood and “a lot of domestic objects that are deconstructed [and] items that have a certain gender affiliation or expectation,” she said.

Christiana Updegraff’s “Dangle, Tangle, Drop” is one of the works in the exhibit “Tether.”

(Christiana Updegraff)

Updegraff’s works include string, textiles and fabrics designed to bring focus to the body and elicit “a visceral response in the viewer,” she said.

Her creations in the exhibit explore the isolation and unmooring Updegraff felt after she and her husband, video editor and La Jolla native Tucker Bass, moved to La Jolla from Los Angeles in August 2020 with their newborn and 2-year-old.

The family moved to be closer to Bass’ parents, and while that has been a boon, the restrictions early in the COVID-19 pandemic meant isolation for Updegraff.

But she was able to create in her art studio in the garage in close proximity to her children, all the while probing the concepts of loss and caretaking.

“The minutiae of caretaking is ever-present in my work,” Updegraff said, “particularly during this time of staying at home and having to provide for these two little people and their needs all day and then not being able to leave and come back. … It’s literally like dishes and cleaning and giving of myself to these other two people.”

“There’s such a loss of community for parents in general,” she said, but the pandemic quarantines compounded her feelings. “The loss of myself … was really difficult for me because there was no other community. There was nothing to turn to.”

Updegraff, who earned a master’s degree in fine arts from San Diego State University in 2011 and creates art while teaching full time at Long Beach City College and SDSU, also explores “gender constructs and how society places expectations on men or women … and how those differences shape our experience in the world.”

Christiana Updegraff’s “1005” is another of her creations on view at Oolong Gallery in Solana Beach through May 5.

(Christiana Updegraff)

As a mother, Updegraff said she sometimes feels pulled to conform to expectations of gender that compel her to be a caretaker while also pursuing her career.

Updegraff was raised in Kentucky and says she was confronted by Southern society’s differing expectations for her and her brother.

“I felt that very acutely growing up, so I’ve really tried my hardest to dispel those notions of gender constructs and fight against those,” she said.

Updegraff also references fertility in her works, as well as “how people present themselves to the exterior world,” she said.

The idea that one must maintain “an air of perfection … is particularly pervasive in today’s culture when dealing with women,” Updegraff said. “You can [try to] check all the boxes that you’re supposed to check. I think we all bravely try to fulfill [that], but it’s unattainable.”

That notion is exemplified in many of the works in “Tether,” she said.

“It’s amplifying that not everything has to be OK,” she said. “Some of us are coming unglued and pushing against the idea of being perfect.”

Oolong Gallery is at 349 N. Hwy. 101, Solana Beach. For more information, visit oolongallery.com. ◆

Details

By Chuck Hoskin Jr

April 08, 2023

Guest Opinion. For too many generations, citizens of tribal nations around the country, including Cherokee Nation citizens, saw their language, their culture and their artistic expression suppressed and eroded by policies of the United States. Meanwhile, many non-Indians have profited from art based on stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native Americans.

The federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, first passed in 1990, finally put some long-needed protections in place. It is a truth in advertising law intended to protect Indian artists and consumers. Unfortunately, the law still defines “Indian” and “Indian tribe” too broadly. Instead of reserving the label of “Indian art” to members of federally recognized tribes, current law extends that protection to state-recognized tribes, which have not passed any of the important federal safeguards against falsely claiming tribal identity.

Recently, I sent a letter urging Congress to strengthen the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act by reserving its protections to members of federally recognized tribes. I called for Congress to include these changes in the proposed ARTIST Act.

The list of fake tribes and state-recognized tribes is long. At least 10 state-recognized groups across the country make a false claim to Cherokee history and culture. These groups pose as Cherokee tribes and issue membership cards, usually for a fee. Rather than earn federal recognition through a rigorous examination of history, facts and the law, they perpetuate a fraud.

Unfortunately, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act — a law intended to protect Native artists — helps these “tribes” in their quest for legitimacy. Under the law, artists with membership in these fraudulent organizations compete alongside Cherokee citizens in selling art under the federally protected “Indian art” label. 

This is an offense to our ancestors, an offense to our artists and confusing to art patrons. As Chief, I will not tolerate it. So, let’s do something about it. Let’s tell Congress that our ancestors endured too much to allow fake tribes to undermine our culture and lifeways. Let’s tell Congress that our artists, and artists in all federally recognized tribes, deserve to be respected. Let’s tell Congress that if a person is going to sell their art as Indian art, they ought to at least be an Indian.

Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and I took an oath of office to preserve and defend Cherokee sovereignty and culture, which are threatened by the countless examples of people falsely claiming Cherokee Nation citizenship and ancestry. Our oath compels us to speak up to federal leaders.

We need your help, too. Genuine Native artists across the Cherokee Nation and across the country need your help. I’m asking you to join me and Deputy Chief Warner in calling on Congress to remove non-federally recognized tribes from the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The law must be changed to protect actual Cherokees, including thousands of Cherokee artists, artisans and craftspeople who are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians or the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.

Tribes like the Cherokee Nation — which has been continuously federally recognized since the founding of the country — and other tribes and bands recognized later under federal law are the only legitimate tribes. If groups posing as tribes under state law want the unique rights and responsibilities of Indian tribes, including protections for Indian artists, these groups should go through the rigorous process of federal recognition, just like the other 574 federally recognized tribes.

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is seeking comment on the proposed ARTIST Act of 2023. Now is the time to push for changes in federal law that give Indian artists the respect and protection they deserve.

You can visit the Cherokee Nation’s Citizen Action website for a template letter showing your support for the strengthening of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. Email your letter and comments to [email protected]. The deadline to let your voice be heard is Friday, April 14.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr. is the pirncial chief of the Cherokee Nation.

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