Native American artists create unique items that can beautify a home.
Chandler resident Katherine Shields appreciated their beauty from a young age as she was exposed to a collector’s world. Now, she chairs an upcoming Valley event that showcases this art.
About 110 Native American artist vendors, some of them “rock stars” of the Indigenous art world, will sell their wares during the S’edav Va’aki Museum Indian Market from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 9-10 at 4619 E. Washington St., Phoenix. (The venue was formerly known as the Pueblo Grande Museum.)
“There are not many places where visitors can engage with Indigenous artists in an informal setting,” Shields said. “Shoppers have a rare opportunity to chat with the artists about their art form, how they came to learn it, and its importance in their lives.”
Arizona’s second largest Indian Market provides a great opportunity to pick up paintings, woven rugs, pottery, sterling and gold jewelry, kachinas, Zuni fetishes, Native flutes and drums, sculptures, beaded items, arrowheads and other similar items. Prices start at $5 and can cost more than $3,000.
The U.S. Department of the Interior adjudicates the event, requiring vendors to adhere to stringent rules and regulations.
Each item sold at the Indian Market is individually hand-made from materials that are authentic to the art form, said Shields, who co-chairs the event and is the director of the S’edav Va’aki Museum Foundation.
This position is volunteer based, and her regular job is a contracted member for the Arizona Opera Orchestra, where she has played the viola since 1999.
Shields said the market is “not like an art fair where you just walk through and look at art and then maybe buy something or maybe you don’t. We have actual things to do.”.
In addition to the vendor booths, visitors may walk through the Ki:him, or “village,” a cultural demonstration area with 15 booths. Artists include Tony Duncan, who teaches hoop dancing, and the Kehewin Native Dance Theatre that teaches mask making.
The entertainment is provided by four big name acts and food trucks will be selling Native American food and a coffee truck.
Now in its 46th year, the market drew about 3,000 people last year.
“Some visitors are collectors, there to visit specific artist vendors; some are interested in the main stage entertainment; some families come primarily to visit the Ki:him area and eat Fry Bread,” she said.
“The Indian Market Committee has always viewed the market as a community-building event; the willingness of Ki:him demonstrators, entertainers and artist vendors to return year after year is evidence of the success in that arena.”
Shields’ grandparents and parents were interested in Native American culture and art since the early 1900s, and are collectors.
“My father took me to my first Indian Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when I was 9. I have been hooked ever since,” she said.
She is most fascinated by how the art is interwoven with the artists’ spiritual life and cultural practices.
“I find that each piece holds so much meaning. It’s not just another painting of a landscape,” she said.
In college Shields started collecting Santa Clara pottery from New Mexico’s Santa Clara Pueblo, but said, “I don’t think of myself as a collector, I just think of myself as a person who buys jewelry and paintings.
“I buy things that speak to me. Things just pop out. It just jumps up and says, ‘I need to go home with you.’”
Shields began volunteering for the Indian Market in 2017. She also began volunteering at the museum, facilitating school tours and working the Artifact Cart, where they demonstrate unprovenanced objects that can be passed around.
She chaired the Young Artist Market in 2021. In 2022, she joined the board of the S’edav Va’aki Museum Foundation.
“On the board, we each have a position, so I became chair of the Indian Market Committee. I have a co-chair, Jim Walker, and our committee of about 20 works hard every year to put on the Indian Market, which is the foundation’s biggest fundraiser for the museum,” she said.
Arizona has 22 federally recognized indigenous tribes and several are represented in the market. Besides Arizona, the artists come from New Mexico and California.
The market is pan-tribal, which means it is not promoting any tribes, but Native American art as a whole.
The S’edav Va’aki Museum Indian Market is one of about six markets in the US that are annual events that adhere to the Indian Arts & Crafts Act of 1990. It customarily draws the high-profile artists in the Indigenous art world, Shields said.
The Phoenix-owned Pueblo Grand Museum changed its name earlier this year to S’edav Va’aki Museum to more accurately represent the heritage it preserves and to recognize the living cultures and homelands of the Native peoples who have inhabited the land for centuries. “Pueblo” means town or village in Spanish.
Va’aki means “platform mound” and S’edav Va’aki translates as “Central Platform Mound,” referring to the ceremonial house of a village, of which there were several along the Salt River.
At one time, about 1,000 people lived on the site until it was vacated around 1200, probably due to drought.
Asked about the general interest in these cultures, Shields said: “I think interest in Indigenous art and culture is on the rise. Now that travel has opened up, cultural tourism is back in force.”
Details: phoenix.gov/sedav-vaaki
