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New York Native Artist For Real Let me introduce myself. My legal name is Nadema Agard. My ceremonial Lakota name is Winyan Luta or Woman of Sacred Red. I, however, just use Red Woman because I am not professing to be a sacred or holy person. The interesting thing is that my maternal grandmother gave me a Cherokee name translated as Red Earth and being a Virgo, an earth sign, I guess she was right on target because red is definitely my color in the East and the West. I am a New Yorker born and raised by a Lakota/Powhatan father and an Eastern Cherokee mother. My first glimpse of the world of New York Native Arts was when I visited Lloyd Oxendine’s Gallery in the seventies and saw an American Indian contemporary art show in what was the Soho scene. I was barely out of Columbia University with Master Of Arts Degree in Art and Education from Teacher's College, but I was not innocent. I had traveled to the Caribbean and Europe and was schooled in Italy where I lived La Dolce Vita. But, during that Belle Epoch, I had a moment of clarity on a Greek yacht off the island of Rhodes and I knew that this was not who I was, although I must admit it was enjoyable! So I went back to my homeland. It was my genetic memory calling me to attend my first American Indian Movement (AIM) gathering in Wakpala, South Dakota and look up my Lakota relatives on Standing Rock.. It was in the days of Angela Davis, Black Panthers, Young Lords and Red Power. Swept up in all that identity, I made art with confidence; I made art that reflected who I was. The Native American community in New York was recognizing my work as an artist and I was invited to exhibit at the Gallery of the American Indian Community House (AICH) by G. Peter Jemison, the first Director. In 1981, I was the first Native American hired in a professional capacity by a non-Indian historian, Robert Venables at the Museum of the American Indian, (MAI) Heye Foundation to develop an arts program which eventually became the Native American Arts Program: So the Spirit Flows. I developed both a visiting artist and an artist in residence component. In addition, I received a small case where I took on the responsibility to be a curator of exhibitions that were culturally relevant to the presenting artists. I even collaborated with the Film & Video department to screen relevant films and at times performed dances of various tribal nations. When the artist wasn’t demonstrating, I arranged for a monitor with ongoing visuals of historical and contemporary images of Native peoples and a soundtrack of the appropriate Native language. This went on for seven years. I cannot remember how many Native artists stayed in my apartment during those times. I was not only host to these visiting artists at the Museum; I was also their tour guide as I took them sightseeing in my old brown Volkswagen Rabbit. I had so many Native visitors that whenever my building superintendent would see Indigenous people in the lobby, she would just tell them to go to apartment 4E. I have some vivid memories of that time. One of the highlights was a visit from Anna Brown Ehlers, a Tlingit Chilkat weaver from Alaska who wore a sequined red dress that caught the attention of Rick James in a trendy downtown club. I also loved watching horror movies with Alice New Holy Blue Legs, a legendary Lakota Quill worker. Mary Tebo, Mohawk basket maker, stands out as a woman with such joy, especially when I took her family to the local Dominican restaurant and watched them relish the food. Another wonderful memory was the night my friend Hal and I took the renowned Kiowa cradleboard maker known then as Vanessa Morgan to a fancy seafood restaurant. She said, ‘Dang’ as we entered. A distinctly memorable event was a going-away party or ‘una despidida” in my apartment for Gregorio Sulca, the noted Wari weaver from Peru. My home was filled with Andean people from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru who would have otherwise never socialized together but they made an exception for me. The musicians played panpipes and charangos in my home before anyone had ever heard them on the New York subway platforms. The crowning glory of my career at the Museum of the American Indian, Discovery Day: Native American Arts Festival took place there on October 9, 1983 as A Celebration to Commemorate the Discovery of Columbus by Native Americans. It included demonstrations by more than twenty Native artists/artisans under a tent outside the museum who represented people from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. There we food vendors and musical groups from as far north as Six Nations in Canada and as far south as the Andes in South America. There was an exhibition, children’s video program, museum tours and gallery talks and I had brought more people to the museum in one day than had visited in one year! I was still at the MAI in 1987, when I received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship to eventually write and publish the Southeastern Native Arts Directory at Bemidji State University in Minnesota while I was an adjunct professor of studio arts and art education until 1994. When I started my work in Repatriation for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe from 1995 to 1997, I was surprised to run into many people I had met in the world of Native art. Lo and behold, I could not believe how many of us Native artists had become involved in this new field, people like Peter Jemison and myself. I really understood how we Native artists were vanguards of the culture. Meanwhile I was again invited to exhibit my own work at the AICH Gallery by the current Director, Joanna Bigfeather, while I was still working for the Tribe in North Dakota but once my project was completed I returned to New York City in 1997, after being away basically seven years. In 2000, I became the Community Services Outreach Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) where I supervised and further developed the Native Arts Program I had developed back in 1981, almost 20 years ago and I was called to rescue the program because…who better than the mother? That same year, Kathleen Ash Milby invited me to be in a show entitled, Mother Love: Native Women and the Land, at the AICH Gallery for which she was the Guest Curator. I was honored to be in the show and to be teased by Drew La Capa at the ATLATL: Native Arts Network conference banquet during the opening week. My very strong birthing images reminded Drew of when he helped deliver babies and he remarked that the show should be called the vulva show, instead. He also suggested that I do a scratch and sniff series with beaded forceps. I may take him up on that! It was a very busy and full year for me! In 2002 after the mission at the NMAI was accomplished, I departed but continued on as an occasional consultant, presenter, and workshop presenter. Eventually, I decided to devote myself full time to being the Director of Red Earth Studio Consulting /Productions based New York City. Today I am known as an artist and advocate for contemporary Native arts and cultures with a long history as an art educator and museum professional but I am foremost a visual artist, scholar, lecturer and published writer. I am a former consultant to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in the capacity of a writer and have also written for the American Indian College Fund. In recognition of this work, I received the Ingrid Washinawatok Award for Community Activism. This award was as important to me as having my first one person show in New York City’s Chelsea called Parfleche Visions and Moon Breast Mothers (2003). I feel in a sense that I live in so many different worlds and have lived several different lives. As a professional, I have had a life of an arts administrator, curator, and educator. My work with writing and illustrating children’s book has naturally evolved to my more recent role as a storyteller. And if that isn’t enough to do, I am still on the Roster for the Speakers in the Humanities Program of the New York State Council for the Humanities. I enjoy my work as a Native arts and tribal scholar making presentations about the symbolism of sacred art of Native America, the sacred feminine and how it inspires my own work. I just returned from a gathering in Italy this past July 2007 where I made two presentations, one being The Arts and the Sacred in Native America. It would be hard for me to give up making art and writing, talking about my art and the cosmic verities and I rather enjoy being a curator of other artists work because it is in my nature to be community oriented. It is also a way to honor the various communities and in a real sense it is advocacy. In the past few years I have been a guest curator, coordinator, lecturer; have collaborated with such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, AICH Gallery, Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, to name a few. My upcoming exhibition/panel discussion was inspired by the movie Fort Apache, The Bronx. The motivation and history behind this exhibition called, The Fort Apache Connection* and panel Fort Apache Revisited, brings me full circle. By inviting Apache artists from the Native art world, including two local Apache artists Pena Bonita and Jason Lujan, to exhibit their work in the Bronx is to bring together two communities that have formed me, the Native community and the New York City community. Who else do you know can say they have been to Fort Apache, Arizona and Fort Apache, The Bronx? by Nadema Agard (Cherokee/Lakota/Powhatan)
* The Fort Apache Connection, curated by Nadema Agard runs from September 7 through November 10, 2007 at Longhouse Art Gallery @Hostos 450 Grand Concourse at 149th St Bronx, NY 10451 718 518 6728 Opening Reception October 3, 5 to 9pm Closing Reception November 7, 5 to 9pm Fort Apache Revisited: A Panel Discussion, Thursday, October 4 at 7pm. Chair: Nadema Agard Panelists: Bob Haozous, Carm Little Turtle; Joe Conzo, Jr, Marta Moreno Vega, PH.D., and Nicholasa Mohr | ||
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