JANUARY 9, 2013
Lectures on ledger art, contemporary works, Navajo weaving highlight ‘Nights at North’
PHOENIX — The Heard Museum Council Presents Nights at North, Heard Museum North Scottsdale’s winter evening series, returns with four special Wednesday evenings of fellowship, food and drink — and, of course, art. On Jan. 30 and Feb. 6, 13 and 20, enjoy a reception at 5:30 p.m. followed by a lecture at 6:30 p.m. The Shop will be open until 6:30 p.m. for last-minute Valentine’s Day shopping. Free to Heard Museum members; free to the public with museum admission. Visit heard.org/north.
January 30: American Indian Ledger Art
Take in a lecture on American Indian ledger art by University of New Mexico art history professor Joyce Szabo, Ph.D. Professor Szabo is beginning her 20th year as a faculty member at UNM, where she is an art historian specializing in Native American art and related courses in museum studies. She obtained her undergraduate degree in art and English from Wittenberg University; her master’s degree in art history is from Vanderbilt University and her doctorate in art history is from UNM. The exhibit Stories Outside the Lines: American Indian Ledger Art opened on Dec. 13 at the Heard Museum North Scottsdale and is on display until September 29.
February 6: Generation New, Artist Panel Discussion
Listen as three contemporary American Indian artists discuss the landscape of American Indian art, each from a different perspective.
Jacob Meders (Mechoopda Maidu) is a painter and printmaker whose work focuses on altered perceptions of place, culture and identity built on the assimilation and homogenization of indigenous peoples. His work re-examines varied documentations of Native Americans through printing processes that hold onto stereotypical ideas and how they have affected the culture of the Native people.
Thomas “Breeze” Marcus (Tohono O’odham) is a Phoenix-born artist who grew up between the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the urban setting of the Sonoran Desert. Marcus’s work integrates traditional Tohono O’odham and ancient Hohokam iconography. He has worked on a variety of public-art murals around the Southwest, including on Roosevelt Row in downtown Phoenix and on the Navajo Nation.
The work of Andrea Preston (Navajo), a self-taught beadwork artist, is carried in the burgeoning Beyond Buckskin Boutique. Her line of acrylic painted earrings uses Navajo-inspired designs, echoing the tradition of Navajo weaving and the influences of powwow culture.
February 13: Ledger Art, Artist Lecture by America Meredith
Enjoy a lecture by America Meredith as she shares what inspires her work and discusses pieces on display in Stories Outside the Lines: American Indian Ledger Art, which opened on Dec. 13 and continues until Sept. 29. Meredith is a Swedish-Cherokee artist who blends historical styles from Native America and Europe with imagery from pop culture. Her influences include Mississippian shell engravings, TV cartoons and the Bacone style of painting. She is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and a member of Squirrel Ridge Ceremonial Ground in Kenwood, Oklahoma; she also serves on the board of the Cherokee Arts and Humanities Council, a grassroots, independent organization interested in serving the rural Cherokee communities of northeastern Oklahoma.
February 20: Contemporary Navajo Weaving in a Historical Context
Ann Lane Hedlund, Ph.D., joins us for a conversation on the landscape of Navajo weaving from the past and current themes of today. Hedlund is the curator of ethnology at the Arizona State Museum in Tucson, director of the Gloria F. Ross Tapestry Program and a professor in the University of Arizona’s School of Anthropology.
