The art of adornment

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      Totems to Turquoise shows why jewellery art plays a shining role in First Nations’ resurgence from the Southwest to the B.C. coast.

      With its geometric hunks of turquoise and coral against silver, the First Nations jewellery of the American Southwest seems far removed from the sinuous forms and restrained colours of Northwest Coast Native designs. Sending top practitioners of these artistic traditions to one another’s homelands might have seemed counterintuitive, but it happened in 2000. Five Haida artists travelled to the red-rock desert of the southwestern mesas, followed by a visit of 10 Southwest artists to the misty, lush islands of Haida Gwaii. It was a cultural exchange dreamed up by New York–based jewellery expert Lois Dubin, who then worked with the American Museum of Natural History to compile Totems to Turquoise, an exhibit highlighting the best work of both communities.

      At the Vancouver Museum (the only Canadian venue) until March 25, the travelling show has come to one of its source regions after stopping in New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Among the 500 precious, mostly contemporary pieces chosen from private and institutional collections, about half represent masters from up and down the B.C. coast, including Jim Hart, Dempsey Bob, Robert Davidson, and the late Bill Reid. The range of work is comprehensive, from the Tlingit to the Coast Salish and from the Zuni to the Navajo. Because the exhibit’s gemstone-studded Southwest artifacts are mostly silver-based, many of the Northwest Coast selections also highlight that metal, often intricately engraved with crest-animal designs.

      The opening display juxtaposes two pieces: a chunky, angular lapis-and-coral-inlaid bracelet by the late Hopi artist Charles Loloma (representing a katsina spirit) and a delicate golden Beaver and Eagle cuff by Reid. The pairing reveals the iconic beauty and impeccable craftsmanship of both, as well as the art forms’ commonalities and differences, starting with the way metals are worked in each region.

      “Southwest jewellery is primarily based on Spanish working traditions of casting silver, whereas on the Northwest Coast it was all hammered out, because they’d been hammering copper for thousands of years,” explained Bill Reid Foundation president and exhibit cocurator George MacDonald, who helped bring the show to town, speaking prior to leading a tour. “So those two traditions have different origins, but almost every artist in both communities now spends a good part of their time doing gold and silver.”

      The two cultures also have a long history of dramatic personal adornment, as exemplified by the show’s vast assortment of stunning objects. Zuni animal fetishes of semi-precious stone; Navajo conch belts freighted with chunks of turquoise or silver overlay; bolo ties featuring everything from abstract bone inlays to detailed silver cloud maidens; a Tlingit soul-catcher necklace of fossilized mastodon ivory, argillite, and abalone shell; and cuff bracelets, pendants, and earrings depicting every type of Northwest Coast crest animal or story—from the thunderbird to the deep sea frog—turn up in the thematically and regionally grouped displays. Videos offer further insight into the cultures and working methods of the various artists.

      Although many of the artifacts reflect contemporary design influences, exploring ancient cosmology and cultural mythology is clearly still high on the agenda. “We [Westerners] tend to use the term myth in a shallow meaning, but it’s a profound sense of causality with Native peoples,” said MacDonald. “The mythology is the charter of why you and your family have certain prerogatives.” In an exhibit panel showcasing his work, Hart, a Haida chief from the long Edenshaw family line of artists and community leaders, put it more succinctly: “For our people, what we wear is who we are. Our jewellery and our clothing represent where we come from. We wear our history.”

      As the most popular form of First Nations art, jewellery is playing a big role in the resurgence of many near-devastated cultures, said MacDonald. “The artists are also interested in how art is being put back into their own communities and is used [to help with] identity issues. When you’re dealing with drug abuse and all kinds of low-self-esteem-driven situations, cultural pride becomes very important.”

      To deepen the show’s active connection to local Native communities, the Vancouver Museum trained interpreters from several B.C. First Nations. Its new CEO, Nancy Noble, also hopes that the landmark exhibit will raise the profile of the “sleeper museum” and draw the public’s attention to its significant regional Native collections. Because some antique objects from the AMNH couldn’t make it across the border, local pieces such as a Tsimshian transformation mask from about 1890 and a contemporary dance screen with a brown-bear design by Hart are standing in. The Bill Reid Foundation—which contributed a dozen of the exhibit’s treasures and also raised $200,000 from private sources to bring it here—also secured a provincial grant that will allow Hart to carve an 18-foot totem pole at the museum, starting in December. (He’s currently up in Haida Gwaii picking out a tree.)

      MacDonald also envisions Totems to Turquoise as a possible catalyst for building an international market for Northwest Coast arts—one that’s as successful as the Santa Fe market has become for Southwest jewellery. Special events, he said, could make Vancouver a destination for collectors from Asia and around the world. “There are only three groups in North America where traditional arts are on a multimillion-dollar basis each year: the Northwest Coast, the Southwest, and the Inuit. The Santa Fe Indian Art Market is the second-biggest art fund generator in North America—and that’s for all arts, not just Native arts. Bringing it [the exhibit] here might be the beginning of a similar phenomenon.”

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