'California Stars: Huivanius Pütsiv' highlights landmark First California artists

Apr. 30—The sheen of these California stars have burnished the Native American contemporary art field for decades.

"California Stars: Huivanius Pütsiv" highlights those landmark First California artists at Santa Fe's Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian through Jan. 14, 2024. The show features artists working in fashion, photography, painting, mixed-media, sculpture, jewelry, video, printmaking and more.

The featured artists include Fritz Scholder, Harry Fonseca, Jamie Okuma, Judith Lowry, Cara Romero, Liz Wallace and Rick Bartow.

Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock) began beading powwow dresses at the age of 5.

"In our culture, in order to have an outfit, you needed beadwork," she said in a telephone interview from the La Jolla Indian Reservation north of San Diego.

Her mother was a graphic designer; her grandmother was a painter.

"The Shoshone-Bannock people are known for their beadwork," she said. "It's in my DNA."

Today Okuma creates one-of-a-kind pieces by hand. She has been a professional artist since she was 18. Exhibiting her work at the Heard Indian Art Market in Phoenix and at the Santa Fe Indian Market, she has won seven best-in-show awards.

Okuma is self-taught, gleaning pointers from YouTube videos. When she was younger, she wanted to be a costume designer, but the school she applied to rejected her for her lack of experience.

"They didn't know what they were looking at, so I just started creating," she said. "I had success right out of the gate."

Okuma's silk jacket dangling parfleche leggings ensemble is a nod to hide clothing.

"It may not seem Native, but the aesthetics are there in the cut," she said. "The top is loosely based on what a hide looks like with the long legs."

Okuma turns Native aesthetics into contemporary fashion. Her work has been shown in Germany, Australia and France, and hangs in museums throughout the U.S., including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Painter Judith Lowry (Hammawi Band Pit River/Mountain Maidu/Washoe/Scottish/Irish/Australian) won her first competition at the age of six for a drawing of a "Lord of the Rings"-meets-"Fantasia" world of vibrant creatures.

She began her adult career as a photographer, later earning a master's degree in painting while raising a family. Many of her early works reflect the Maidu/Pit River creation stories told by her father. Lowry considers her work a modern extension of the tradition of storytelling.

"Dao Lulelek (Fire Dancers)" reflects a story told to Native children to keep them from getting lost in the woods. It also reflects the fire danger looming across both California and the Southwest.

The parents said, "Don't go into the forest or these little guys will throw fire at you," Lowry said in a telephone interview from Nevada City, California. "It was to keep them from wandering into places they shouldn't go."

The regalia in the 4-by-5-foot acrylic painting reflects northern California tribes, flicker bird feathers flaming from their eyes.

Lowry was visiting Lake Tahoe with her Australian cousins when the Caldor Fire broke out in 2021, scorching approximately 221,835 acres, including National Forest lands.

"We thought of Lake Tahoe as a rich people's playground," she said. "They burned to the ground. My cousins were just astonished. Where I live now is right in the forest, so it's very dangerous."

The Wheelwright has long championed California artists, dating as far back as tribal baskets collected when the museum opened in 1937, curator Andrea Hanley said. Many have exhibited California-to-New Mexico ties.

Although he was originally from California, Harry Fonseca lived in Santa Fe for years.

"He was featured in so many exhibits here," Hanley said.

Fritz Scholder, known for his expressionist paintings hanging in museums across the globe, taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

"We were one of the first places to give him a solo exhibition in 1977," Hanley said.

"These First California artists were inspired by personal expression, tradition and the complexity of everyday life," she said. "They talk about issues of encroachment of their land, ideas around social justice. It's a location of diverse tribal communities, but there's been an impact of extractive colonialism; westward expansion and the gold rush."

"It's an ever-present constellation," Hanley said. "These artists have guided us into a deeper level of complex issues."

'California Stars: Huivanius Pütsiv'

WHERE: Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe, Museum Hill

WHEN: Through Jan. 14, 2024

HOW MUCH: $10 at wheelwright.org, 505-982-4636