Calendar

Native American Arts and Trading Posts of the Southwest

April 25-27, 2019

Cost per person:
Double Occupancy – $1,052 (Includes a $100 tax-deductible donation to SAR)
Single Occupancy – $1,174 (includes a $100 tax-deductible donation to SAR)

To register for this trip click here.

For hundreds of years, people of the American Southwest traded among themselves. They used a system of barter to exchange everything from furs, bison hides, foods, woven material, and clothing to pottery, beads, feathers, and turquoise. In the 1800s, the establishment of trading posts linked southwestern trade networks to those in the middle and eastern United States. Besides trade goods, trading posts provided places where people from different cultures exchanged ideas.

The traders were a tough breed. They often lived alone, miles from the nearest settlement, at a time when there were few roads and few or no cars or trucks. They learned to speak local languages and often acted as doctors, mediators, and postal workers for their Indian neighbors. They built trading posts out of the available materials of stone, logs, and adobe to store their supplies. The trading post became a center for socializing and exchanging information as well as goods. Besides storerooms, trading posts typically had a public room for trading where people could sit and talk for hours, often around a wood-burning stove.

Weaver Evelyn George, courtesy of Toadlena Trading Post

Today, most of the historic trading posts have closed, but there are a few that remain open and still trade with the local native cultures. Join fellow SAR members as we visit some of the most iconic trading posts in the Southwest. Learn about their history as well as their relationships with the surrounding Native American communities. Visits include Shiprock Trading Post, where we will meet with owners Kent and Hillary Morrow and silversmith Perry Shorty and Teec Nos Pos, where we will have a weaving demonstration by artist Roy Kady and tour by owner John McCulloch and Kathleen Foutz. On day two, the group will spend the morning at Toadlena Trading Post with owners Mark and Linda Winter who have invited the group for lunch and a weaving demonstration. We will tour at the Hubbell Trading Post, which has been serving Ganado since 1978 selling goods and Native American Art, and Joe Milos Trading Company which has been trading with the Navajo, Zuni and Hopi people since 1943.

We will meet with the executive director of the Navajo Nation Museum who will enlighten us on commerce and its impact on trade practices, art production and the cultural effect on the Native American communities, both good and bad. On the last day, the group will visit Zuni Pueblo and meet with Wells Mahkee, Jr. of Zuni Pueblo Main Street and another tribal member to learn about the arts at Zuni and the revitalization of their community.

Activity Level: Easy: Limited walking. Participants must be able to get in and out of vans and walk unassisted short distances from parking areas to museums or art studios.

Includes: Overnight accommodations at the Best Western in Farmington and the historic El Rancho Hotel in Gallup; two breakfasts, three lunches and one dinner; water and snacks on the bus; all admission fees and artist gratuities; and air-conditioned bus.

Field trips are open to SAR members and our Galisteo members and up receive priority registration. For more information about SAR’s field trips, including activity levels and our cancellation policy, please visit our field trips page here.

Exploring the Tewa World: Posi-Ouinge and The Youngblood Family of Santa Clara Pueblo

Sign and Pot Sherds at Posi-Oiunge

May 4, 2019

Cost per person:
$270 (Includes a $25 tax-deductible donation to SAR)

To register for this trip click here.

Study Leader: Porter Swentzell and Kurt Anschuetz

The Tewa people have lived in northern New Mexico for centuries, including the modern villages of Santa Clara, Okhay Owingeh, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Pojoaque, and Nambe Pueblos. The ancestral villages of the Tewa are scattered along the tributaries of the Rio Chama and Rio Grande, including the archaeological site called “Posi-Ouinge” located near Ojo Caliente.

The story of Posi-Ouinge is a central part of the Tewa people’s history of their origin. The Summer People and the Winter People were at one-time divided as they traveled down the Rio Grande and Rio Chama toward the Española Valley, which is the heart of the Tewa’s traditional homeland. Each group built a series of villages as they made their journey. Eventually, the Tewas united to become a single community, and they lived together at one village, a place they call Posi-Ouinge “the greenness pueblo” above the Ojo Caliente hot springs. Leaving—but never forgetting—Posi-Ouinge as a place of residence, mixed groups of Summer and Winter People resumed their ancestor’s journey downstream to found the Tewa Pueblos that we know today.

Posi was a thriving center of Tewa village life from the late 1300’s until early 1500’s, just before the arrival of the Spanish. Inhabited by generations of people for over a century, this large adobe village may have had as many as 1,000 ground floor rooms and almost as many on the second and third stories.

Today, Santa Clara Pueblo is one of six Tewa-speaking Pueblos in New Mexico and is the home of many notable potters including Nancy Youngblood.  We will have the honor of meeting with and hearing from Nancy who is from a long line of remarkable potters including Sara Fina Tafoya and Margaret Tafoya. Known for her highly polished and precise ribbed and swirled pottery, Nancy won Best of Show at SWAIA Indian Market in 1989 and Best of Class in Pottery in SWAIA’s 2015 and 2018 markets.

During our visit, not only will we have the opportunity to witness an outdoor firing and enjoy a traditional Pueblo meal at Santa Clara Pueblo, we also will meet some of Nancy’s illustrious family. Finally we will learn about their ancestors who helped put Santa Clara blackware pottery on the map, the Tafoya’s of Santa Clara Pueblo. SAR is privileged to hold six pots by great-grandmother Sara Fina Tafoya, four by grandmother Margaret Tafoya, and one by mother Mela Youngblood in the Indian Arts Research Center collections.

Coiled pottery by Nancy Youngblood and Nancy Youngblood at work with coiled pot. Photo courtesy of Nancy Youngblood

Porter Swentzell and Kurt Anschuetz will be our guides into the ancestral Tewa world of Posi and the contemporary Tewa community of Santa Clara Pueblo or“Kha’p’o Owingeh”, translated as the “Valley of the Wild Roses.” Porter Swentzell is from a family of artisans, farmers, and scholars at Santa Clara Pueblo.  He was the first person to receive a Bachelors of Arts in Pueblo Indian Studies at Northern New Mexico College, received his PhD in Philosophy at Arizona State University, and is currently Assistant Professor and Chair of Indigenous Liberal Studies, at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Kurt F. Anschuetz

Kurt F. Anschuetz, received his MA at the University of New Mexico and his PhD at the University of Michigan. He is an anthropologist and archaeologist, who is engaged in long-term projects documenting the history of occupation by Pueblo peoples and their agricultural water management in the Tewa Basin, including the vicinity of Posi-Ouinge. He also provides technical assistance to the Pueblo of Acoma in its efforts to protect its traditional cultural relationships with Mount Taylor.

Activity Level: Moderate, involves climbing a steep, slick-rock escarpment and walking on an uneven dirt trail to reach Posi-Ouinge’s great mounds of melted adobe. Round trip, the hike will cover approximately one mile. Lunch will be a traditional meal at the Santa Clara Pueblo followed by artist demonstration.

Includes: Transportation in air-conditioned mini coach; traditional pueblo meal at Santa Clara Pueblo; and pottery demonstration by Santa Clara potter

Field trips are open to SAR members and our Galisteo members and up receive priority registration. For more information about SAR’s field trips, including activity levels and our cancellation policy, please visit our field trips page here.

President’s Circle Trip to Minneapolis

Image above: Sisseton Dakota artist, Table cloth (detail), c. 1900; wool cloth, beads, brass, cotton; National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (12/814). Photo by NMAI Photo Services and courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA).

Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists and Native Arts of Minnesota

Date: Thursday, May 30 to Sunday, June 2, 2019
Admission: Priority given to members of the Board of Directors, Founders’ Society, and President’s Circle. Please click here to reserve your spot.

Join fellow President’s Circle members and SAR President Michael Brown for a long weekend in Minneapolis to celebrate the opening of Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia).

Co-curated by former SAR Eric and Barbara Dobkin Fellow, Santa Fe artist, and independent curator Teri Greeves (Kiowa) and Mia associate curator of Native American Art Jill Ahlberg Yohe, this is the first major thematic exhibition exploring the artistic achievements of Native women from all regions of North America. Drawn from Mia’s permanent collection and loans from more than 30 institutions and private collection, this exhibition will include some 115 artworks from ancient times to the present as well as two commissioned works: a tapestry made of wool depicting a snowy landscape by DY Begay (Navajo), who lives in Santa Fe and is a SAR supporter, and a contemporary version of a traditional Osage wedding coat by Anita Fields (Osage). Participants are invited to a curator-led private tour, afternoon symposium, and gala reception and dinner.

To read more about the trip and to view a tentative itinerary (subject to change), please click here.