Santa Fe Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Womens

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture today. Photograph by Shelley Thompson.

BY LYNN CLINE

It's been thirty years since the Museum of Indian Arts and Civilisation opened its doors on Museum Hill. This year also marks the twentieth anniversary of the opening of MIAC's permanent exhibition Hither, Now and Always, and the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Laboratory of Archeology.

All are invited to MIAC's thirtieth birthday at Museum Loma Community Day on Sun, September 24, 10 a.m.–4 p.thou. The celebration will include birthday cake, storytelling, and children's art activities. In MIAC'due south theater, an Indian Advisory Panel discussion (1–2:30 p.thou.) will focus on the importance of Native input in American Indian museum collections and exhibitions, followed by a panel (iii–four:thirty p.thou.) featuring some of MIAC'south former directors discussing the highlights of their time at the museum.

To commemorate MIAC's three decades, El Palacio asked past and nowadays museum directors to share their favorite stories about MIAC and to talk about their accomplishments, hopes for MIAC's future, and more.

What does MIAC correspond to y'all, and what special part does it play in telling the story of indigenous art and culture in the U.South.?

Della Warrior: MIAC has played a leadership role in advocating the engagement of indigenous people in museums with prominent and notable collections of artifacts, art, and other forms of cloth civilisation. For far too long, with the exception of tribal museums, the voices of Native people were not included in exhibits or in stories presented nigh them. Their voices were not sought out or listened to. We are in a new era: an era where Native voices are sought out for their interpretations and perspectives. This has been a turnaround, and MIAC has played a pivotal role in setting this direction. As the director, it is my slap-up honor to ensure that MIAC continues to aggrandize this tradition.

What exercise you lot consider your nigh significant accomplishment while serving as manager of MIAC?

Stephen Becker: I consider our work on repatriation to exist one of our greatest accomplishments. At the fourth dimension, the idea of museums returning burials, grave items, and religious objects to Indian tribes was very controversial. Nationally, there was a lot of resistance, simply MIAC and Museum of New Mexico were not only in favor of the process, we led it. NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Human activity, was very new [enacted in 1990], and the Museum of New Mexico Director Tom Livesay had asked us to put together our ain cultural sensitivity policy, one of the showtime anywhere. We didn't have human remains in our collections, but nosotros did take religious and burial objects. Our chief curator, Bruce Bernstein, led the effort to create what I believe was one of the first special sacred and religious objects storage vaults, a place to set apart those cultural items the tribes felt were all-time left in our intendance only kept away from public view. It was a model for museums around the country. Another very special thing was how our curator of ethnology, Edmund Ladd, a member of Zuni Pueblo, arranged for the Laboratory of Anthropology/MIAC to be a neutral meeting place for the render of stolen Zuni State of war Gods, called Ahayu:da, on their way back to Zuni Pueblo from different museums effectually the land. Those were very meaningful and quiet occasions with religious elders who performed cleansing ceremonies required earlier bringing the items back home to the Pueblo. A few of us on the museum staff were asked to witness the ceremonies, which was quite an honor.

Shelby Tisdale: One of my biggest accomplishments was irresolute MIAC past adding more gimmicky Native American art and then that the museum'southward drove became more comprehensive. Prior to my arriving there, a lot of the collection focused on historic cloth, art, and culture. I wanted to bring in more than of the living art and civilisation and that included adding to the contemporary Native art drove.

What is MIAC's unmarried well-nigh impressive artifact or artwork, and why?

John Ware: Two ollas [ceramic jars] at MIAC manufactured probably in 1917 or 1918 represent some of the first experiments that Maria Martinez did with black-on-black pottery, according to Kenneth Chapman, who put together the Indian Arts collections. And then she went on to develop that technique and refine information technology. Those were part of our opening exhibit, Treasures of the Laboratory of Anthropology.

Duane Anderson: For me, the most impressive piece at MIAC is the large sculpture, Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer, in front of the museum, by Craig Dan Goseyun (San Carlos Eastern White Mount Apache). It's a focal point for MIAC visitors on Milner Plaza, and a argument of the museum'southward identity.

What was the most surprising thing you encountered while working
at MIAC?

Duane Anderson: More than one-7th of the artifacts in the State Archaeological Repository were damaged by water and humidity after a big flood in the basement of the Rivera Building in 2004—now the Drury Plaza hotel. This disaster led to the development of the Eye for New United mexican states Archaeology, where artifacts are properly curated and stored.

Della Warrior: I'm always surprised by the express knowledge that our vast number of visitors take nearly Native American people. They don't know that in that location are 367 tribes and more than 300 Alaskan villages. It is surprising that and so many people remember Native people are extinct and that they all lived, or alive, in tipis. It is even more than astonishing that many New Mexico residents are not aware that there are twenty-4 Pueblos and tribes in New Mexico. MIAC is the place to provide this pedagogy—who are the indigenous people in New Mexico, how did they survive, and how do they live today?

What do you almost wish for MIAC in the future?

Bruce Bernstein: Della Warrior and Marla Redcorn-Miller, MIAC's deputy director, are already in the process of updating the long-term exhibit, Here, Now and E'er, and carrying information technology out in a manner that is forward-thinking and in keeping with the original intent of the projection as a collaborative and inclusive endeavor. The original showroom was a multi-year project involving many co-curators from Native communities in the land and was ane of the first of its kind when it opened in 1997. I believe MIAC will continue to be a leader in inclusive museum practices.

What is your favorite retentiveness from the time you spent at MIAC?

John Ware: The curators I hired to do the Treasures of the Laboratory of Anthropology showroom were some of the best people I've ever worked with: Stewart Peckham, Rick Dillingham, Nancy Fob, Kate Peck Kent, and Bud Whiteford. We had the best advisors and mentors that yous can imagine; people similar Rina Swentzell and Dave Warren, both from Santa Clara Pueblo, who were leading us the whole time in the planning procedure, and curators such as Edmund Ladd from Zuni Pueblo, who developed the Hither, Now and Always exhibit storyline.

Stephen Becker When I left my position every bit banana manager at the Museum of International Folk Fine art and moved over to MIAC, the museum'southward pocket-sized Museum of New United mexican states Foundation committee had no money—less than a thousand dollars—for acquisitions and irresolute exhibitions. I had put together large friends groups before, but at the time in that location weren't whatsoever at the Museum of New United mexican states.

Bruce Bernstein and I had met a wonderful person, Charmay Allred, who had worked with the Southwest Museum's friends group. Charmay rounded up a great agglomeration of people to get u.s. started, and the friends group grew actually fast—sometimes their events overflowed the MIAC auditorium. The Friends of Indian Art became a smashing style to involve members with lectures, special events, and tours of artists' studios. It continues to build wonderful relationships with people who go donors, and raise funds to purchase gimmicky art. It also raised the matching funds for our first National Endowment for the Arts grant.

Bruce Bernstein: Nosotros added ane,000 pieces to the drove while I was there, including about 300 pieces from Dorothy Dunn's classrooms at the Santa Fe Indian School. We worked with her daughter, Ethel Kramer, and when I asked her where were the journals and papers her mother refers to in her volume, she took her time in answering, making sure that she wanted to share that information with me. Finally, at her house, she moved away a cat litter box in front of a bath cabinet so we could access the cabinet—and inside were all her mother'due south papers from her classrooms. Those materials are among the nigh used materials in the annal.

Duane Anderson: One of my favorite memories is working with the women from Tesuque and Santa Ana Pueblos on cultural revival and retentiveness projects that resulted in the books When Rain Gods Reigned and The Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo (the latter co-authored by Dwight P. Lammon and Francis H. Harlow), both published by the Museum of New Mexico Press. This resulted in the MIAC exhibit, The Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo.

Della Warrior: I have a lot of great memories, simply the well-nigh memorable is the coming together we had with Disney Imagineering planning our upcoming MIAC showroom. Nosotros're going to collaborate with the National Museum of the American Indian to nowadays an showroom in 2018 at the Epcot Eye in Orlando. To me, that represents a major step frontwards for MIAC, because fourteen million people meet the Epcot exhibit annually. We had a fun day planning the exhibit, focusing on what nosotros're going to share with the visitors.

The Directors

Archeologist John Ware served as MIAC's first manager from 1986 to 1989. He was executive director of the Amerind Foundation in Arizona from 2001 until his retirement in 2014. He lives in Santa Fe.

Stephen Becker directed MIAC from 1989 to 1994, later serving
equally assistant manager of the International Folk Art Museum. He became executive managing director of the California Historical Society and president of the California Association of Museums. He's retired and lives in Seattle.

Bruce Bernstein, a leading authority on Southwest Native arts, directed MIAC from 1994 to 1997. He is presently executive director of the Ralph T. Coe Foundation for the Arts, and is Historic Preservation Officer for the Pueblo of Pojoaque.

Anthropologist Duane Anderson was MIAC'south director from 2000 to 2005, after serving every bit vice president and director of the Schoolhouse of American Inquiry'due south Indian Arts Research Centre. Retired, he lives in Santa Fe.

Shelby Tisdale served equally MIAC'due south director from 2005 to 2012; prior to this she was the director of the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos. She is the current managing director of the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis Higher in Durango, Colorado.

Current director Della Warrior stepped into the role in 2013, after serving as president of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. She is the chairperson of the Otoe-Missouria tribe, of which she is a member.

Lynn Cline is the Santa Iron author of the award-winning The Maverick Cookbook: Iconic Recipes. Her travel guide, Romantic Santa Fe, will exist published this fall.

woodsgralwyn.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.elpalacio.org/2017/09/happy-birthday-miac/