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Text Box: Boats built at the museum The Anishinabe wiigwaas jiimaan, or Chippewa birchbark canoe, is the fourth indigenous boat to be constructed and displayed in the atrium of the National Museum of the American Indian. The other boats are equally unique:
Source: The National Museum of the American Indian; the museum's Rachael Cassidy and Linda Martin contributed to this report. |
Museum's landscape blossoms into educational role Insects, birds and human visitors alike are drawn to explore museum's flourishing native plant collection on the National Mall
By Kara Briggs, NMAI E-Newservice Washington —As visitors walk along the National Mall with its expanse of linear lawns and formal fountains, the sight of the lush native landscape enveloping the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian emerges as something of a surprise to the eye. The museum, which is known for its celebration of the living cultures of Native America, has more than an acre of greenspace, alive with migratory birds and other critters taking respite in its welcoming foliage. "Each of the plants originally selected were chosen because they had a connection to the collections," said Smithsonian horticulturist, Christine Price-Abelow. "All are used by Native people for food, fiber, dye, wood or ceremony." Except for the century-old trees along the street, there are neither hybrid nor non-native plants in this garden. Before the Sept. 21, 2004 opening of the museum on the National Mall, 33,000 plants from 150 Chesapeake region species were planted close together in an effort to raise a forest and a wetland, a meadow and a cropland in an unnaturally short time frame. Nearing the Sept. 21 fourth anniversary of the National Museum of the American Indian, the teenaged landscape already offers a striking contrast to its neighbors, including the U.S. Capitol's looming white marble dome. The Capitol, only 400 yards east, isn't nearly as visible everywhere on the NMAI grounds as it was only four years ago because of the new oak, maple and sumac forest. This emergent acre of urban wilderness draws diverse life. Around the 2006 second museum anniversary, employees of the Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History monitored populations in the wetlands. A quiet landmark buzzed by when the damselflies and dragonflies appeared. Monarch butterflies also came to munch the swamp milkweed. Unlike other museums where birds of prey stand in taxidermy form inside the collections, at the NMAI a red-tailed hawk lives across the street, and likes to visit. More than 25 identified species of birds frequent the museum grounds. Until recently John Beetham, of the Washington, D.C. branch of the National Audubon Society, lived near the museum and spent many hours observing its birds. The most unusual were the migratory ones, such as the winter wren, ruby-crowned kinglet and Louisiana waterthrush. "If you're a songbird migrating over downtown D.C. when dawn breaks, there are relatively few patches of green to land, eat, and rest," Beetham said. "A small garden like the museum's serves as temporary respite." The museum and its grounds also give respite to Native Americans living and working in Washington, D.C. Rachael Cassidy, who is Cherokee and an NMAI cultural interpreter who gives tours to visitors, often takes them outside to show the natural beauty in this unlikely place. "To me, it's incredible to be in this wild landscape," she said. "I bring visitors outside, but sometimes all they hear are the sirens and the traffic." Nora Naranjo-Morse, who is from the Santa Clara Pueblo and lives in New Mexico, won a bid in 2007 to create indigenous art in the museum's landscape. She staked out a location for her sculpture that was both near the golden Kasota limestone exterior of the museum, and in sight of the white Capitol dome. On the museum's south side, she mixed earth into mud, standing long sticks on end, allowing them to lean companionably against each other and interweaving twigs to create five organic sculptures. Sometimes children helped mix the mud. Sometimes government office workers on their way home, stopped to mix mud, dipping their suit jackets elbow-deep in the muck, one museum staffer recalls. The resulting sculptures are brown, and suggestive of adobe, of tipis, of spirey mountains, albeit about 19 feet tall. "It is somewhat intimidating to have all this power there in the Capitol dome," Naranjo-Morse said. "And that makes it more important to have something simple, for the surprising simplicity of sculpture made from mud." The mud will eventually wash back into the ground, and something else will grow. For visitors, new signs posted in the landscape this summer are helping to interpret the beauty and the utility of the garden. In the Three Sisters Garden, Native American crops, including corn, beans and squash are planted in mounds. Tomatoes and chilies are planted in the low spots, where the water gathers. Mass plantings of sunflowers and tobacco also grow along the hot southern side of the museum. Later in this harvest season the tobacco will be cut and taken to the Accokeek Foundation in Maryland to be dried. Then the tobacco, grown in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol and beside the National Museum of the American Indian, will be used, as Indians in this region have done for millennia, in ceremony. |
Photo essay: Outside the National Museum of the American Indian
Century-old trees shade sculptures by Nora Naranjo-Morse, Santa Clara Pueblo, on the grounds of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. In the background, the white U.S. Capitol dome rises on a setting that is both native and blossoming with life. Slightly more than one acre in size, the museum's landscape is filled with plants that provide food, fiber, dye, wood or the tools of ceremony to Native people of the Washington, D.C., area. On a sunny August day, staff and children joyously release ladybugs on the corn and squash as a natural means of pest control. |
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Other photographs: Halau I Ka Weiku troupe performs in New York
Washington—The Halau I Ka Weiku, a troupe of 41 dancers and singers from Hilo, Hawaii, performed at the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center in New York in early August. The troupe is led by Kumu Karl Veto Baker and Michael Lanakila Casupant. It won high honors at the prestigious Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in 2007. About 1,500 spectators crowd the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House at One Bowling Green in Manhattan to enjoy the dance. Click on photo or here to access print resolution version. |
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News from the National Museum of the American Indian Live CD of Museum's Summer Concert Series Washington—To mark the third year of the National Museum of the American Indian's Indian Summer Showcase, the outdoor summer concert series, the museum is releasing a CD of contemporary Native American performers recorded live. "Sounds of Indian Summer: Contemporary Native Music from the National Museum of the American Indian" features award-winning musicians Joanne Shenandoah, Oneida, and George Leach, Sta'atl'imx, as well as new rock sensations The Reddmen from South Dakota, DiggingRoots from Canada and The Plateros from New Mexico, among many others. "The music here will not only make you want to dance — it will inspire you to re-think the very definition of Native music," said NMAI Director Kevin Gover, who is Pawnee and Comanche. The album represents a variety of indigenous musical traditions and vocal techniques, spanning Yup'ik throat singing and Peruvian percussive quena, sicus and charango. Electric guitars, drum sets and synthesizers mark modern influences on deeply Native music styles and themes. "Sounds of Indian Summer" is available as a 79-minute audio CD for $15, and $12 for museum members. To hear audio clips from the album, visit www.AmericanIndian.si.edu and click on "Bookshop," then select CDs and DVDs. You can place an order at that site, or call (202) 633-6687, or send an e-mail to nmai-pubs@si.edu. Native Women's Dress Exhibition opens at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York New York—"Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses" opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, with a benefit luncheon on Sept. 25 and 26. The exhibition was first presented at the museum in Washington, where it was recognized as the best exhibition on the National Mall by visitors in mid-2007. "Identity by Design" examines the roles of Native women through the masterful artwork in their dresses. "The artistry and expression behind each of these works is a revelation," said John Haworth, Cherokee, the director of the museum's George Gustav Heye Center. "Far from simple adornment, the details of these dresses speak of new landscapes, changing environments, persecution and confinement, proud traditions and artistic mastery." The exhibition tracks the innovations of Native women's dresses among nations, along trade routes and over time. The exhibition spans Indian nations in the interior Northwest, the Great Plains and the Southern Plains. The dresses and their stories begin in the 1830s. Also featured are contemporary dresses and the artists who made them, such as Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty. She is Assiniboine and Sioux. "My mom taught me that a lot of the dresses were reflections of what the people saw, and what they had going on in their lives," Growing Thunder Fogarty said. In celebration of the exhibition opening, a benefit luncheon on September 25th will honor five contemporary Native designers. Other events include a presentation of traditional songs by the Kiowa War Mothers on Sept. 27, and a celebration of Indigenous Style and Design on Nov. 15. All events will take place at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center at One Bowling Green, New York. For information, call 212-514-3700. Austrian Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Hanna Grabner, a graduate of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, was a summer intern at the Cultural Resources Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Grabner, who holds a master's degree in art conservation, assisted in the preparation of artifacts for an upcoming exhibition titled, "A Song for the Horse Nation." The show is scheduled to open at the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City in 2009. "My job is to examine artifacts that will be in this exhibition, to document their current condition, to determine whether they need conservation treatment, to investigate possible conservation methods and to carry out the treatments," Grabner said. Grabner, who previously held a fellowship at the Abegg-Stiftung, an art and historical institute in Switzerland, learned at the NMAI how to work with uniquely Native American art forms, such as bead and quillwork. "I was confronted at the museum with a very unique approach to conservation and the caring for and handling of objects," Grabner said. "It made me think about my role as a conservator and about the responsibilities that come with this job." Navajo Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Janet Foster, who is Navajo and is pursuing a master's degree at the State University of New York at Oneonta, was a summer intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. She worked in the museum's Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md., where she helped process new acquisitions. Her duties included assisting in the care of objects, examining them and writing descriptions. "NMAI is an example for all smaller museums to emulate and learn from, and I'm glad that the museum takes community outreach very seriously," Foster said. "It is top-notch in its collections facility and thoroughly committed to a Native point of view." Foster, who has worked in other museums such as the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, credited the NMAI with giving her experience in a large institution, where she sometimes felt like a cog in a wheel. Yet she made her own discoveries in tasks such as unpacking shipments. In one case, she helped unpack paintings that arrived from the collection of renowned Native American artist Fritz Scholder, which came for an exhibition of his work that opens in November. "I hope to take back to my graduate program an expanded knowledge of Native American objects, a good base of Native American professional contacts," Foster said. "And, of course, lots of fond memories of all my fellow bright-eyed interns." Native Hawaiian Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Kanani Hoopai, a Native Hawaiian master's candidate at Georgetown University, was a summer intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Hoopai, who is from Riverside, Calif., worked on "Renewing Connections," a museum campaign to expand relationships with Native communities across the Americas. Hoopai attended the Assembly of First Nations annual assembly in Quebec City, Quebec. She helped plan the museum's participation in other international and national conventions of Native Americans. "It has also been very interesting to me," she said, "to learn about how this museum thinks about itself in relation to its collection: not as owners, but as stewards of the objects and the history and culture behind them." Hoopai's field of study is art and museum studies. She previously interned at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Interning at the NMAI, Hoopai said, has given her a greater sense of ways that a museum can interact with core constituencies. "It has taught me the importance of working with and listening to the needs and ideas of the community," she said. Sault Ste. Marie Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Brianne Smith, who is from the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and a graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy, was a summer intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Smith, who majored in history and multimedia work, assisted with an on-site workshop for students from the St. Labre Indian School in Southeast Montana. The school serves Crow and Northern Cheyenne students. The NMAI's virtual workshops use satellite and Internet technology to link Native students in reservation schools with the museum's collection, and particularly items from their cultures. The collection of about 800,000 items is stored at the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md. "I now understand that everyone has their place and that everyone's job is important within the museum structure," Smith said. Brothertown Indian Nation Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Courtney Cottrell, who is of the Brothertown Indian Nation and a senior at the University of Wisconsin, was a summer intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Cottrell worked in Conservation as well as Collections Management. In conservation Cottrell helped stabilize objects that will premiere at the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City in fall 2009 in an exhibition entitled "A Song for the Horse Nation." "In collections I help...beautify the museum each morning by doing some housekeeping so each and every visitor that walks in can see the exhibitions as if they were just installed yesterday," Cottrell said. She was impressed by the commitment of the NMAI staff to training her, and to opening the doors of the museum to Native communities. "I always have a blast," she said, "learning more than any book can teach me and meeting great people who are willing to help me." Onondaga Iroquois Intern at the National Museum of the American Indian Washington—Thomas Gonyea, who is Onondaga Iroquois and a graduate of Kenyon College, was a summer intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Gonyea worked in the museum's Cultural Resources Center, helping managers of the 800,000-item collection. It was in the collection that Gonyea got a surprise. "A fellow intern who was processing a group of recent acquisitions told me that she had come across a painting by another Gonyea," Thomas Gonyea said. "It turned out to be a painting that my father had done before I was born." The painting by Ray Gonyea is abstract, his son said, with figures of a Native mother and child embedded in the imagery. Ray Gonyea recently retired as curator of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis. In the 1980s, the elder Gonyea worked at the Research Branch of the Museum of the American Indian in the Bronx. This fall, Thomas Gonyea is working in the registration department at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. He jokes that museums have become "the family business." |
Go to www.nmaie-newservice.com to access high resolution photo page Or add editor@nmaie-newservice.com to your address book to receive the HTML Version of this news service The NMAI E-Newservice is supported by National Museum of the American Indian membership dollars. For information about membership, go to http://www.AmericanIndian.si.edu/subpage.cfm?second=membership&subpage=support. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is located in Washington, D.C. The Museum also operates the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, and the National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md. The National Museum of the American Indian is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present and future, through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life. The NMAI E-Newservice is a free news service to news media serving Native America from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The NMAI E-Newservice provides articles, photographs and editorial content for news outlets to use free of charge. Please credit the NMAI E-Newservice, or use bylines as provided. Kara Briggs, a Yakama and Snohomish journalist, is the editor. She owns Red Hummingbird Media Corp., which contracts with the National Museum of the American Indian to provide this service. Contact her at editor@nmaie-newservice.com or by phone at 503-577-0012 if you have questions, comments or requests, or if you wish to subscribe. Kara Briggs, Editor National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center Cultural Resources Center To opt-out to this publication, please email editor@nmaie-newservice.com. ©Copyright 2008, NMAI, All Rights Reserved |