Amerindian Arts Native American News & Information: Indian Market at Eiteljorg Museum, Native American flute convention, Legend of the White Bear

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Headlines, exhibits, powwows listed below: (access past headline archives for 2004-2006 here)

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum to host annual Prix de West art event

UW-Eau Claire to host Native American flute convention

Indians in the Mist

Woody Kipp nominated for the Blackfoot Art Awards

Museum of Northern Arizona Hosts a Navajo Rug Auction Near Sedona Arizona

Navajo Artist R.C. Gorman's Estate Auction Set for August 2008 in Taos, New Mexico

"Rance Hood: Mystic Painter" , book by Rance Hood and James Hester

Sharlot Hall Museum Presents Indian Art Market Near Sedona Arizona

University of South Dakota is displaying the nationally touring art exhibit "Impacted Nations"

22nd annual Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival links cultures

Native Americans Hold Powwow In Brooklyn Park

16th annual Indian Market and Festival in Indianapolis

Paula Gunn Allen, 68; advocated for the inclusion of Indian voices in the mainstream of American literature.

Honored Pawnee sculptor fires clay into saga

Jack Lenor Larsen Speaks at Native American Design Benefit

16th annual Indian Market and Festival in Indianapolis-National and internationally known Native American performers are scheduled to perform as part of the festival, held June 21-22. Sponsored by the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the Indian Market and Festival will be housed in big white tents in tree-shaded Military Park, just across the canal from the museum in White River State Park.

Sedona, AZ: The 11th Annual Prescott Indian Art Market (PIAM) will be held on the tree shaded grounds of the Sharlot Hall Museum on July 12 and 13. The Museum’s flower-lined walkways and commemorative rose garden provide an inviting backdrop for the impressive display of Indian art.

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site will host a juried art event, the Choctaw Indian Art show with American Indian style art, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, July 12, and 5 p.m. Sunday, July 13. Attendees can view and buy art.

Performances by Grammy-caliber performing artists will be among the highlights of the International Native American Flute Association (INAFA) 2008 convention set for July 9-13 at the Haas Fine Arts Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Barbara Gerard Mitchell is the featured artist for the month of June at the Blackfeet Heritage Center and Art Gallery. She is a native of Montana and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe. She gained her technical skills by studying master painters and attending workshops. Most recently she graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., receiving the highest honors of her graduating class.

Her exhibit is now on display through the month of June. The Blackfeet Heritage Center and Art Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday in Browning

Quintana Galleries: You'll find glass works by several Native American artists this month at galleries -- Preston Singletary, for example, in the group show at Butters Gallery. And Joe Feddersen's pieces at Froelick.

Quintana's "Glass Arts of Native America" more fully explores the relationship between Native artists and glass merely hinted at in those other shows. In "Glass Arts," Lillian Pitt, Marvin Oliver, Alano Edzerza and Lawrence Ahvakana contribute glass sculptures that reflect the influence of their respective tribal heritage. One of the philosophical conceits of the show is that the Native American glass art movement began in 1970 with Ahvakana, an Inupiaq who studied glass at the Rhode Island School of Design. His teacher there? Dale Chihuly. (120 N.W. Ninth Ave., Portland Oregon)

The National Folk Festival from July 11-13 in Butte, Mont., will have what organizers believe will be the largest Native American representation in the event's history. A featured element of the 2008 National Folk Festival will be the First Peoples' Marketplace.

Special exhibit centers around museum's American Indian collection

COSHOCTON, OH - The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum will present the special exhibit Weaving Traditions beginning May 10 and continuing through Aug. 3.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center opens "Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World," a spirited multimedia survey of 15 emerging Native artists June 7. A joint presentation from the museum and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the exhibition closes Sunday, Sept. 21.

Jamestown, North Dakota Culture Festival is slated for Aug. 1-3.

One special guest will be Hidatsa storyteller Mary Louise Defender Wilson. She is a winner of the NEA National Heritage Fellowship and the only fellow living in North Dakota. Marvin Bald Eagle Youngman will be teaching different Ojibwa games. Storyteller Keith Bear has also been invited to participate.

“The Native American component of the festival will include artists, music, dancing, storytelling, games and food,” said Taylor Barnes, Arts Center director. “This festival is primarily about how traditions are shared through games and food.”

Recent Books of Interest

American Indian Mafia

An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM)

''Canyon Gardens: The Ancient Pueblo Landscapes of the American Southwest (University of New Mexico Press: 2006). Editors V.B. Price and Baker H. Morrow have assembled 15 essays on the millennium-old Puebloan landscape.

"Being Lakota", Book by Larissa Petrillo

"American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", Book by George Horse Capture

Spokane artist George Flett, well kown for his depictions of ledger art, announcing forthcoming book "The Ledger Art of George Flett"

Po'pay, Leader of the First American Revolution, Clear Light Publishing, 2006, new book by Herman Agoyo (Ohkay Owingeh)

Legend of the White Bear – Ojibwa

Once upon a time there was a White Bear whose nephew, Black Bear, lived with him along with several other animals, including Fox. Because Fox was always up to mischief, the White Bear took away Fox's right shoulder. Consequently Fox became ill. White Bear tied Fox's right shoulder to a bunch of claws that he always carried with him. Now Fox became very sick and unable to get along very well without his right shoulder. He sent for Crow, who seemed always full of cunning, to devise some scheme to get back Fox's right shoulder. After a long talk, Crow left to visit White Bear, who was old and infirm and troubled with rheumatism. He found White Bear sitting by his fire warming himself, and saw the bunch of claws and Fox's shoulder hanging from the cave top. Crow began to talk with White Bear who nodded now and then. Crow touched the bag of claws, explaining he was only curious to see what they were made of.

At last, White Bear took no notice of what Crow was doing, as he was half-asleep. Crow saw his chance, and pulled down Fox's shoulder and ran out of the camp. White Bear waked and asked his nephew Black Bear, "What has happened?" Black Bear stuttered and took so long to tell White Bear that Crow had run away with Fox's right shoulder that White Bear became ferociously angry with Black Bear.

He told Black Bear to go away and find himself a new home and never come back again. White Bear in his rage took down the Sun and put it alongside of the claws. Outside, everything was in darkness. Animals could not hunt and were starving. So they appealed to Crow to get them out of their present trouble, caused by White Bear. In the meantime, White Bear's daughter went for water. She took a drink and saw something black; but it was too late. She had swallowed the black speck. Sometime later a child was born to her, and the infant grew so fast he could walk about. When he noticed the bright Sun hanging beside the bunch of claws, the child began to cry for it. After much frustration and begging, White Bear gave the Sun to the child to play with inside their cave. Soon he wished to play outside with the Sun, but at first White Bear would not allow it. Because the child continually begged, White Bear relented and said yes, but only close to their home. If the child saw anyone coming, he was to run inside at once and bring the Sun with him.

All of these commandments the child promised to do as White Bear directed. But as soon as the boy ran outside, he threw the Sun up into the sky, for the child was the scheming Crow in yet another disguise. When White Bear discovered how he was cheated again by Crow, he was doubly furious, driving away everyone.

Ever since then, White Bears always have been more ferocious and bad-tempered toward other species, as well as man

Blue Panther Keeper of Stories

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