First American Art Magazine No. 15, Summer 2017 | Page 10
EDITOR’S GREETING
I
N THE EARLY 15TH CENTURY,
approximately a hundred years after
the collapse and abandonment of
Cahokia and less than a century
before the arrival of Cristóbal Colón
on the shores of Hispaniola, a group
of Caddoan-speaking people sealed
a tomb within Craig Mound; an
abandoned Spiro Mounds site in what
would someday become Oklahoma.
They buried innumerable remains
from their dead along with exquisitely
crafted, ceremonial artworks. This
is one of the largest assemblages of
precontact artwork found in the
Eastern Woodlands of North America.
Cedar poles collapsed inward on them-
selves, creating a protective pocket
of air, and copper helped preserve
fragments of twined textiles, rivercane
baskets, carved wooden sculptures and
masks, shelling engravings, copper
plaques, stone effigy pipes, and other
items of paramount complexity.
Of course, the people of Spiro
never intended for their artworks and
departed relatives to be disinterred.
The fact that these works have reached
us through the centuries is fraught
with dilemmas—on one hand is how
profoundly troubling it is that this
site was desecrated, and on the other,
these preserved works and fragments
now provide us with an unparalleled
glimpse into the techniques, materials,
and iconography of master artists
of the Mississippian era, including
perishable items that made up the
majority of precontact material culture
and have not been as well preserved
outside the region.
In 1618, about 165 years after
European and African contact, a
Quechua man named Felipe Guaman
Poma de Ayala wrote and illustrated
an epic volume of history and events
of the time, El primer nueva corónica y
buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle
and Good Government). He set Andean
Melissa Melero-Moose (Fallon Paiute-Modoc) and America Meredith (Cherokee Nation),
Milestones, 2010, acrylic, paper, willow, mixed media on wood panels, 40 × 16 in.
oral history down in ink and relayed
events he had observed firsthand,
including bitter cruelties that Spanish
explorers and clergy committed on
the Indigenous population, to his
intended recipient: King Philip III of
Spain. His tome did not reach Spain
and instead ended up in Denmark
where it languished in obscurity until
its rediscovery in 1908. The 1,189 pages
of history is a boon to scholars as art
historians take great delight in the 398
illustrations in the book. While not his
anticipated audience, we are fortunate
to witness this vision of Andean life
during cataclysmic changes.
Where will the art we create end
up? The unpredictability of how art
will ultimately find its audience is part
of the excitement and challenge of
the process. Native art history is still a
burgeoning field in flux, since so many
different media, regions, and cultures
have not been adequately studied. One
tribe is striving to chart the course of
how its art will be seen in the future.
Instead of letting outside experts
or the markets dictate the future of
its artistic expression, the Cherokee
Nation has created a program in
which it honors and collects work by
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community-based, customary artists
who give back to the tribe by desig-
nating them as National Treasures. In
doing so, the tribe hopes to keep their
voices alive far into the future.
Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long,
life is short) goes the popular Latin
saying. However, this rings true only
for a small minority of art. Most visual
artworks are destroyed over time—
thrown away or ravaged by light, dust,
or other elements. To help ensure your
art collection can survive to impact
future generations in unpredictable and
exciting ways, you can take practical
steps to safeguard it. Framing works
on paper behind glass is one means of
protecting them, and our final feature
unpacks some of the considerations
behind this time-tested practice.
Who knows, through space and
time, how our art will affect those
in the future? And what does the
historical art of ancestral Indigenous
Americans have to tell us today?
A benchmark of art, as opposed to
propaganda or decor, is that art is fluid
and polyvalent enough to keep reso-
nating and keep evoking new insight,
generation after generation.
—America Meredith