EarART designs: Earrings by Venaya

Venaya's earring designs inspired by her original paintings.
Photo credit Rodney Brown 2015
ALL RIGHT RESERVED


Venaya's EarART earrings

Art and 'Indigenous Adornment'

Original art by Venaya Yazzie, Dine'/Hopi
Photo courtesy of Venaya Yazzie
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2015

In creating this blog I wanted to showcase the 'beauty' of contemporary and historical Indigenous Adornment of the tribal people of the southwest, specifically the Dine' (Navajo) and Pueblo people.

I grew up with a strong sense of 'adornment' in my life. My maternal great-grandmother and grandmother both believed in 'adorning' themselves and their family with turquoise. When someone in our family was not wearing turquoise my grandmother would question them, and then suggest that they were some. My great-grandmother Louise Werito had a great moral story on the 'adornment' of turquoise jewelry and would use it to teach us a lesson on going without some type of turquoise jewelry item. In the end of the story she said if we don't wear jewelry or 'adorn' our wrists specifically then we were kind of foolish like the jackrabbit out in the sagebrush, sitting silly with his "bare arms."

This type of Dine' oral history has become part of my life. I use such teachings to continue tradition and to educate people on the significance of 'dootlizhi' or turquoise in 21st century life. So as a visual artist I do my best to paint 'Indigenous Adornment' via my paintings, as a way or contribution of the legacy of the 'adorned' desert matriarch.

Yazzgrl Art: Venaya Yazzie

Mixed media art by VenayaYazzie, Dine'/ Hopi artist.
Photo courtesy of Venaya Yazzie
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2015

When I was a young girl my days were spent 'creating.' I was an adopted child of my maternal grandparents and they spoiled me, so I was able to have any art supplies I asked for. I think my grandmother just knew I was on that path of an artist, so she never questioned why I wanted art supplies and not dolls or toys. My rich and unique childhood shaped who I would become as an adult, but also who and what I wanted to say as an Indigenous women artist.

Today I am so very grateful for my art abilities, for my art tells volumes of my story, but also as a contemporary Indigenous artist. Behind the 2-D imagery and jewelry I create is an even bigger story of my People's Indigenous history which always concerns: trauma, healing, survival, struggle, cultural history, oral history, language...

I am an artist today to help in a humble way to 'bless the People' and inspire the Indigenous youth.

Autumn.

Well, its a marvelous night for a moondance with the stars up above in your eyes a fabulous night to make romance 'neath the cover of October skies and all the leaves on the trees are falling to the sound of the breezes that blow and i'm trying to please to the calling of your heartstrings that play soft and low...

-Van Morrison

Dine' children Song and Dance participantsNava

Dine' children dancers at Window Rock, AZ
Photo by Venaya Yazzie 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Elder Din'e' couple 'adorned'

Elder Dine'couple dancing at the annual Navajo Nation Fair
Song and Dance in Window Rock, AZ
Photo by Venaya Yazzie 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This photograph depicts and elder Dine' (Navajo) couple participating in a social dance called Navajo Song and Dance. The event is a women's choice dance and has been adapted to be public from the Navajo ceremonial dances.

Dine' (Navajo) women dancers

Dine' (Navajo) women dancers and singers at the annual Navajo Nation Fair
in Window Rock, AZ
Photo by Venaya Yazzie 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I was fortunate to again visit the annual Navajo Nation Fair
in Window Rock, AZ this past weekend. I spend most of my day at the Navajo Song and Dance arena enjoying the 'beauty' of my Dine' people. I adore this cultural social dance because it truly brings many generations together. It is a time when you will seen elders hand in hand with children dancing around the arena all dressed in beautyful Dine' cultural regalia.

Its about 'respect' and 'respecting' Indigenous cultural Adornment

Elder Pueblo matriarch 'adorned' in southwest
jewelry and tribal regalia.
Photo credit: Internet

Non-Indigenous women wearing traditional/cultural
jewelry.
Photo credit: Internet

When I look at these two images I see both similarities and differences in them. They are both wearing southwestern Indigenous cultural jewelry, they are both women but, what stands out for me is the way in which each woman is wearing, or 'respecting' the cultural items they are 'adorned' in.

Its about 'respect' and 'respecting' Indigenous cultural adornment, yet I do not see this happening in the black and white photograph. Just by looking at the photograph I assume she is the typical American pop culture model and is posing in a way that seems unrealistic. She has bare arms and is wearing too much jewelry on her person. Many things stand out besides what I just mentioned, and what I see is a woman disrespecting southwestern Indigenous cultural jewelry items.

So many times American pop culture or the so called fashion cultural takes what the want from Indigenous culture and uses items to their own benefit, and most often times does this with no regard for respect or honoring purposes. I see how the fashion industry has come to misappropriate cultural items such as tribal jewelry in the wrong ways, and so the outcome is very negative. Such actions can create disharmony and perpetuate stereotypes of the Indigenous people as a whole, in many ways it can tend to generalize a whole population of very unique and diverse tribal people.

The first photo image of the elder Pueblo woman shows her also wearing a 'plethora' of cultural jewelry items. When I view the photo I think that such items might be her 'heirloom' jewelry pieces, and perhaps she is showcasing her life history and oral history story of each item. I see she is wearing her tribal clothing regalia which is Pueblo-style women's clothing. She is seated in a normal, realistic sitting position. When I look at that photograph I see how she 'honor's her cultural jewelry.

For, when some Indigenous jewelry makers create such items they do so with songs, blessings and prayers. Indigenous jewelry is not made only to be asthetically pleasing, but instead made to bring about blessings for the Indigenous person. Some jewelry makers use only choice turquoise and other natural minerals for the purpose of perpetuation of 'harmony' or the blessings.

Indigenous cultural jewelry should be admired, but it should not be made to become a "fad" in the chaos of the American or even European fashion agendas.

Blessings