Washington, DC – the Indian Ambachtwinkelwho has presented the handmade art and crafts of federally recognized American Indians since 1938, closed on 6 June. Located on just one blocks of the White House, it had a historic presence in the main corridor of the huge Stewart Lee Udall Interior department Building for 87 years. The store had also informed a mission by the Indian Arts and Crafts Boardwhich was founded in 1935 by the congress to promote indigenous American and Alaska art through economic companies.
“It has not only been a space to sell, it has been a place to teach. It is a space that touches people with American Indian art,” said Susan Pourian, director of the Indian Craft Shop, said Hyperallergic.
Guest servicesThe hospitality company that operated the store announced the closure in an e-mail newsletter sent to subscribers on 22 April. It chose not to continue with the activities after Pourian, an employee of the company for 42 years and the only employee of the store since the COVID-19 Pandemie, decided to retire this year. In a statement, guest services said that “it had been a privilege to limit this special location, which served the interior department and the many visitors who have appreciated the unique offer.”
The nostalgic mood in the second of two open houses that marked the closure of the Indian Craft Shop on May 22 was tinted from grief, a sentiment expressed by others who spoke Hyperallergic.
“I love that small store and I am very sorry to close it,” said Philip J. Deloria, PhD, Leverett Saltonstall Professor in history at Harvard University.
Although the details still have to be completed, the interior department works on identifying a new operator, Michael said “Mick” Rust, director of the office of the interior department of facilities and administrative services. It is planning a request to release proposals to tribal entities in the coming weeks.
The future operator would be offered the same conditions as guest services, including the retail space, adjacent courtyard and office, free. It would also be necessary to continue operations in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (IACA), as well as to preserve the historical and cultural meaning of the Indian Craft Shop.
Choctaw artist George “Shukata” Willis has presented his work in the store since the 1990s. He said that Pourian gave the artists priority and she felt important. “She developed a niche market for some of my pendants that I call my spirit people,” said Willis. His sale of the Indian Craft Shop has justified about one fifth of its annual income.
Another artist, Artie Yellowhorse, a Navajo jeweler maker, has made more modern designs for the Indian Craft Shop through her family business, including her two daughters, two grandsons and a cousin. “Many of the things were traditional, but our line was usually contemporary. You could wear it everywhere and be comfortable with it,” she said.
The mission of the Indian Craft Shop was to promote working American Indian artists. It built up a national reputation for the quality and authenticity of the work it sold and, prior to the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) In 2004 was the only place in the area that mainly offered American Indian Art, said Anya Montiel, PhD, a curator at the NMAI.
Marya Pickering, a self -described ‘history note’, was one of the customers who filled the small, office -like space of the store during the closing event before he hit the corridor for comments and a cakes. She discovered the store through a colleague when she started working at the General Services Administration in 2006 and has remained a loyal customer. Pickering still has certificates of authenticity, which make a list of the materials used and information about the artist, including their name, tribal affiliation and location, for the jewelry she has purchased over the years.
“It’s a wonderful craftsmanship,” she said. “They are artworks that you can wear and include them in your wardrobe. What can be more fun?”
Right: “Flying through the abstract”, a Colorado Marble Eagle image art by Rollie Grandbois, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, in the Indian Craft Shop Sculpture Garden (Photos Vida Foubister/Hyperallergic))
Pourian said she was deliberately representing the diversity of the tribal area at every level of artistry, from emerging to well -known artists. “When you come in and you have $ 20, you can leave here with authentic American Indian handmade art. Yet we also have some top collectors from all over the country,” she said.
High -ranking government officials have long bought the merchandise from the store for visiting dignitaries and this has been taken over for museum collections. The NMAI in Washington, DC, currently has a Tohono O’odham basket in the form of one cat Montiel said – one of the 1,340 items that NMAi received through a transfer from the Indian Arts and Crafts Board Headquarters Collection in 2000.
Yellowhorse said that, including herself, she knows herself who will miss the sale to the Indian Craft Shop. Cliff Fragua, a sculptor and stone carver by Jemez Pueblo, is another. He has been working with the store since the 1990s, together with his mother Juanita Fragua and Sisters Glendora and Betty Jean Fragua, all potters.
“I feel that there must be present at the Ministry of the Interior that represents indigenous artists and the history of indigenous art,” he said.
Yet there is no complete coordination with what American Indian art is and how it should be represented. Fragua, the one on the Indian Arts and Crafts Association Board of Directors for five years, including a period of one year as president, noted that art of ‘the tribal population of California, where a large number of indigenous communities are only is recognized and not federally recognized’, must also be protected, as well as those of indigenous Hawaiians. Currently, he said, they are excluded from the IACA and therefore the store.
Bovendien is de centrale focus van de Indian Craft Shop op traditionele kunst en ambachten, zoals werk dat wordt verkocht op Indiase markten die tegemoet komen aan kopers en verzamelaars die inheemse ‘authenticiteit’ zoeken, weerspiegelt niet volledig de kunst die vandaag wordt gecreëerd, zei Mario A. Caro, PhD, directeur van de MFA in Studio Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts In Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“If some of the services they offer visitors to the Ministry of the Interior, represent people and train on indigenous cultures, the image offered is a limited selection of works that display the usual work as timeless and deprived of contemporary content,” Caro Hyperallergic said.
Eugene Tapahe, a Diné artist originally from Window Rock, Arizona, who by making his work aware of indigenous issues, experienced this first hand to the photographic show of the Association of International Photography Art dealers in April.
“It was an eye opening for me when people came and watched my photography, and they would ask me:” Where were you? “” Said Tapahe, who is currently located in Provo, Utah.
“We are still there and we are still practicing our ceremonies and exert our beliefs,” Tapahe continued. “Although we live in the modern world, we still believe in our traditions.”
