Keri Ataumbi

Last updated

Keri Ataumbi
Born
Keri Sue Greeves

1971 (age 52–53)
NationalityAmerican
Other namesKeri Sue Ataumbi
Occupation(s)jewelry artist, painter, sculptor
Years active1990–present
Mother Jeri Ah-be-hill
Relatives Teri Greeves (sister)

Keri Ataumbi (born 1971) is a Kiowa artist, who paints and sculpts, but is most known as a jewelry maker. Her works have been featured in exhibits and permanent collections of various museums including the Heard Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. In 2015, she and her sister, Teri Greeves were honored as Living Treasures by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Contents

Early life and education

Keri Sue Greeves was born in 1971 [1] on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Lander, Wyoming to Jeri Ah-be-hill and Richard V. Greeves. Her father was an artist and sculptor of Italian-American heritage. Her mother, a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma with Comanche heritage, ran the trading post at Fort Washakie for nearly thirty years. [2] [3] She and her older sister, Teri grew up on the Eastern Shoshone, rather than the Northern Arapaho part of Wind River Reservation and were strongly influenced by their parents. As a child, Keri watched her father pour metal in his forge for his sculpture [4] and was fascinated by his foundry. She learned both rebellion and an appreciation for the technical skill required for art from her father, and later said that she and her sister, "owe our careers to him". [5] She also saw her mother market Native American goods to try to bring them to a wider audience and learned to identify the characteristics of quality work. [4] She credits her mother for having taught her to celebrate her Kiowa heritage through her individual expression. [6]

Homeschooled until high school, Ataumbi graduated from The Cambridge School of Weston, near Boston. Then, at the suggestion of her art teacher Todd Bartel, she enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design. [7] After a year in 1990, Greeves decided to leave school and move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where her mother had relocated. [7] [8] That year, she legally changed her name to Keri Sue Ataumbi, [9] appending the surname of her grandmother Carrie Susie Ataumbi, after whom she had been named. [10] She briefly worked in retail and then opened a landscaping business with a friend. Simultaneously, she began showing and selling paintings in several art galleries. When her business partner decided to go to medical school, they dissolved the partnership and Ataumbi returned to school as well. She enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts to improve her painting skill and after earning an associate degree in 1996, went on to further her education at the College of Santa Fe, now the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in painting, having minored in Art History. [7] [8] She was strongly influenced by her instructor Linda Swanson, who taught her to find her own vision and face critique of her work. After graduating, Ataumbi decided to pursue a master's degree and enrolled at the University of New Mexico. Within six months, she decided to leave, as she did not want to become a teacher and wanted to focus on her art. Taking a beginners course in jewelry making at a local community college, Ataumbi found her niche in the art world and began producing jewelry. [11]

Career

Ataumbi's paintings are mixed-media abstracts which often are focused on the opposing beauty and irony of her environment. For example, on a study trip in 2000 to Indonesia, she worked on a series featuring a crumbling wall in Bali, rather than painting the lush surroundings of the island. [1] [5] While she was in Bali, she studied casting techniques with Nyoman Partha to improve her fabrication skills. [12] Her sculptural choices also challenge viewer's perceptions that she must use traditional and accepted Native icons and motifs to be a Native artist. One such sculpture, a Lucite table featuring cast iron legs from a mold of Ataumbi's arms, challenges the notion of stereotyping the work of Native artist, while another, featuring 12" Pillsbury Doughboys explores the parallels between iconic objects and the objectifying depiction of Native people in popular culture. Another piece, more traditional, which she created for the Heard Museum is a buckskin-lined silver handbag, decorated with gold and diamond stars to represent the Kiowa Big Dipper legend. [5]

Ataumbi's jewelry work typically starts with a theme and then she creates a series of related pieces. For example, in her Insect Series, pieces focused on bees, beetles, damsel flies, water bugs, and yellow jackets. [13] She does not strictly produce pieces with native motifs, believing that contemporary native jewelry does not have to reflect stereotypical design. [11] Instead, her pieces often explore the connections and disconnections of value systems. In indigenous cultures, items of value included things like elk teeth, or feathers, whereas the broader culture focuses on metals and gems. Ataumbi utilizes materials from both cultural perspectives in her work. [14] Though gold is one of her favorite mediums, she also works with silver and platinum combining metals with gemstones, buffalo horn, buckskin [15] or porcupine quills. [10] Her approach is artistic; rather than meticulous attention to stone setting, she combines textures like rose-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds for their artistic effect. [15] She is interested in mixing materials that combines elements "we as indigenous people hold valuable (elk teeth, buffalo, feathers, etc.) with elements considered valuable in the popular culture (diamonds, high-carat gold, precious stones, etc.). There is a beauty that happens in combining different value systems through material that is inclusive. [16]

One of her pieces, a mussel shell necklace from her Ocean Collection was featured in the touring exhibit, "Native Fashion Now", [17] which highlighted the works of 75 different Native American fashion designers from North America. [18] The traveling exhibit premiered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts in 2014 [17] and then moved to other locations like the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon before ending at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Manhattan in 2016. [17] [18] Ataumbi's Mommy's Collection is dedicated to reproducing some of the iconic pieces worn by her mother, who died in 2015. One of these was a silver ring originally marketed by Fred Harvey. Ataumbi's twist on the ring was to remake it in gold, setting a small diamond on the underside. It and a pair of earrings Ataumbi designed were worn by Melaw Nakehk'o at the premier of The Revenant in 2015. [17] Another piece from the Mommy's Series featured the painted likeness of her namesake and an interpretation of the clan fetish in the shape of a turtle Carrie Susie had made at Greeve's birth. The painting was combined with metalwork and won best in class in 2016 at the Santa Fe Indian Market. [19]

In addition to her own series work, Ataumbi has had several productive collaborative associations. In conjunction with Robin Waynee (Saginaw Chippewa), in 2011 they created an insect-themed earrings-ring-necklace set which was donated to the gala auction to benefit the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA). In 2014, with beader Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock), Ataumbi worked on another earrings-ring-necklace set based on historic likenesses of Pocahontas. The mixed media set, which used beads, buckskin, diamonds, fresh water pearls, antique glass, gold and indigenous wampum, was purchased for the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In a second collaboration inspired by the sculpture For the Love of God by Damien Hirst, Ataumbi and Okuma created For the Love of Art, featuring a Marilyn Monroe ring and skull on a bracelet. [10] Though she and her sister, Teri, a noted beadworker, normally do not collaborate in their work, [20] the sisters jointly spoke about heritage and art at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, [21] after they were honored as Living Treasures by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture of Santa Fe in 2015. [22] The award, given by a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs recognized the sisters, individually and collectively for their "museum-quality work", which incorporates a story-telling narrative of their cultural heritage. [6]

Ataumbi has been an artist in residence at UCROSS two times. In 2024 Ataumbi did a week long residency in North Carolina as part of her work being shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art in "To Take Shape and Meeting" and for a talk at the Ackland Museum of Art at the UNC.

In 2023 her work was featured on actor Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet) and in 2024 she was commissioned to work with designer Gabriella Hearst on Gladstone's look for the Met Gala. In addition to collaborating on the gown, Ataumbi made all of the accessories for the look including earrings, a hair ornament and rings.

Selected Exhibits

YearExhibitHostLocation(s)
2017"From my studio: Feathers to Diamonds" (Solo)Shiprock Santa FeSanta Fe, NM [23]
2016-2017"From the Belly of Our Being: Art by and about Native Creation"Oklahoma State UniversityStillwater, OK [24]
2015-2017“Native Fashion Now”Peabody Essex MuseumPortland Art Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, National Museum of American Indian [25] [26]
2008"Ataumbi Metals" (Solo)FourwindsPittsburgh, NM [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pablita Velarde</span> American painter

Pablita Velarde born Tse Tsan was an American Pueblo artist and painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Loloma</span> Native American jeweler (1921–1991)

Charles Sequevya Loloma was a Hopi Native American artist known for his jewelry. He also worked in pottery, painting and ceramics.

Teri Greeves is a Native American beadwork artist, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silver Horn</span> American painter

Silver Horn or Haungooah was a Kiowa ledger artist from Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Jennings</span> Native American Kiowa textile and beadwork artist

Vanessa Paukeigope Santos Jennings is a Kiowa/Kiowa Apache/Gila River Pima regalia maker, clothing designer, cradleboard maker, and beadwork artist from Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Hopkins Struever</span> Native American art dealer

Martha Hopkins Struever (1931–2017) was an American Indian art dealer, author, and leading scholar on historic and contemporary Pueblo Indian pottery and Pueblo and Navajo Indian jewelry. In June 2015, a new gallery in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, was named for her. The first permanent museum gallery devoted to Native American jewelry, the Martha Hopkins Struever Gallery, is part of the Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson</span> Southwestern American Indian artists

Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson are Southwest American Indian artists known for their innovative jewelry which uses varied stones and blends both contemporary and prehistoric design motifs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otellie Loloma</span> Hopi artist, potter, dancer

Otellie Loloma was a Hopi Native American artist, specializing in pottery and dance. Additionally, she worked with her husband Charles Loloma on jewelry design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Chabot</span>

Maria Chabot (1913–2001), was an advocate for Native American arts, a rancher, and a friend of Georgia O'Keeffe. She led the restoration of her house in Abiquiú, New Mexico, and took the photograph of O'Keeffe entitled Women Who Rode Away, in which the artist was on the back of a motorcycle driven by Maurice Grosser. Their correspondence was published in the book Maria Chabot—Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence 1941-1949.

Diane O’Leary (Opeche-Nah-Se), PhD (1939–2013), was a Native American multimedia artist, half Irish and half Comanche. Her work advocates for the equality and dignity of the oppressed and misused, including Native Americans, women, and the environment. She is most known for her female native figures pieces, combining her scientific education and creative talents to create abstract yet accurate body portraits. O'Leary's latest work was a collage series advocating for the poor environmental state of Oregon's Tillamook Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeri Ah-be-hill</span>

Jeri Ah-be-hill was a Kiowa fashion expert and art dealer. She owned and operated a trading post on the Wind River Indian Reservation for more than twenty years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became the curator of the annual Native American Clothing Contest held at the Santa Fe Indian Market. She also worked as a docent at both the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Considered an expert on Native American fashion, she traveled nationally presenting educational information about tribal clothing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose B. Simpson</span> Mixed-media artist

Rose B. Simpson is a Tewa sculptor of Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh is a mixed-media artist who works in ceramic, metal, fashion, painting, music, performance, and installation. She lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at SITE Santa Fe ; the Heard Museum ; the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe (2010); the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian (2008); the Denver Art Museum; Pomona College Museum of Art (2016); Ford Foundation Gallery (2019); The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (2017); the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); the Savannah College of Art and Design (2020); the Nevada Museum of Art (2021); Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Norton Museum of Art (2024).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine McHorse</span> Ceramics artist of Navajo descent (1948–2021)

Christine McHorse, also known as Christine Nofchissey McHorse, was a Navajo ceramic artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Deschillie</span> Navajo artist (1920–2010)

Mamie Deschillie (1920–2010) was a Navajo folk artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valjean McCarty Hessing</span> American painter (1934–2006)

Valjean McCarty Hessing was a Choctaw painter, who worked in the Bacone flatstyle. Throughout her career, she won 9- awards for her work and was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1976. Her artworks are in collections of the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others.

Margaret Wood is a Navajo-Seminole fiber artist, fashion designer, and quilt maker. Though she began her career as a teacher and librarian, Wood switched to fiber arts to allow her to express her creativity. She published Native American Fashion: Modern Adaptations of Traditional Designs, which for four decades was the only book focused on traditional native clothing and how it was modified in contemporary design. From 1990, Wood primarily became a quilter, displaying her works at numerous featured exhibitions throughout the United States, including such venues as the American Craft Museum in Manhattan; the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Riverside Metropolitan Museum of Riverside, California and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among many others.

D.Y. Begay is a Navajo textile artist born into the Tóʼtsohnii Clan and born from the Táchiiʼnii Clan.

Orlando Dugi is a Diné (Navajo) fashion designer. He is a member of the Navajo Nation, and currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Pardue 2007, p. 50.
  2. ↑ McGuire 1981, p. 1J.
  3. ↑ Little 2017, pp. 38–39.
  4. 1 2 Little 2017, p. 39.
  5. 1 2 3 Indyke 2004, pp. 52–54.
  6. 1 2 Bennett-Begaye 2015, p. 21.
  7. 1 2 3 Little 2017, p. 40.
  8. 1 2 Wheelwright Museum 2017.
  9. ↑ The Santa Fe New Mexican 1990.
  10. 1 2 3 Little 2017, p. 38.
  11. 1 2 Little 2017, p. 41.
  12. ↑ Pardue 2007, pp. 50–51.
  13. ↑ Little 2017, p. 35.
  14. ↑ Ataumbi 2018.
  15. 1 2 Little 2017, p. 36.
  16. ↑ "Keri Ataumbi". UNUM Magazine.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Little 2017, p. 37.
  18. 1 2 Lieber 2016.
  19. ↑ Little 2017, pp. 37–38.
  20. ↑ Allaire 2018.
  21. ↑ Abatemarco 2019.
  22. ↑ Indian Country Today 2014.
  23. ↑ "Shiprock Santa Fe Presents Keri Ataumbi & Robert Lee Morris". PRWeb. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  24. ↑ "From the Belly of Our Being: Art by and about Native creation - Oklahoma State University". museum.okstate.edu. April 14, 2020. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  25. ↑ "Native Fashion Now". pem.org. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  26. ↑ "Kiowa-Proud: Sisters in Action: Teri Greeves and Keri Ataumbi | School for Advanced Research" . Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  27. ↑ "Four Winds Gallery: Keri Ataumbi". Four Winds Gallery. Retrieved April 23, 2021.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.