Rhonda Holy Bear

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Rhonda Holy Bear
Born (1959-12-15) December 15, 1959 (age 64)
Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, South Dakota, U.S.
Other namesWakah Wayuphika Win

Rhonda Holy Bear (born December 15, 1959) is a Native American (Cheyenne River Lakota) beadworker and dollmaker. She is best known for her dolls depicting Native American people in traditional beaded regalia.

Contents

Early life

Rhonda Holy Bear was born on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota to a Lakota family. She began making dolls at age four with her grandmother, Angeline Holy Bear. She was also inspired by her aunt, Agatha Holy Bear Traversie, who was a beadworker who also tanned hides, and by Ella Bears Heart, a community member who taught her beading when she was nine. [1] [2] Rhonda grew up in La Plante, in a home with no running water or indoor plumbing. [3] She attended Beadle Elementary School in Mobridge. She moved to Chicago when she was 14, and graduated from Little Big Horn High School. [1] [2]

Holy Bear remained in Chicago for the early part of her career, working to teach about traditional Native American arts to high schoolers. [1]

Art career

Holy Bear began working on her beaded dolls while in Chicago. [1] In 1982, she began working at American West, an art gallery. The wife of the gallery owner took an interest in Holy Bear's dolls, buying two of them, and the gallery offered to sell some of her other dolls. The gallery later placed an advertisement for Holy Bear's work in American Indian Art Magazine , which effectively launched her wider art career. [2]

Holy Bear applied to the Art Institute of Chicago, but was ultimately unable to attend due to tuition costs. Instead, she took weekly trips to the Field Museum, where she sketched and studied the Native American clothing and beadwork in the museum's collection. [2] [4] Later, with the help of scholar Father Peter J. Powell, whom she had met in high school, [3] Holy Bear was given access to the museum's archives. [2]

In 1985, Holy Bear participated in the Santa Fe Indian Market for the first time. At the event, she received a Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) Fellowship, the first doll artist to do so. She also won the First and Second Place awards in the Plains Style doll category. [2] [5] Following this success, several of her pieces were purchased by the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian for their permanent collection. [5]

Works

Two of Holy Bear's dolls, a male and female Ghost Dancer, are in the permanent collections of the Sioux Indian Museum. Unlike some of her other works, which use wood bases, these dolls have a painted muslin base. A photograph of the dolls was the cover image for the 1989 Doll Issue of American Indian Art Magazine. The dolls were also included in the 1992 exhibition Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls at the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma. [2]

Her piece Lakota Honor-Sees the Horses Woman (SuWakan Ayutan Win), "portrays a Lakota widow honoring her fallen husband by wearing his regalia, including his eagle-feather war bonnet". Holy Bear began the doll in 2011, finishing it in 2023. It was inspired by Holy Bear's paternal grandmother, Josephine Sees The Horses Woman (b. 1872), who witnessed the Battle of the Little Bighorn at age four [6] and whose father was killed in the battle. [7] The piece won Best in Show at the 2021 Santa Fe Indian Market. [6]

Style

Holy Bear has described her works as hyperrealistic, due to the amount of details she includes in her dolls. [6] She starts her pieces by carving a base of bass or balsa wood, which is painted with red oxide. [6] [5] She then moves on to creating clothing, which she decorates with beads and other materials. She utilizes the traditional Lakota paha stitch. [6]

In addition to beads, Holy Bear works with a variety of materials to create her dolls, including bone, buckskin, cloth, feathers, fur, horsehair, quills, shells, and wool. [1] She has also learned metalwork and silversmithing, which she has also incorporated into her dolls. [6]

Although Holy Bear primarily draws from Lakota tradition, she has also cited being influenced by Ancient Egyptian art. [3]

Personal life

Holy Bear is married to musician Jim Buck. The two met in Santa Fe, New Mexico. [3] She has lived variously in Chamisal, New Mexico, [1] Las Vegas, Nevada, [6] and in Henderson, Nevada. [3]

Holy Bear's sister, Charlene Holy Bear, is also an accomplished beadworker. [8]

Her Lakota name, Wakah Wayuphika Win, means Making with Exceptional Skills Woman. [9]

Exhibitions

Holy Bear's work has been held and displayed by a number of institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, [9] the Heard Museum, [10] the Metropolitan Museum of Art, [11] and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. [1]

Her first exhibition, Eloquent Visions: Dolls of the Great Plains, was held in 1983 at the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. [2]  

Selected exhibitions

Awards and recognition

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sioux Indian Museum and Crafts Center (1985). DOLLS BY BERNIECE ALDERMAN AND RHONDA HOLY BEAR (PDF). U.S. Department of the Interior.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Krutak, Lars (2020-09-01). "TREASURES OF THE IACB: RHONDA HOLY BEAR, GHOST DANCE DOLLS (1984)". U.S. Department of the Interior . Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Durkin, Peter J. (March 2011). "10 questions for Rhonda Holy Bear--premier doll artist". Whispering Wind. 40 (1).
  4. ↑ "JUN 27TH 2024 Artist Conversation: Rhonda Holy Bear". thevisualist.org. June 2024. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Indyke, Dottie (2005-11-01). "Native Arts | Rhonda Holy Bear". Southwest Art Magazine. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Agency, Wend (2022-07-11). "Celebrating a Centennial: Sculptor Rhonda Holy Bear". Western Art & Architecture. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  7. ↑ Rhonda Holy Bear, Wakah Wayuphika Win, Making with Exceptional Skills Woman (2011–2023). "Lakota Honor - Sees The Horses Woman - SuWakan Ayutan Win". Art Institute of Chicago . Retrieved 2024-10-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ↑ Marlowe, Rachel (2018-02-05). "Meet the Native American Artist Whose Hand-Beaded Skate Shoes Have Become a Sensation". Vogue. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  9. 1 2 "Rhonda Holy Bear, Wakah Wayuphika Win, Making with Exceptional Skills Woman". The Art Institute of Chicago. 1959. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  10. ↑ "Heard Museum Gifted Collection of Contemporary Art". Arizona Highways.
  11. ↑ "Rhonda Holy Bear, Wakah Wayuphika Win, Making Beauty with Exceptional Skills Woman | The Last Lakota Horse Raid | Sans Arc, Two Kettle and Hunkpapa Lakota (Teton Sioux)". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  12. ↑ "Full Circle/Omani Wakan". Meer. 2018-10-01. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  13. ↑ "RHONDA HOLY BEAR: ARTIST AND STORY-KEEPER". Barry Art Museum . 2022.
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