Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Performing Fashion
(La Renaissance Indigéne, Heard Museum. Dancer/choreographer Rulan Tangen; costumes and paint designs by Virgil Ortiz; hair by Edgar Soto and Tressa diGiorgio, 2004. Photo by Larry Price (Navajo). Image featured in Native Peoples Magazine.) The connection between fashion and performance is an ancient one in Indigenous communities - Native peoples have long created special attire, and painted their bodies, for dance events or ceremonies.
Today this connection may be most evident in the Native American powwows of North America. Here, thousands of dancers, from tiny tots to golden age elders, recreate performance attire, both reflecting and re-defining traditional dance regalia (a future post to come).
In addition to this powwow world, there are several other movements of Native fashion and dance, including that which pulls from hip hop culture (again, a future post to come), but also that which feeds off of modern performance dance aesthetics.
(Photos by Anthony "Thosh" Collins (Pima/Osage/Seneca-Cayuga) for King Galleries.The model is noted violinist, Quetzal Guerrero, whom Virgil Ortiz has painted to represent his clay figures.)
At the forefront of this movement to combine modern dance with global Indigenous dance is Dancing Earth. Headed up by the well-known dancer/choreographer Rulan Tangen (Metis), Dancing Earth has worked with Cochiti fashion designer Virgil Ortiz for multiple events including fashion shows and gallery exhibition openings. Below is a clip featuring the dancers of Dancing Earth, body paint and fashion styling by Virgil Ortiz, and cinematography by Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo). This is truly contemporary Indigenous dance:
Video | Go Native Arts! Supports Native Fashion
Go Native Arts! is a new upcoming television series that will explore and celebrate Native arts and artists from throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Each episode will tell the 'family stories' of tribal artists, offering new information on the process of art-making from a contemporary Indigenous perspective.
Below are three videos recorded during the Go Native Arts! benefit party on August 17, 2009, at the Allan Houser Compound & Sculpture Park in Santa Fe. The videos feature new designs by Patricia Michaels (Taos Pueblo), Dorothy Grant (Haida), and Penny Singer (Navajo).
Each episode will tell the 'family stories' of tribal artists, offering new information on the process of art-making from a contemporary Indigenous perspective.
Below are three videos recorded during the Go Native Arts! benefit party on August 17, 2009, at the Allan Houser Compound & Sculpture Park in Santa Fe. The videos feature new designs by Patricia Michaels (Taos Pueblo), Dorothy Grant (Haida), and Penny Singer (Navajo).
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Megan Fox Loved to Being a Lesbian Vampire
FOXY Megan Fox loved playing a lesbian vampire in new movie Jennifer’s Body – she even stayed in character when the cameras stopped rolling!
The actress says her part was so well written, she found it hard to snap out of.
“The roles were so amazing and so well written that I think we all ended up being those characters full-time and taking them home with us,” says Megan.
“I don’t mean I took on some of my character’s more extreme behavior but I definitely felt like she was part of me even when we were not shooting.”
Megan, 23, recently revealed that she accepted her role in Jennifer’s Body because the screenwriter wore ’stripper shoes’.
“Diablo Cody was really shy and really nice and she had on these six-inch pair of clear high heels, like the kind that strippers wear,” she said.
“I loved that in Hollywood here she was walking around in stripper shoes.
“It’s what swayed me to do the movie.”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Pearly
I cannot believe I have let myself dye my hair red and get a nose ring. The fact that it is PERMANENT aswell is awful. I spent the whole day today trying to get my nose ring out and in the end had to break it apart with pliers, and I've put in the old stud so I don't look so bloody rough. I'm so upset about my hair. It's not that I don't think it looks nice, it's the fact that I miss my original colour hair that nobody else had that was natural, my whole image was natural and that was the only thing I liked about myself. I didn't have piercings, no fake hair, no tattoos, now I've gone and ruined myself. I have to now wait months for it to begin to fade and grow out, and when it's begun to fade a bit I'm dying it back to my natural colour, then that's it, NO MORE HAIR DYE EVER. I can't believe I've even let myself do it, argh. Every time I look in the mirror I just feel depressed. I miss this first photo of myself, so much...
Monday, October 19, 2009
Article | Virgil Ortiz in the New Mexico Independent
Virgil Ortiz is one of the more prolific of the Native designers working today. He is consistently spotlighted in National and International publications. Below is a recent article about Virgil Ortiz written by David Garcia for the New Mexico Independent. To read the original article, and to access the video clip, click on the following link:
It's even OK to call Virgil Ortiz 'le sauvage primitif'
By David Alire Garcia
5/9/09 8:43 PM
New Mexico artist Virgil Ortiz lives in a provocative multi-media world that extends out to L.A. and New York, Paris and Barcelona, but always zooms back to his native Cochiti Pueblo.
I got a chance to interview Oritz a couple weeks ago. The end result: a 10-minute profile of Oritz broadcast last night on KNME-TV. You can also watch it below.
Yesterday, Ortiz turned 40.
He could have been someplace celebrating his roaring success as a potter and fashion designer (among several other disciplines), but instead he was off in White Sands New Mexico, overseeing a photo shoot for his upcoming 2010 line of fashion.
At one point during the interview, Oritz gave his own description of the new line of clothes he’s set to unveil at New York Fashion Week next February:
I guess you would call it a rocked out vagabond thing. Like a vampire meets Red Hot Chile Peppers.
Whatever you call it, it’s quite the explosion of creativity. Ditto for just about everything else the man sets his mind to. Oritz does his creating — from jewlrey to painting to pottery — in his new 4,000-square-foot studio, adjacent to his home in Cochiti.
Next door, his father. Across the street, many nieces and nephews. Out back, the pits and mud brick ovens he and his family use.
It’s fair to say Ortiz was born into pottery — his mother, Seferina Ortiz, was an extremely well-known master in her own right. Her son began forging his own muddy work when he was just six.
His career to date has had him collaborating with the likes of Donna Karan on fabric designs, and conspiring to avoid the scuffles that have erupted among high-end collectors when his pottery is for sale at Santa Fe’s annual Indian Market.
And you thought you had problems!
It one telling exchange that didn’t make the video, I asked Ortiz if he sees himself as a bridge between different worlds. “I just leave it up to the viewer,” he answered. “I don’t think about it that way.” Ortiz does tell a story about how he had just finished a fashion show in Paris when a local writer actually referred to him as le savauge primitif, or primitive savage. Ortiz said he was both pissed off and encouraged with any notoriety so far from home. Since then, in several interviews he’s said — paraphrasing — he doesn’t care what he’s called, just call him.
Ortiz would later flip the slur into the theme and logo for a subsequent line of clothes.
Ortiz is often credited with reviving Cochiti Pueblo’s somewhat-recent tradition of creating storyteller figures. Called monos (or monkeys) in Spanish, the figures were in heavy demand from traders and travelers in the 1800s, though many of those early customers didn’t know they were really recipients of caustic pueblo jokes told in clay.
Other storyteller monos are more fantastical. Those of Ortiz are both — and more.
I didn’t expect the raw sexuality of the female figure pictured above.
It’s hard not to walk away impressed from Ortiz’s studio.
If you’d like a vivid preview of the movie Oritz is working on (yes, he’s also a screenwriter), be sure to watch the video. The movie is loosley based on the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.
The characters of the movie also happen to overlap with those of some of the models he’s using for his 2010 fashion line. In fact, the model pictured in the still shot from the video to the right is one of the characters.
Specifically, the model — Sixtus Dominguez — is being made to look like the legendary Etamu, the “character in real life that carried the tied leather strips from pueblo to pueblo” spreading word of the rebellion to Spanish colonial rule, Ortiz explained.
Special thanks go out to KNME’s Kevin McDonald, Antony Lostetter and Kathy Wimmer. Without them, the video would have been impossible to pull off — and nowhere near as cool or fun.
(note: click on the above link to access the video clip)
It's even OK to call Virgil Ortiz 'le sauvage primitif'
By David Alire Garcia
5/9/09 8:43 PM
New Mexico artist Virgil Ortiz lives in a provocative multi-media world that extends out to L.A. and New York, Paris and Barcelona, but always zooms back to his native Cochiti Pueblo.
I got a chance to interview Oritz a couple weeks ago. The end result: a 10-minute profile of Oritz broadcast last night on KNME-TV. You can also watch it below.
Yesterday, Ortiz turned 40.
He could have been someplace celebrating his roaring success as a potter and fashion designer (among several other disciplines), but instead he was off in White Sands New Mexico, overseeing a photo shoot for his upcoming 2010 line of fashion.
At one point during the interview, Oritz gave his own description of the new line of clothes he’s set to unveil at New York Fashion Week next February:
I guess you would call it a rocked out vagabond thing. Like a vampire meets Red Hot Chile Peppers.
Whatever you call it, it’s quite the explosion of creativity. Ditto for just about everything else the man sets his mind to. Oritz does his creating — from jewlrey to painting to pottery — in his new 4,000-square-foot studio, adjacent to his home in Cochiti.
Next door, his father. Across the street, many nieces and nephews. Out back, the pits and mud brick ovens he and his family use.
It’s fair to say Ortiz was born into pottery — his mother, Seferina Ortiz, was an extremely well-known master in her own right. Her son began forging his own muddy work when he was just six.
His career to date has had him collaborating with the likes of Donna Karan on fabric designs, and conspiring to avoid the scuffles that have erupted among high-end collectors when his pottery is for sale at Santa Fe’s annual Indian Market.
And you thought you had problems!
It one telling exchange that didn’t make the video, I asked Ortiz if he sees himself as a bridge between different worlds. “I just leave it up to the viewer,” he answered. “I don’t think about it that way.” Ortiz does tell a story about how he had just finished a fashion show in Paris when a local writer actually referred to him as le savauge primitif, or primitive savage. Ortiz said he was both pissed off and encouraged with any notoriety so far from home. Since then, in several interviews he’s said — paraphrasing — he doesn’t care what he’s called, just call him.
Ortiz would later flip the slur into the theme and logo for a subsequent line of clothes.
Ortiz is often credited with reviving Cochiti Pueblo’s somewhat-recent tradition of creating storyteller figures. Called monos (or monkeys) in Spanish, the figures were in heavy demand from traders and travelers in the 1800s, though many of those early customers didn’t know they were really recipients of caustic pueblo jokes told in clay.
Other storyteller monos are more fantastical. Those of Ortiz are both — and more.
I didn’t expect the raw sexuality of the female figure pictured above.
It’s hard not to walk away impressed from Ortiz’s studio.
If you’d like a vivid preview of the movie Oritz is working on (yes, he’s also a screenwriter), be sure to watch the video. The movie is loosley based on the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.
The characters of the movie also happen to overlap with those of some of the models he’s using for his 2010 fashion line. In fact, the model pictured in the still shot from the video to the right is one of the characters.
Specifically, the model — Sixtus Dominguez — is being made to look like the legendary Etamu, the “character in real life that carried the tied leather strips from pueblo to pueblo” spreading word of the rebellion to Spanish colonial rule, Ortiz explained.
Special thanks go out to KNME’s Kevin McDonald, Antony Lostetter and Kathy Wimmer. Without them, the video would have been impossible to pull off — and nowhere near as cool or fun.
(note: click on the above link to access the video clip)
Event | Native American Art Studies Association Conference
The 16th biennial NAASA conference will be held in Norman, Oklahoma, October 21-24, 2009.
The program will open with a welcoming reception on Wednesday evening and conclude with a banquet on Saturday night, offering three full days of conference sessions, evening activities, and late night sessions in between.
Session topics include:
- ‘Cultural Transvestites’ and Other Vexed Identities in Native American Culture
- Art Value(s): Meaning, Transmission, And Money In Traditional And Contemporary American Indian Art
- Native American Painting in the 21st Century
- Artistic Traditions in the ‘Greater’ Great Lakes
- Unchained Legacies: The Effects of Collectors, Collecting, and Curation on Interpretation and Meaning
- Appropriations Gone Wild
- New Trends in Indigenous Media
- Reinventing the Enemy’s Language
My panel presentation is on Saturday:
Identity Inscribed: Tattooing, Piercing, and Other Body Arts
Chair: Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, University of Washington
Identity Inscribed: Bracelets and Tattooing on the Northwest Coast
Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, University of Washington
To¢li¢ Chikashsha inaafokha : Chickasaw Stickball Regalia
Joshua D. Hinson, Chickasaw Nation
What You See is Who I Am: Some Native Jewelry and Identity
Beverly Twitchell Marchant, Marshall University
Reading the Fashioned Body: Native High Fashion and Body Art
Jessica Metcalfe, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, University of Arizona
The Inscriber Inscribed: Tattoos and Labrets as recorded by Alaskan Yupik Artist Florence Nupok
Mary Goodwin, Ph.D., University of Alaska Fairbanks
Exhibit | Native Couture II: Innovation and Style
(Detail from Navajo designer Penny Singer's butterfly cape) Check out this revolutionary exhibit that I co-curated in Santa Fe:
Native Couture II: Innovation and Style
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
Santa Fe, NM
August 30, 2009 through February 10, 2010
This exhibition explores the history of Native fashion from hand-made clothing and accessories of the 1880s that influenced the development of a Santa Fe Style, to today’s contemporary Native couturiers. At its root, Indian art is the quintessential original American art. This centuries-long influence of Native American art requires the buyer, or wearer, and the American public in general to ponder the origins of a truly unique American style.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Today is Birthday day.
It's my little sisters birthday and she's 8, bless. But ALSO, it's Amber's birthday! She is 18 today, so I'm directing this post to her. I remember the time we got all dressed up and ready to go to Kool Kids Klub at Sunrooms in Southend, stood at the door, and she gave the bloody bouncer (who hates me by the way) the wrong date of birth, so we couldn't get in, despite best efforts to sneak in round the back and get people we know to come out and let us in. After standing there trying for about 15 minutes to get in, we gave up. And Amber was suicidal. She kept saying ''My life is officially over. I will not go out until the day I am 18. I want to die, I am going to spend the next 5 months indoors every night. I'll miss Sunrooms''. And now, she can OFFICIALLY buy cigarettes, buy alcohol, GET INTO SUNROOMS, and do all the other things she has illegally been doing for the past year hahaha. We used to talk about the things we could do and the places and parties we could go to and the people we could meet, now Amber is finally 18 we can do it. I haven't seen Amber for a few months, I miss her, but since then she has turned into the coolest person of life, although I already thought she was the coolest person in the world when I first met her. Happy Birthday shabble dabble doi. Love me. X.
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