November is Native American Heritage Month and MAM joins in celebrating the rich histories, culture, and important contributions of our nation’s First Peoples.
This month MAM will spotlight its nationally renowned Native American collection of more than 4000 works – spanning the period of approximately 1200 C.E. to the present day, including a growing array of works by leading contemporary artists – and offer a lineup of programming that celebrates the role of Indigenous communities in our society and the visual arts in America.
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Native American Heritage Month Intro text
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MAM Conversations: Kay WalkingStick
Thursday, November 5, 2020, 6 p.m.
FREE for members
Through the lens of her own Native identity, Kay WalkingStick combines Modernist abstraction and landscape painting to explore feminism, connection to the land, and her own personal history. Join MAM’s Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky for a conversation about WalkingStick’s work in MAM’s collection, her blockbuster retrospective Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist organized by the National Museum of the American Indian, and recent projects.
Photo: © 2014 Julia Maloof Verderosa
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Sunday Studio
Sunday, November 15, 2020, 1–2 p.m.
FREE for members
Connect with friends and family near and far in our virtual studio space and enjoy learning about art and being creative together! We'll create a family totem pole with animals from our community as we look at totem poles from MAM’s collection and around our country. Make sure to gather your materials at home!
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Surprises From the Vault
November 16, 2020, 12 p.m.
Tune in to MAM's monthly Facebook Live event where the Registrar Staff, Osanna Urbay and Betty Jarvis, bring us their favorite pieces from the MAM Vault.
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Homeschool Day
Thursday, November 19, 2020, 1–2:30 p.m.
Join us for a virtual tour of Montclair Art Museum, right from your home, followed by an art-making studio workshop led by our talented teaching artists over the Zoom platform. This month we'll take a walk in Native American shoes by taking a look at traditional Plains Native American moccasins from our collection. We will then design our own while learning about symmetry, symbols, and mixed media. Make sure to gather your materials at home!
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Explore art by Native American artists
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Virgil Ortiz: Odyssey of the Venutian Soldiers
Inspired by the 1680 Pueblo Revolt around Santa Fe, New Mexico, renowned artist Virgil Ortiz of Cochiti Pueblo creates artwork that makes past and future come alive. Many Native people consider the uprising in 1680 against the Spanish oppressors to be the first American Revolution. Ortiz has recently created a series of sci-fi versions of the Revolt, with fantastic characters fighting in 2180 alongside the original Pueblo heroes facing the demise of the Pueblo world. Engaged with high fashion ever since a collaboration with Donna Karan in 2002, Ortiz created the striking uniform worn by the aeronaut warrior Neena, appearing in Rand Gallery in mannequin form.
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Undaunted Spirit: Art of Native North America
MAM's renowned permanent collection includes over 4,000 pieces of Native art. The present exhibition in the Rand Gallery traces the evolution of Native art by revealing human stories that tell of the great resiliency of Indigenous artists and how they maintained or altered their artistic traditions while adapting to ever-changing conditions.
To learn more about local and national Indigenous peoples and organizations, check out:
