Sunday, November 11, 2012
I just received a bunch of smaller Jimmie Kewanwytewa Dolls circa 1940s-50s. These Kachina Dolls range in size from 4 inches to 5 1/2 inches. Price are posted with photos. Anyone wishing to see more photos should send me an e-mail to jimmymac0012001@yahoo.com Check back from time to time as I will be posting pics. of other great Vintage Kachina Dolls.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Jimmy Kewanwytewa Dolls
Well, I have been very busy and unfortunately not posted anything in quite some time. I plan to get back to it on a regular basis. Btw...I am receiving a collection of small Jimmie K Dolls that I will be posting on this blog. I hope to take some pics. this weekend ad early next week...so stay tuned!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Upcoming Topics...
Lately I haven't had the time to post too much. I will have time this coming week to touch on some new topics related to collecting Kachinas. I will be discussing the more rare flatdolls or Puchtithu of the New Mexico Pueblos, specifically those of Acoma and I will present some photos to accompany the post.
Monday, February 13, 2012
My Other Kachina Related Interest...Painting Old Kachinas in Watercolors
One of my other kachina-related interests is painting old kachina dolls that I have owned, or those from museum collections, in watercolors. The idea came to over time. As I began developing my collection, I increasingly wanted older, therefore, more expensive dolls for my collection. I truly wanted to get my hands on some dolls that I quite simply could not afford. The idea eventually dawned on me that if I could teach myself how to paint and if I could do it well enough, I could capture the essence of any carving I desired. I chose watercolors for my medium. At the time it was a simple choice, because watercolors were the only paints I had ever experimented with during my childhood. Little did I know that it is one of the most difficult media to become skilled at. Nobody informed me, so I worked at becoming skilled with the watercolor paints. A year or so after I began this experiment, my paintings were looking the way I wanted them to look. I began to exhibit my paintings in gallery showings and sold a few.
When I paint kachinas, I am capturing the essence of the Kachina Doll and creating a mood that is not only a translation of the original, but also a co-creation of the original artist and myself. I try to convey an organic and primordial feel to the doll as if you could reach out and touch it. I like to bring out the character of these old carvings with all of their flaws, breaks, wear and missing paint exposing the bare cottonwood root. I want to bring the viewer a sense of awe and mystery. This is what my kachina paintings are all about.
When I paint kachinas, I am capturing the essence of the Kachina Doll and creating a mood that is not only a translation of the original, but also a co-creation of the original artist and myself. I try to convey an organic and primordial feel to the doll as if you could reach out and touch it. I like to bring out the character of these old carvings with all of their flaws, breaks, wear and missing paint exposing the bare cottonwood root. I want to bring the viewer a sense of awe and mystery. This is what my kachina paintings are all about.
Friday, February 10, 2012
My First Trip to Hopi...
In the last post I described in part the harvesting of Cottonwood Root or "paako" that I occasionally trade to the Hopi carvers. Now I would like to share with you a little bit about my first trading foray at Hopi. It was September of 2001 and I had driven down to Tucson to visit family and then I was on to Hopi with my trunk-load of paako to trade at Hopi.
I arrived in the late morning morning at Tsakurshovi, which if I remember correctly is located on 3rd Mesa. It has been a while since my last trip, so please forgive me for any errors. I spoke with Joseph Day, who along with his Hopi wife Janice, owns Tsakurshovi, a trading post where many traditional kachina carvers come to sell their crafts. I spoke briefly with Joseph and offered to come back with any root that I hadn't traded. I passed 2nd Mesa and drove on to 1st Mesa. I parked near Ponsi Hall in Sichomovi (Middle Village) and many carvers came to me to see what I had to trade. I really didn't know what I was doing. I gave some carvers root with their word that they would send me dolls that they had agreed to carve for me, which ended up being hard-learned lesson, for none of them ever did. I must have had the word "sucker" written on my forehead. We had exchanged addresses and phone numbers and wehn I called asking for my dolls, the reply was always..."I will send it to you soon...in a few weeks." I did work out a few trades on the spot. V.J. Poleahla, who was a very talented carver and now deceased, gave me a very nice Hey Heya Puchtihu for a little bit of cash and some paako. The other nice trade I made was with Joseph Day. I returned to Tsakurshovi with some paako and he took 4 or 5 pieces and I gave him some cash for a very nice Suyang Evu (Left-handed Warrior) by Jarrett James.
Despite the lessons I had to learn....never hand over root w/o carving in hand, I had a great time and I became more adept at the trading game if you will. There are certain ways to go about working out a trade and estalishing a rapport with certain carvers helps. I will write more about this later.
I arrived in the late morning morning at Tsakurshovi, which if I remember correctly is located on 3rd Mesa. It has been a while since my last trip, so please forgive me for any errors. I spoke with Joseph Day, who along with his Hopi wife Janice, owns Tsakurshovi, a trading post where many traditional kachina carvers come to sell their crafts. I spoke briefly with Joseph and offered to come back with any root that I hadn't traded. I passed 2nd Mesa and drove on to 1st Mesa. I parked near Ponsi Hall in Sichomovi (Middle Village) and many carvers came to me to see what I had to trade. I really didn't know what I was doing. I gave some carvers root with their word that they would send me dolls that they had agreed to carve for me, which ended up being hard-learned lesson, for none of them ever did. I must have had the word "sucker" written on my forehead. We had exchanged addresses and phone numbers and wehn I called asking for my dolls, the reply was always..."I will send it to you soon...in a few weeks." I did work out a few trades on the spot. V.J. Poleahla, who was a very talented carver and now deceased, gave me a very nice Hey Heya Puchtihu for a little bit of cash and some paako. The other nice trade I made was with Joseph Day. I returned to Tsakurshovi with some paako and he took 4 or 5 pieces and I gave him some cash for a very nice Suyang Evu (Left-handed Warrior) by Jarrett James.
Despite the lessons I had to learn....never hand over root w/o carving in hand, I had a great time and I became more adept at the trading game if you will. There are certain ways to go about working out a trade and estalishing a rapport with certain carvers helps. I will write more about this later.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Trading with the Hopi Carvers
One activity that I have been periodically engaged in since September of 2001 is trading with the Hopi carvers. I first read about non-Hopi traders from Barton Wright's book about the various aspects of collecting Hopi Kachina Dolls back in the early 1990s and thought it might be something I would like to do one day. At that time I knew very little about Hopi Kachina Dolls and nothing about trading. For me it was somewhat of a daydream. In 2001, I began reading about and studying Hopi Kachina Dolls with renewed interest. I knew that we had many Cottonwood trees growing along the rivers here in western Montana, so one day I decided to drive to a local fishing-access near where I work and see what I could find. A co-worker accompanied me and on our first trip out we found quite a bit of Cottonwood Root, which I cut into lengths approximately 3 1/2 feet long so that I could easily carry all of the sections of root, what the Hopi call "paako." My first trip to Hopi with paako loaded in the trunk of my car was a bust, but I that is a story for another time.
Cottonwood Root has "Wuya" or spiritual power according to the Hopi. Now if you are worried about the roots I am cutting from the Cottonwood Trees and the potential damage I am inflicting on the beautiful trees, have no fear, for the root must come from trees that have long-since died and their roots have sat in the wind, the rain, snow and the sun curing for years to become porous, light-weight and easy to carve. The roots also must be harvested before they become rotten. The best "paako" is from sections of root that are straight, though some carvers create sculptures from the twisted lengths, firm and without rocks or knots in them.
My first several trips collecting root, I gathered a lot of rotten or otherwise unusable root through my inexperience. The best place to find quality root are along broad floodplains with dead trees washed up on the gravel-bars along the channels of the river. I have collected along the Bitterroot, though, my favorite river to go harvest paako is along the Clark Fork River flowing through Missoula. To illustrate the gathering of the Cottonwood Root, I will include various photos from a gathering-trip along the Clark Fork in March of 2009.
For fun, I have included historical photos of Abbott Sackiestewa, a noted carver of Route 66 Dolls and full-figured carvings active in the 1950s and 60s. The photos came from an AZ Hwys issue circa 1950s. Though obviously posed, the photos show Abbott and his family out looking for Cottonwood Root along the banks of the Little Colorado of northern Arizona.
Typically, I hunt for the Root from the end of June through April at the latest. The rivers are at their lowest during the winter months and I am able to cross many channels due to the low water. Late April is when ice and snow begin to thaw in the high mountains and the rivers really begin rise and stay dangerously high till about the end of June. Summer still has higher water, however, by August the rivers have dropped and the water is sometimes warm enough (or not too bone-chilling is what I should really write) that I can swim across in pursuit of high-quality paako.
Once collected, I contact various carvers to work out trades either through facebook or save the Root for the rare occasions that I travel to Hopi. I will write about other aspects of trading at Hopi and with the carvers, sharing personal stories, another time.
Cottonwood Root has "Wuya" or spiritual power according to the Hopi. Now if you are worried about the roots I am cutting from the Cottonwood Trees and the potential damage I am inflicting on the beautiful trees, have no fear, for the root must come from trees that have long-since died and their roots have sat in the wind, the rain, snow and the sun curing for years to become porous, light-weight and easy to carve. The roots also must be harvested before they become rotten. The best "paako" is from sections of root that are straight, though some carvers create sculptures from the twisted lengths, firm and without rocks or knots in them.
My first several trips collecting root, I gathered a lot of rotten or otherwise unusable root through my inexperience. The best place to find quality root are along broad floodplains with dead trees washed up on the gravel-bars along the channels of the river. I have collected along the Bitterroot, though, my favorite river to go harvest paako is along the Clark Fork River flowing through Missoula. To illustrate the gathering of the Cottonwood Root, I will include various photos from a gathering-trip along the Clark Fork in March of 2009.
For fun, I have included historical photos of Abbott Sackiestewa, a noted carver of Route 66 Dolls and full-figured carvings active in the 1950s and 60s. The photos came from an AZ Hwys issue circa 1950s. Though obviously posed, the photos show Abbott and his family out looking for Cottonwood Root along the banks of the Little Colorado of northern Arizona.
Typically, I hunt for the Root from the end of June through April at the latest. The rivers are at their lowest during the winter months and I am able to cross many channels due to the low water. Late April is when ice and snow begin to thaw in the high mountains and the rivers really begin rise and stay dangerously high till about the end of June. Summer still has higher water, however, by August the rivers have dropped and the water is sometimes warm enough (or not too bone-chilling is what I should really write) that I can swim across in pursuit of high-quality paako.
Once collected, I contact various carvers to work out trades either through facebook or save the Root for the rare occasions that I travel to Hopi. I will write about other aspects of trading at Hopi and with the carvers, sharing personal stories, another time.
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