{"id":22721,"date":"2025-04-10T17:36:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/native-american-art-and-culture-class-hosts-fashion-show\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T23:36:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:36:37","slug":"native-american-art-and-culture-class-hosts-fashion-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/native-american-art-and-culture-class-hosts-fashion-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Native American Art and Culture class hosts fashion show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A fashion show will be held Tuesday at the Center of Southwest Studies showcasing pieces made by students on the Native American Art and Culture class at Fort Lewis College. (Photo from a poster designed by Jeremy Alexander)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not very often Durango gets a fashion show, but on Tuesday, the Department of Native American & Indigenous Studies at Fort Lewis College will send models down the catwalk displaying pieces made by students in the Native American Art & Culture class.<\/p>\n

The semester-long class, co-taught by Esther Belin (Din\u00e9) and Dr. Majel Boxer (Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota, Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Reservation), introduced students to design techniques from several art traditions of Native peoples and generated a cultural arts portfolio that includes ledger art, loom beadwork, doll making, moccasin making and apparel design, according to the event webpage on the Center of Southwest Studies\u2019 website.<\/p>\n

\n

If you go<\/h4>\n

WHAT: <\/strong>Fort Lewis College Native American Art and Culture class presents its inaugural Fashion Show.<\/p>\n

WHEN:<\/strong> 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.<\/p>\n

WHERE: <\/strong>Center of Southwest Studies gallery, FLC, 1000 Rim Drive.<\/p>\n

Tickets: <\/strong>Free and open to the public.<\/p>\n

MORE INFORMATION: <\/strong>Contact Esther Belin (belin_e@fortlewis.edu<\/a>) or Dr. Majel Boxer (boxer_m@fortlewis.edu<\/a>); or visit https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/mskn3h7v<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cStudents explored a variety of Native cultures and art forms, including the many different forms of expression that constitute \u2018art\u2019 and the complicated history of interpreting and defining Native \u2018art,\u201d the pages says. \u201cThrough research and field trips to galleries and museums, they examined the historic and contemporary societal changes that impacted and influenced these cultural art forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lexus Begay, a senior, will be modeling the Navajo skirt and moccasins she made in the class. And while the process has been fun, the actual modeling is a little nerve-wracking, she said, especially when they practiced on the catwalk. But the class \u2013 and the show \u2013 serve an important lesson, especially to younger generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps us revitalize certain areas of traditional adornment wearing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for us to revitalize it and do it in our own way \u2026 We can send it down to (future generations) and they know how to do it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Bradfield is a second year Native American and Indigenous Studies major who will display a ribbon Navajo shirt, beadwork, a doll and toddler moccasins made from cowhide and suede. He said what he\u2019s learned from the class is how people look at art and how they sometimes miss the root and true meaning as pertaining to Native art.<\/p>\n

And he learned that creating pieces takes time. A lot of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the baby moccasins \u2026 it took two days in total (for) just one moccasin,\u201d he said. \u201cJust one took anywhere from seven to eight hours, and that was because this was my first time learning this type of stitching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doug Gonzales, who is a post-grad staff member taking the class, will be modeling the Navajo men\u2019s-style shirt he made. And for him, it was fun, but challenging, and like, Bradfield discovered, time-intensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this being my first time working on items like this, each has taken many times longer than I thought it would, or anticipated,\u201d he said. \u201cThen even once you get the hang of the process, you also realize at the end of it that there\u2019s just so much room to for mastery; you could spend a lifetime working on these and still keep improving. So it\u2019s daunting in that sort of way, just thinking about the scope of how much you can learn and how much skill can be gained and put into these objects. \u2026 For me, it\u2019s important, because although I\u2019m half Navajo, it\u2019s still difficult for me to access the resources needed for this, for these objects, the people in my family that once made them are no longer here, or can even remember how to do them, and I think that\u2019s a result of people getting older. But not only that, I think it\u2019s mainly due to systems of assimilation, like boarding schools and removal from ancestral homelands that disconnect people like myself from that culture. So by making these objects, I get to rebuild connections to ancestors I never knew, and get to bring them into the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

The class has been fun, too, Gonzales said, not only because of the skills he learned and what he created, but the community the students built working together has been an unexpectedly fun part of it as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only making \u2013 creating something like the moccasins has been super fun, because I never thought I could make my own shoes before, but it\u2019s fun to be able to feel like you have the tools necessary to sustain yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cNot only that, I think what has been fun is the process, because we have studio hours together, so we get to chat and connect and laugh and struggle and all of that stuff in the studio together.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while the fashion show is an important part of the class \u2013 it is the culmination of what the students have learned all semester \u2013 for the members of the public who attend, it offers a different view of what Native art can mean, Gonzales said, adding that the showcase is a nice way to wrap up the class because it\u2019s a way to take the art off the wall and put it on the body again. \u201cAnd sort of lay claim that Native people (are) still existing, Native people (are) still making Native art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Native art, there\u2019s a lot of factors that complicate it, right? And I think one of them, whenever we think of art in a Western context, we think of art being in a gallery on display and not being used. And I think in a lot of Native cultures, including Navajo, there\u2019s not necessarily a word for art, because a lot of these objects were just objects that were used,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was still Indigenous design and beauty and thinking instilled in the objects, but it wasn\u2019t necessarily an object that was meant to be unused. So I think with the fashion show, we get to put these objects back on and recontextualize them in a way that feels more Indigenous, and it takes the art off from the wall and puts it on back onto the original canvas.\u201d<\/p>\n

katie@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students will showcase their work Tuesday at Center of Southwest Studies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,2454,132,28,561],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-native-american"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22721"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}