NATINIXWE: THE HUPA PEOPLE

February 16, 2013 – May 12, 2013

“Natinixwe: The Hupa People” combined historic black and white photos of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation community, taken by tribal member Ernest (Ernie) Leland Marshall Jr. (1913-1961), along with displays of ceremonial regalia made by his grandson, Bradley Marshall, and selected paintings by Hupa artist Loren Lavine.

The Hupa live in the northeast corner of Humboldt County on the largest reservation in the state of California. The Trinity River flows through the middle of the valley they inhabit; the river’s semiannual salmon runs are still an important part of the Hupa people’s lives. They have been unusually successful in maintaining and preserving their lifestyle and traditions in an era of rapid change when loss of tribal culture has been common. This is due in no small part to the efforts of individuals like Ernest Marshall Jr., a founding member of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Government (one of the first successful self-governing tribal structures in the nation). Marshall was also a photographer whose thousands of prints provide a well-rounded portrait of the lifestyle, ceremonies, and environment of the Hupa people, including compelling photographs of ceremonial dances such as the Boat Dance, the Brush Dance, and the White Deerskin Dance. While it is usually forbidden to take photos of the dances, the tribe gave Ernie Marshall special permission to do so.

Image: Hoopa Valley from Bald Hills, circa 1955. 
Ernest Marshall, Jr., Photographer. Collection
of Bradley Marshall.

Montage of images from
exhibit installation.

THE COMPREHENSIVE KEITH: A CENTENNIAL TRIBUTE

August 26, 2012 – January 27, 2013

Image: Mount Tamalpais, Golden Morning, 1872, oil on canvas, 40 x 72 inches. Collection of
the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art,
Gift of Sidney L. Schwartz in honor of
Garrett W. McEnerney.

This exhibition of over 50 paintings paid tribute to early California master artist William Keith (1838-1911) and the extensive collection of his art amassed over the last hundred years at Saint Mary’s College of California in Moraga. This exhibition was organized and circulated by the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (formally the Hearst Art Gallery). The paintings exhibited at the Grace Hudson Museum were selected by Marvin Schenck, Curator at the Grace Hudson Museum and former Curator of the Hearst Art Gallery, from an original larger exhibition of paintings shown at Saint Mary’s College in 2011.

Scotland-born Keith immigrated to New York as a boy with his family in 1850. After an apprenticeship with a wood engraver, he worked for Harper and Brothers publications, before going west to San Francisco in 1859. On arriving, Keith found success as an engraver and illustrator. However, by 1867 he had left the commercial enterprise to become a painter. His first lucrative commissions were to paint the dramatic scenery of the Pacific Northwest for the Northern Pacific and Oregon Railroad Companies.

The prolific Keith’s career is one of artistic transition. His earliest paintings were precise renderings of nature that brought him quick recognition. From that early work he developed a more rapid, looser style of depicting the California landscape that eventually led him to concentrate on the spiritual and romantic aspects of nature. It was not a straight path of development but one that reflected his changing moods and various influences which included work by close friends John Muir and Swedenborgian minister Joseph Worchester; the precepts of John Ruskin; the transcendentalists; painting and study trips to Europe; the French Barbizon artists; and the American artist George Inness.

Portrait of William Keith,
Unknown Photographer, c. 1870s.
Collection of Saint Mary’s College of Art,
Gift of Brother F. Cornelius Braeg, F.S.C.

Saint Mary’s College has been the leading Keith research institution for more than a century, building and caring for an unrivalled and comprehensive collection of his works. More than a century ago Brother Cornelius, F.S.C., recognized Keith as a master and began the work that has culminated in the College’s current collection of 180 Keith paintings. In conjunction with its centennial exhibit, the College published The Comprehensive Keith, a 232-page book with 266 illustrations. Through its informative essays, careful research and stunning reproductions, the volume presents a detailed account of Keith’s work and his significant place in the history of Western Art. The book was available for purchase in the Grace Hudson Museum Store.

Funding of this exhibition was made possible by the Sun House Guild, Tom & Melissa Thornhill, the Thornhill Family Foundation, Amy Neel, and the Neel Foundation.

OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE: NEW DIRECTIONS IN QUILTING

March 3 – August 5, 2012

A juried exhibition of contemporary art quilts by Mendocino County artists.

Image: Honorable Mention winner The Heart and the Feather by Leila Kazimi. Hand dyed fabrics, hand and machine quilting, beading. This piece is based on theEgyptian Book of the Dead.

The Artists:

Deanna Apfel, Lisa Bowles, Holly Brackmann, Marian Drain, Timothy Easterbrook, Laura Fogg, Renée Gannon, Kathy Gaughen, Cassie Gibson, Daphne Gillen, Dee Goodrich, Vicky Groom, Ann Horton, Leila Kazimi, Betty Lacy, Mary Ann Michelsen, Ursula Partch, Joyce Paterson, Catherine Reed aka Boutelona, Marilyn Bohlen Simpson, Charlotte Tefft, Anne Turner, and Marilynn Zensen

The Grace Hudson Museum takes pride each year in presenting a contemporary art show that displays the quality of our regional artists in a particular media. With the juried art quilt exhibition,Out of the Comfort Zone: New Directions in Quilting, we explored modern quilted wall art–a combination of traditional and experimental textile techniques. From abstract to narrative, the Mendocino County quilt artists in the exhibit inspired us with their imagery, design, color, materials and talent, taking quilting traditions to a new, expressive level.

The exhibition was juried by: Robin Cowley, a well-known Oakland artist and color consultant who works in a wide range of quilting techniques; Diane Perin Hock, a prolific Healdsburg quilter who wrote the new book, “Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge,” documenting twelve artists from around the world, each making 12” x 12” art quilts; and Carol Larson, a prominent Petaluma quilt artist, and popular speaker about art quilts, whose own work is in corporate and private collections. She is also the author of “Tallgirl Series: A Body of Work.” In addition, Mendocino County textile artists Holly Brackmann and Daphne Gillen brought the initial exhibit proposal to the attention of Museum staff and provided continuing assistance and logistical help. Funding for this exhibition was made possible by the Sun House Guild.

BEAR IN MIND: THE STORY OF THE CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY

October 15, 2011 – February 12, 2012

Image: Grizzly Bear Fishing, C. Hart Merriam Pictorial Collection, The Bancroft Library.

Bear in Mind: The Story of the California Grizzly told the saga of one of California’s most beloved and feared animals–the grizzly bear–a central character in California’s history. The exhibit chronicled the demise of the bear through archival sources, the truth about the bear through science, and a look at grizzlies in our imagination, where they still live on. The exhibit was produced by Exhibit Envoy in concert with The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and Heyday Books, and was made possible by generous grants from The William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Bank of the West, and the James Irvine Foundation.

Bear In Mind used striking images, informative text, memorabilia, a variety of historical and scientific objects, and hands-on activities to engage visitors of all ages. The exhibition was divided into three thematic sections:

1. Loss of the Grizzlies: This first section discussed the reasons behind the extinction of the California grizzly, documenting early Californian’s attitudes about the bears through powerful quotes and historic illustrations and photographs.

2. The Truth About Grizzlies: This section presented scientifically accurate information about bear biology, dispelling many of the myths surrounding the legendary predator. The section’s topics included what we knew about California grizzlies before the extinction, the differences between the California black bear and grizzly bear, where grizzlies can be found today, and the lessons learned from the loss of California grizzly that can be applied to other threatened species.

3. Bears In Our Imagination: Today, the California grizzly lives only in our imaginations as symbols of things desired and things lost. This final section investigated how the image of the California grizzly has been used as an icon, advertiser, and entertainer.

Children’s Area and Hands-On Activities: This exhibition also included sections created especially for children of all ages. It offered a simulated bear den, colorful books and puppets, and special text panels written at a 5th grade reading level to help children understand the story of the California Grizzly. Bear In Mind also provided hands-on interactive displays such as a map showing a timeline of the grizzlies’ demise; comparing and contrasting grizzly size, scat, and paws; and a bear image sorting game.

MEADOWS & MOUNTAINS: THE ART OF WILLIAM F. JACKSON

July 2, 2011 – September 25, 2011

Image: William F. Jackson “Soda Springs”, 22 x 36 inches, signed and dated ’85 at lower right, oil on canvas. Collection of Kathy and Roger Carter

William F. Jackson came to California as a thirteen year old in 1863, crossing the plains in a covered wagon. His family settled in Sacramento, but young Will’s talent for art led to his enrollment in the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he won a silver medal for draftsmanship in 1875. Upon graduation, he launched into a career as an easel painter, painting both portraits and landscapes. In the 1880s and after, he went on sketching tours in the Sierra Nevada near Soda Springs and Donner Lake. In 1885, he was considered to be the best art authority in Sacramento, and Margaret Crocker asked him to be the first curator of her new museum, the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery. Jackson offered to take the position for one year, because his ambitions were to establish himself as an important exhibiting artist, not a museum employee. At the end of the year, he tried to resign, but was talked into staying on one more year. Forty-nine years later, he was still on the job. He became director of the museum-based art school, the Sacramento School of Design, while continuing on as a landscape painter of solid reputation. In the early twentieth century, Jackson brightened his palette and became renowned for his transcriptions of California springtime scenery, replete with vivid orange poppies. The San Francisco Call noted that “Jackson has claimed the state flower to be his very own and has proceeded to make good that claim by his absolute mastery of the subject.” (January 22, 1911).

Also Exhibited:

The Landscape Sketches of Grace Carpenter Hudson

Grace Carpenter Hudson (1865–1937) is nationally known for her unique sympathetic depictions of the local Pomo Indians. Grace considered her detailed oil portraits her professional work and kept a painting diary with numbers assigned to each painting. Her numbered Pomo portraits still bring handsome prices in today’s art market. There is, however, another body of work that Grace produced but did not sign, market or document during her lifetime. These are the landscape sketches Grace drew and painted starting as a young teen and continuing throughout her life. These small works, primarily in watercolor and oil, seem to be almost exclusively executed outside from direct observation following the French “en plein air” example. When Grace Carpenter entered the San Francisco School of Design, producing a landscape work entirely outside was the new approach being taught due to the influence of French Barbizon Painting. Artists working in this new quicker method used a looser brushstroke and minimized detail as opposed to previous, precise studio pieces worked up from on-site studies. From the Barbizon influence a new American style developed called Tonalism, which incorporated plein air painting, a muted palette based on plant, earth, and grayed atmospheric colors, and an emphasis on landscape images that were either devoid of human habitation or feature figures in dramatic isolation. These early artistic influences stayed with Grace Hudson throughout her career. Unlike many other artists, such as William F. Jackson, she was not very influenced by the new Impressionists’ use of bold color.

The Landscape Sketches of Grace Carpenter Hudson explored Grace’s landscape paintings and drawings in the Museum’s collections. The earliest oil painting dated from 1880. The watercolors were also early and documented local trips in the 1880s. The several drawings probably dated from the 1890s when Grace was creating illustrations for articles on Mendocino County. The predominant media was oil on cardboard or canvas. Of these, ones that contained meadows, hills, or river views, were used as studies for nature backgrounds in her Pomo portraits. The finished backgrounds retained the same loose rendition and muted palette of the landscape sketches, which by contrast directed our attention to the highly detailed and more colorful subject of the portrait. In other works she chose quiet, simple compositions: a rustic well, ferns by a pool, a path in the woods, or a solitary tree — all intimate meditative moments in nature.

After her death, many of the paintings were signed with an estate signature and sold over the years by her heirs, Mark and Melissa Carpenter. However, in an effort to relate the landscapes to Grace’s Native American works, the Carpenters went a step beyond propriety and had small Pomo artifacts and even individual figures added to many of the works by Grace’s artist friend, Gene Warfield of Healdsburg. Most of the watercolors were signed, titled, and dated by Grace but little is known concerning the oils. The descriptive titles that many of these landscapes have today have come from collectors, galleries, or occasionally Museum staff.

Marvin Schenck, Curator Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House

LOOK AT WHO WE ARE: STORIES OF HOME

March 19, 2011 – June 19, 2011

Image: Frey Harvest, Photograph by Frey Vineyards, c. 1970s

There comes a time for every community to stop and take a good look at itself. How often do we give ourselves the opportunity to ask, “What brought me here, of all places?” “What are the challenges?” and “What do I like best of all about this place I call home?” This exhibit was an inquiry into–and a celebration of–what makes the Ukiah Valley unique and what continues to shape our distinct character.

Look at Who We Are: Stories of Home, guest curated by local resident Grace Magruder Provan, was a combination of visual stories brought to life by images and objects, and digital stories: short, first-person video-narratives created by members of the local community. These stories helped distinguish who we are and highlighted themes that are, and continue to be, important to us. They told of groups of people finding a place to call their own; businesses and industries serving as cornerstones for the local economy; people challenging us to consider how we grow the food we eat; and families and organizations celebrating, sharing, and honoring their unique culture.

It was not the intention of this exhibit to represent the only important stories of this area, nor even the most important ones. While the stories featured have helped define this area, they were merely a starting point, an inspiration for dialogue. Through these stories, this exhibit created a framework into which thousands of personal accounts and recollections could, and should be, infused. There is much more to be said about each one of them.

We invited you to come learn about our own history, engage in conversation about our collective home, and reflect on, perhaps even share, your personal stories about why you are here and why you stay.

GMO Free Mendocino logo, designed by Sid Cooperrider, c. 2003

AMERICAN MASTERPIECES: THE ARTISTIC LEGACY OF CALIFORNIA INDIAN BASKETRY

November 20, 2010 – February 27, 2011

Image: Maidu tray and twined Pomo bowl woven by Mary Knight Benson, State Parks Collection, Photos by John Palmer.

This exhibit, curated by basketry scholar Brian Bibby, was a joint project of the California Arts Council and California State Parks featuring rarely seen baskets from the collection of the California Indian Heritage Center.

California Indian basketry is one of the great textile traditions of the world, extending at least 5,000 years into the past. Encompassing remarkably diverse natural environments, nearly every Native community within the state excelled at basketry, creating a palette of distinct, regional weaving traditions – from the rainy redwood forests of the North Coast to the arid expanse of Death Valley.

Admired for its aesthetic merits, the role of basketry was born of necessity, rooted in a way of life that relied on baskets to collect, transport, process and store diverse food resources. Strong, durable, lightweight, and often watertight, Native baskets were perfected to suit local food collecting economies. Cooking, eating, winnowing seeds, sifting acorn flour, storing water, serving guests, cradling infants – all were done with baskets.

The astounding production, usefulness, innate beauty, boundless variety, and universal quality of Native baskets throughout California reveal masterful technique, botanical expertise, distinctive cultural traditions and personal artistic vision. They have become iconic of California Indian culture. They are vessels of delight. They are American Masterpieces.

SEAWEED, SALMON, AND MANZANITA CIDER: A CALIFORNIA INDIAN FEAST

July 10, 2010 – November 4, 2010

Image: Merk Oliver (Yurok) tending the salmon roast at the Yurok Salmon Festival in Klamath on August 20, 2006. Photo by Ira Nowinski.

“My mother told me this when I was young. I didn’t understand what she meant then, but I do now. She said we had many relatives and we all had to live together; so we’d better learn how to get along with each other. She said it wasn’t too hard to do. It was just like taking care of your younger brother or sister. You got to know them, find out what they like and what made them cry, so you’d know what to do. If you took good care of them you didn’t have to work as hard. Sounds like it’s not true, but it is. When that baby gets to be a man or woman they’re going to help you out.

 You know, I thought she was talking about us Indians and how we are supposed to get along. I found out later by my older sister that mother wasn’t just talking about Indians, but the plants, animals, birds – everything on this earth. They are our relatives and we better know how to act around them or they’ll get after us.”

Lucy Lozinto Smith, Dry Creek Pomo

Sherrie Smith-Ferri, Director of the Grace Hudson Museum, curated this exhibition in consultation with her aunt, Kathleen Rose Smith. Smith-Ferri noted how much fun it was to put the exhibit together. “It brought back lots of good memories of getting together with the family to spend time at the coast harvesting abalone, mussels and seaweed, or going to pick berries. And of course, it brings back recollections of some great meals eaten together. I found I would get really hungry if I worked too long a stretch of time on the exhibit.” After its Ukiah venue, the exhibit will travel for more than three years to other museums throughout California under the auspices of Exhibit Envoy (formerly the California Exhibition Resources Alliance). Funding for this exhibit was provided by the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, the Mendocino County Office of Education, the California Exhibition Resources Alliance, and the Sun House Guild.

Before the coming of the Europeans, the land now known as California supported more than 1000 independent bands, tribes, and nations. Many of these peoples lived in the same small areas for thousands of years without feeling the need to move on. Such long-term rootedness was possible due to the knowledge, respect, and restraint with which Native Californians approached plants and animals that sustained them. Strict rules governed their interactions with the environment: they gathered plants only at certain times; they burned, pruned, and dug in prescribed ways and at carefully calculated times, and they gave something back for whatever they took. The “untrammeled wilderness” the Europeans thought they discovered was in fact a carefully managed ecosystem.

“Our foods were (and still are) as varied as the landscape, as are our methods of preparing them,” states Smith. “We ate them raw. We roasted, boiled, baked, leached, steeped, dried, and stored them, and, after contact, we fried, and canned them.” The book and the exhibit contain harvesting instructions and recipes for many delicious foods, including Huckleberry Bread, Pine Nut Soup, Rose Hip or Elderberry Syrup, Peppernut Balls, Roasted Wood Rats, and Ingeniously Roasted Barnacles. Barnacles were roasted by the Pomo by building a fire right on top of a bed of barnacles at low tide. The barnacles would cook until the incoming tide would extinguish the fire and cool the meal. The barnacles would be eaten the next day.

“Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider” easily avoids romanticizing the “good old days,” however, by comfortably and sometimes humorously weaving in the realities of modern times. After giving a richly detailed description of her family’s traditional and extremely labor-intensive methods of gathering, storing, hulling, pounding, leaching, and cooking acorn, Kimberly Stevenot (Northern Sierra Mewuk) reminds her readers, “But let’s face it folks, this is now. Today, (you can grind) small batches (using) an electric coffee grinder, and a mill and juicer work wonders for medium batches. For large batches like my sister and I make, we use an electric flour mill.

SPACE, SILENCE, SPIRIT: MAYNARD DIXON’S WEST: COLLECTION OF MR. AND MRS. A.P. HAYS

February 28, 2010 – June 10, 2010

Image:Traveling Storm, 1937, oil on canvas.

Space, Silence, Spirit: Maynard Dixon’s West came to Ukiah courtesy of Abe Hays, an authority on Western Art, and owner of a collection of works by famed American artist, Maynard Dixon. It presented Northern Californians with a rare opportunity to view an extensive gathering of small-to-medium-sized paintings and drawings by Dixon that spanned the entire five decades of his artistic career. The seventy-one paintings and drawings in the exhibit were hung chronologically, enabling viewers to trace the development of Dixon’s art and life. The exhibition also contained photographs of Dixon by renowned photographers Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange (Dixon’s second wife), and paintings by Dixon’s third wife, Edith Hamlin.

Unlike many early “Western” artists who were actually born in Europe or in the eastern United States, Maynard Dixon was a California native from Fresno, born in 1875. He developed a love of the natural world on family camping trips to Yosemite and other wilderness areas, and showed talent as an artist in his childhood drawings. During his teen years Dixon studied art on his own before attending the San Francisco School of Design. At art school Dixon soon realized that he preferred canyons and mountains to classrooms. He began working as an illustrator before he was twenty, and quickly gained a significant reputation for his work for Overland Monthly, the San Francisco Examiner,Sunset Magazine, and other publications.

Motivated by a desire to safeguard the diverse cultures and fragile ecosystems of the Southwest, Dixon took his first trip to the Sonoran Desert of southeast California and Arizona in 1900, when he was 25 years old. During the trip Dixon created portraits of Indians that revealed each person’s individual personality, an approach that contrasted with the stereotyped portraits of “noble savages” more common in his day.

The trip kindled a passion for the landscapes and people of the Southwest that remained with Dixon through the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, World War I, the stock market crash of 1929, and all the way to his death in 1945. After the San Francisco earthquake (which put him out of work as well as destroying most of his possessions), Dixon moved to New York where he became a successful illustrator of Western novels and advertisements. Dissatisfied, however, with the inauthentic images of the West he was forced to portray, Dixon moved back to San Francisco after several years.

In San Francisco Dixon was commissioned to paint a series of murals depicting Indians, a job that helped him make a welcome transition from illustration to fine arts. He began spending months at a time in the desert and canyon lands of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, enjoying the silence while drawing and painting skies, clouds, cliffs, mountains, cowboys, and native peoples. Welcomed by Hopi, Navajo, Pima, Apache, and other tribes for his talent with pencil, crayon, and paint, his art became a language between two cultures. In recent years interest in Dixon’s art has risen to unprecedented levels, fueled by four books about the artist, three major exhibitions, and an award-winning feature-length documentary.