Shelly Lowe Leads IAIA into a New Era
S HELLY C. LOWE glows with excitement from her seat as the new president of the nation’s most influential institution for Indigenous arts and higher education. A citizen of the Navajo Nation from…
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Category: Originals
Parker Hooks Rides Toward Rodeo Glory
T WELVE-YEAR-OLD PARKER HOOKS has been riding bulls for half his life. He started on the backs of sheep—what’s known as mutton busting—at age three at the Lea County Fair and Rodeo in his hometown of…
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Lyndon Tsosie’s Design Mind
L YNDON TSOSIE PARTIED THROUGH his early adulthood and then found his calling in the pages of Dexter Cirillo’s Southwestern Indian Jewelry. The book cost $65, and Tsosie had $75 in his pocket for…
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David Santiago Paints It Big
D AVID SANTIAGO , also known as St. Jame, paints beautiful women. Often nude and somewhat sensual, the idealized figures in his murals and large-scale paintings call to mind anime and vintage pinup art…
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Rock Solid Find
W HILE THE GLOBAL TALLY of identified plant and animal species is in the millions, scientists know of only 5,998 minerals. For more than 50 years, mineral collector Ramon S. DeMark has worked to change…
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Ramona Emerson Pens a Haunting New Novel
T HE OPENING PAGES of Ramona Emerson’s new novel, Exposure, are crime-scene-level gory. A family is brutally murdered—and Navajo forensic photographer Rita Todacheene is back on the job. She’s also…
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Tara Vander Dussen Brings Farming to the Masses
W HEN YOU’RE HUNGRY for a discussion ranging from the rodeo at New York Fashion Week to Paris Hilton working at a Sonic Drive-In to the burnout crisis among beginning farmers, Tara Vander Dussen and…
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The Healing Power of Flowers
R OBERT WASHINGTON-VAUGHNS believes in psychological healing through flowers. “I was chasing success in the way that I was raised to do: Get a good job, get good benefits, have a nice car,” he says…
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Ross Anderson Is Blazing Trails
W HEN ROSS ANDERSON placed second at the Pro Speed Skiing World Championships in 2001, he became the first person of color ever to stand on a speed skiing podium. The lesser-known form of ski racing is…
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The Power of the Pen
“I LOVE MY SOLITARY LIFE,” says Albuquerque poet, novelist, and screenwriter Jimmy Santiago Baca. Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Baca spent portions of his youth in a Santa Fe orphanage before…
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