Crows Shadow 1

CROW’S SHADOW:  Prints from Native American Artists

An exhibition of over forty prints produced at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts in Oregon, USA, will present the widest range of work by North American native artists seen in New Zealand in over a decade.  Founded in 1992, the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA) is located on the Umatilla Indian Reservation and has the goal of creating educational, social and professional opportunities for Native Americans through artistic development.   The name “Crow’s Shadow” derives from the title of the first painting CSIA founder James Lavadour sold on his way to becoming a highly successful professional artist.

Crow’s Shadow is housed in a beautifully renovated former Catholic mission school at the base of the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon, and features a state-of-the-art printmaking studio with the capacity to produce most types of prints, including lithographs, engravings, etchings, linocuts, woodcuts, and monotypes.  The Institute has hosted some of the most prestigious Native American artists in North America as well as visiting artists from four continents.  Crow’s Shadow also offers instruction in other art forms, with master tribal artists leading traditional arts programs. 

Prints selected for the Pataka Museum exhibition represent contemporary Native American art at its finest.  Works by nearly two dozen artists include digitally-imaged storytelling portraits by Phillip Charette (Yupik);  rock painting-inspired compositions by Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs);  sweeping landscapes by Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee); sly meditations upon the intersection of urban and traditional iconographies by Joe Feddersen (Colville); delicate interpretations of blankets as symbolic of life passages by Marie Watt (Seneca), and the powerful portrayals of the spiritual links between human and animal life created by Rick Bartow (Wiyot). 

Native American artists Phillip Charette, Kay WalkingStick, and Jeremy Red Star Wolf along with Crow’s Shadow’s master printmaker Frank Janzen will be participating in the 22-24 February print workshop hosted by the Pataka Museum.  The exhibition is organized by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, in association with Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts.  The Hallie Ford Museum was one of the North American hosts of Toi Maori:  The Eternal Thread in 2005.  This exhibition and artist exchange builds upon the relationships developed through The Eternal Thread.