Contact: Clair Carpenter, assistant director for administration, 740-593-0955 or carpente@ohiou.edu,
or Jennifer McLerran, co-curator, 740-593-0955 or mclerran@ohiou.edu
ATHENS, Ohio (February 12, 2001) -- The Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, is pleased to announce the opening of "Hosteen Klah, Nadle Hatali: Gender, Transformation, and Navajo Weaving." Jennifer McLerran, Interim Associate Director, Women Studies Program, and Thomas Patin, Assistant Professor, School of Art, are guest curators for the exhibit.
Featuring a collection of Navajo weavings that are a part of the museum's Edwin L. and Ruth E. Kennedy Southwest Native American Collection and also including pieces from the private collection of Jennifer McLerran, the exhibit will be on display February 17 through April 29, 2001.
An opening day reception will be held on Saturday February 17, beginning at 3:00 p.m. The reception will be catered. Admission is free and open to the public.
The exhibit focuses on a sandpainting weaving done by Hosteen Klah, a Navajo weaver and medicine man, and examines Klah's importance to the development of Navajo weaving.The relationship between gender and weaving in Navajo culture is also explored. Several other Navajo sandpainting, Yei, and pictorial weavings are included in the exhibit.
Hosteen Klah (1867-1937) was perhaps the most well-known Navajo artist and "medicine man" (usually called a singer or chanter). He was especially important because he gave information to anthropologists and others about Navajo religion and ceremonial practices. He also gained great recognition as a weaver of unusual designs.
Among the Navajo, weavers are normally female, and chanters, hatali, are normally male. Hosteen Klah was both a weaver and a chanter. This was possible because of his gender status. In traditional Navajo society occupation, demeanor, and dress were more important determinants of gender than biological sex or sexual preference. Klah was a nadle, meaning "one who is transformed." Nadles sometimes engaged only in traditional activities of the opposite gender, and sometimes they, like Klah, mixed the traditional activities of both men and women. Klah was trained in the traditionally male realm of ceremonial practice , chanting, and sandpainting from his uncle. Identified as a nadle in adolescence, Klah began his training in the traditionally female craft of weaving with his mother and sister in the 1880's.
This exhibit showcases Klah's sandpainting weaving "The Skies" from the Shooting Way Chant. The image in this weaving duplicates the one used in the Shooting Way ceremony, which was one of Klah's specialties as a Navajo medicine man. There are about fifty ceremonies, usually called "chants", "sings", or "ways." Navajos who practice the traditional religion believe that such ceremonies can restore the health and well-being of their people.
Traditionally, Navajo chanters have erased or destroyed sandpaintings after ceremonies. The painting is considered so powerful that it is thought to be unsafe to leave it intact after use. The word used to designate sandpainting in Navajo is iikaah, which literally translates to "they [the gods] come, as into an enclosure."
Klah was one of the first, if not the first, to weave using sandpainting imagery. His first weaving using sandpainting imagery (completed between 1900 and 1910) was woven in secret and kept hidden for several years before Navajo elders demanded that he destroy it. He sent it to Washington, D.C. instead. His first weaving of a complete sandpainting was finished in 1919. The exhibit also features Navajo pictorial weavings. Pictorial weavings developed out of a combination of Navajo, European, and other regional Native pictorial traditions. Instead of depicting the sacred spaces associated with mythology, they depict the spaces and objects of everyday life.
The Ohio Arts Council provided partial funding for this exhibit to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
Also on view is the Education Gallery, featuring selections from the Southwest Native American Collection, and the exhibit "Woven Vessels: Chauncey Elementary Fifth Grade," both of which are supported in part by the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.
The Kennedy Museum of Art is located in Lin Hall, The Ridges. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 12-5 PM; Thursday from 12-8 PM; and Saturday and Sunday from 1-5 PM. Gallery guides are available to provide information and to answer questions during the exhibit on Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. Admission and parking are free to the public.
