Connections in style reflect artists' award-winning creations

PHOENIX - Surrounded by the captivating work of hundreds of award-winning artists, Navajo traditional fashion designer Mae Mallahan Tompson and Navajo silversmith Caroline Tracey attracted a crowd at the 48th Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market.

Tompson and Tracey, two friends from Crystal, N.M., offered Tompson's traditional velveteen blouses and skirts accented by Tracey's silverwork, including her squash blossom ''Naja'' necklace.

This was Tracey's first show, whereas Tompson has been creating traditional clothes at home in the mountains of the Navajo Nation for a decade since obtaining her bachelor's degree in fine arts in Hawaii. These women are from the Chuska Mountains, where traditions are alive in the high Ponderosa pine country of wildlife and solitude.

Tompson showed her Navajo wedding basket series, with basket designs incorporated into the detail and trim of blouses and men's vests. Her striking velveteen dresses speak of a time of peace, reflecting century-old style. Tracey's silver jewelry includes inspirations from petroglyphs and crafted with traditional care.

''My favorite is old style; that's what I am connected to,'' Tracey said.

Center stage on the grassy lawn, Hoop dancer Lisa Odjig attracted a crowd as she performed with 17 hoops, then joined Hoop dancers Derrick Suwaima Davis and Nakota LaRance. All three are Heard Museum World Championship Hoop Dance winners.

''The Hoop Dance is a storytelling dance. It shows our connection to Mother Earth,'' said Odjig, Odawa/Ojibwa Nation from Ontario.

Odjig shared her reasons for dancing: to restore balance and celebrate life. She said the Hoop Dance offers thanks and reflects the animals, birds and all of nature.

Odjig's regalia, created one spring, celebrates life and strength. The blue represents water, which is healing and peace.

Nearby, Hopi piki maker Elfreda Holmes, of Second Mesa, smoothed blue cornmeal piki batter onto a hot greased stone while Sally Tungovia and Sarah Koinva, both Hopi, parched dried corn in a black iron kettle over an open fire before cooling the parched corn in their woven yucca baskets.

With silver and tools in hand, Navajo silversmith Marvin Slim of Torreon, N.M., said it is still possible to make one's livelihood from Native arts.

Working on a contemporary piece, Slim said, ''It depends on the style and the stone.'' The price of silver, however, has made it harder than ever. Silver prices have nearly doubled in recent years, from $5.50 to $10.50. This increase came as gas prices have skyrocketed, making travel to art shows costly.

''Silver is a lot higher, and gas,'' said Slim, adding, ''It is still a good way to make a living.''

Melissa Cody, Navajo from Leupp and a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., said her Navajo weaving skills are making her dreams possible.

''It puts me through school,'' Cody said. She noted that while weaving takes a lot of patience, it helps to clear one's thoughts.

With Cody's grandmother, Navajo weaver Martha Shultz, seated nearby, Cody's mother, Lola Cody, demonstrated weaving techniques for the Burntwater style of Navajo tapestries.

Weaving with yarns the colors of wildflowers, Lola Cody said, ''If this was done with red, white and grey, it would be a Two Grey Hills designs.'' She referred to the distinct geometric style which attracts visitors to the Two Grey Hills Trading Post on the Navajo Nation along the border of Arizona and New Mexico.

Demonstrating striking Maricopa pottery from Arizona's southern Sonoran Desert, Dorothy Sunn-Avery, Maricopa from Gila River Indian Community, displayed the hollowed-out log where the earth from a dried-up canal is ground into powder, sifted and mixed with water for clay. Finally, the clay is kneaded and fashioned into fine pottery.

''We knead it like dough,'' said Sunn-Avery, pointing to the book before her that explains the process: ''Dirt for Making Things: An Apprenticeship in Maricopa Pottery,'' by Janet Stoeppelmann.

In the center of the mammoth Heard fair, with stacks of beargrass, yucca and devil's claw, basketmakers with Tohono O'odham Community Action wove two-inch miniature baskets and full-size baskets. Baskets were filled with traditional foods - acorns, saguaro seeds and cholla cactus buds - then packaged, ready to make traditional meals.

Nowhere was the energy for reviving an art form stronger than in the traditional basketmaking demonstrations, where reviving vanishing designs is synonymous with meaningful survival.

Internationally renowned basketmakers Terrol Dew Johnson, Lola Thomas and Annie Antone, Tohono O'odham, were joined by basketmakers from throughout Indian country, including Peggy Sanders Brennan, Cherokee; Kelly Clark, Grand Traverse Ottawa; and Sally Black, Navajo.

Stonehorse Lone Goeman, Seneca basketmaker and former world champion in muay thai boxing, told how he and Ronnie-Leigh Goeman, Onondaga, have reintroduced moose-hair embroidery and porcupine quills into delicate traditional Iroquois basketry.

With photography, textiles, paintings, stone sculptures and wood carvings, the Heard annual festival included two full days of music and dance, including the Pine Tree Apache Crown Dancers from the White Mountain Apache Nation and musical storytellers Derrick Suwaima Davis and the Iron Wolf Singers and Dancers.

Akimel O'odham and Hopi dancers, led by Forrest Chimerica and Frank Poocha, shared their culture through the Going Home Song, Basket Dance and graceful Water Maiden Dance. Dine' Tah, previously featured on ''CBS This Morning'' and ''NBC Nightly News,'' was led by singer Shawn Prince and performed the Navajo Ribbon, Sash and Basket dances.

Rounding out the mix was Native American Music Award winner for Pop and Rock, Clan/destine. Xavier Quijas Yxayotl, joined by Aztec dancers, and America Indigena played pre-Columbian music on ancient ethnic instruments: clay flutes and whistles, harmonized by a turtle-shell ocean drum.

With the scent of fresh-roasted corn, acorn stew and Hopi corn stew filling the air on the warm spring days, the Heard Market featured the finest Hopi jewelry, pottery and basketry, including the pottery of Jacob Koopee.

Hopi crafts reflected the quality of the Heard Museum's current show, which is on display through May and on loan from the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

''Laloma: Beauty in Hopi Jewelry'' features Charles Loloma's innovative creations - gold-set lapis lazuli, fossilized ivory, pearls, malachite and ironwood - which influenced generations of jewelers. Links to Peggy Sanders Brennan