A blue ribbon hangs on an elk-tooth dress that won an award during the 2023 market.

Classification I   Jewelry and Lapidary Work

Jared Chavez (San Felipe Pueblo)
Nationally Recognized Jewelry Artist

Jared Chavez learned metalsmithing from his father, world-class jeweler Richard Chavez. Together they run Chavez Studio. Every piece created in Chavez Studio is made by either Jared or his father, and the standards for quality are set exceedingly high. Although Jared works independently and has developed a highly exclusive style, the two artists look to each other for opinions and suggestions. It is not surprising that much of Jared’s inspiration comes from the bold lines, colors and patterns printmaking can create. He has a degree from Georgetown University in studio arts with a focus on digital art and printmaking. In addition to jewelry and printmaking, he has also worked in woodblock, etching and embossing techniques.

Henrietta Lidchi    
Executive Director, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, NM

Dr. Lidchi has held a series of curatorial and leadership roles across national institutions in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, devising more than 20 permanent and temporary exhibitions and most recently a member of international working groups as regards restitution. Her most recent exhibition, First Americans at the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden (2020-2023), was co-curated with Joe Horse Capture (A’aninin).

She is a long-standing member of Native American Arts Studies Association (NAASA), serving on its board and as its vice president from 2016 to 2020. Her numerous publications include Surviving Desires: Making and Selling Native Jewelry in the American Southwest (British Museum; University of Oklahoma Press, 2015), Imaging the Arctic (British Museum Press/Washington Press, 1998) and Visual Currencies (National Museums Scotland Press, 2009).

Susan Esco Chandler  
Trustee, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ

Susan Esco Chandler, B.A., MDiv., is an Episcopal priest, who was a canonical resident in the Diocese of Massachusetts. After retiring from there as a rector in 2012, she has been engaged with a wide variety of philanthropic endeavors ranging from museums, opera companies, foster care, and advisory boards for other non-profits with work including strategic planning and capital campaigns. She has been collecting Native American jewelry, both historic and contemporary, created by both emerging artists and masters, for more than two decades. In addition to being a trustee for the Heard Museum, she is on the board of directors for the Santa Fe Opera, the Arizona Opera and the W.A. Franke Honors College at the University of Arizona.

Classification II  Pottery

Joseph Aguilar (San Ildefonso Pueblo)
Archaeologist, Bering Straits Native Corporation; Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM

Joseph Aguilar is a contributing author to the catalog that accompanies the exhibition Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery (2022), organized by the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include: the Pueblo Revolt, Borderlands studies, NAGPRA, post-colonialism and historic preservation.

Victoria Sunnergren    
Associate Curator, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT

Victoria Sunnergren is the associate curator of Native American art at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. She holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Delaware. Her dissertation was titled Clay Kin: A Transhistorical Study of Pueblo Pottery, which looked at the role of gender, material agency and time in historic and contemporary pueblo pottery. Her broader research interests focus on Indigenous art of North America, material culture studies and digital humanities. She most recently curated Built from the Earth: Pueblo Pottery from the Anthony and Teressa Perry Collection at the Shelburne Museum, which was on view in 2023. Her current projects include a collection catalog and planning inaugural exhibitions for the Perry Center of Native American Art.

Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo)    
Consultant

Brian Vallo is a member of the Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico where he recently completed three terms as governor of his tribe. He has dedicated more than 30 years of his career working in historic preservation, sacred sites protection, repatriation of ancestors, language revitalization, cultural tourism and the arts. An independent consultant, Vallo works with museums across the country and internationally to advance collaborative work with source communities, promote responsible and culturally relevant stewardship of Native American collections, and ensure accountability and adherence to federal laws designed to protect cultural heritage items. He also serves on several boards including the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Native Lands Institute and Conservation Lands Foundation and is a Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Artist Heather Johnston poses with her award-winning piece from 2023. Awards are given out by a distinguished group of judges.

Classification III  Two-Dimensional Art

Miki Garcia    
Director, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ

Miki Garcia was appointed director of the Arizona State University Art Museum in 2017. Previously, she was the executive director and has also worked at the Public Art Fund, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California; Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin; and the San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas. She sits on the board for the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Vassar College Frances Lehman Loeb Museum Leadership Council and the Exhibition Committee for American Federation for the Arts. In 2022, she was named one of the 48 most intriguing women of Arizona and is part of ASU’s Women in Philanthropy. Originally from Brownsville, Texas, Garcia holds a B.A. from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Mural by Thomas “Breeze” Marcus

Thomas “Breeze” Marcus (Tohono O’odham)
Painter, Mural painter

Thomas “Breeze” Marcus has been spray painting large-scale murals throughout the city of Phoenix for nearly three decades. He is also a studio painter and has done work for various museum collections and exhibits throughout the country. His art is directly inspired by graffiti, public art, contemporary Native issues and his Akimel and Tohono O’odham heritage. This is exemplified by the recently created outdoor wall mural entitled Legacy for the Śedav Váaki Museum (formerly the Pueblo Grande Museum, renamed in 2023). Another smaller work on canvas is currently displayed at the Heard Museum in the exhibit Substance of Stars. The 2022 exhibit at the Pueblo Grande Museum, When Rez Dogs Howl, featured a new body of work by Breeze. It explored the duality of juxtaposing contemporary O’odham with traditional narratives.

Julie Sasse 
Chief Curator, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ

Dr. Julie Sasse is chief curator at the Tucson Museum of Art where she has served since 2000. She has organized more than 100 group and solo exhibitions and has written more than 45 publications about diverse subjects and artists, including hybridity, the environment, Indigenous art, LatinX art, contemporary art of the Southwest and women artists. Sasse has organized more than 40 solo and group exhibitions of Indigenous art. In 2004, she organized a solo exhibition for Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. In 2022, she organized a solo exhibition for Brad Kahlhamer, considered one of the top 11 influential Indigenous artists in the online magazine Artsy. Sasse received a Clark Art Institute fellowship (2008); a Latino Museum Studies Fellowship in Washington, D.C. (2007); a Louise Foucar Marshall Foundation Graduate Fellowship (2013); and fellowships in 2016 and 2017 at the Women’s International Study Center in Santa Fe. In 2020, she released Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwitch, published by Cattle Track Press and TMA. Currently, she is authoring the centennial book for the Tucson Museum of Art.

Classifications IV and V Pueblo Carvings (IV) and Sculpture (V)

John C. Hill
Owner, John C. Hill Antique Indian Art Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

For 45 years, John C. Hill has been a dealer in fine antique Hopi and Zuni katsinam, Navajo weavings, early jewelry, baskets, paintings and pottery from the Southwest. His Antique Indian Art Gallery has been open for 28 years in Old Town Scottsdale. As a member for 40 years, Hill is always happy to support the Heard Museum.

Doug Hyde (Nez Perce/Assiniboine/Chippewa)
Award-winning sculpture artist of national and international acclaim

Doug Hyde is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) where he trained with sculptor Allan Houser. He has been named both “Master of the Southwest” by the Phoenix Home & Garden magazine and a fellow of the National Sculpture Society. Two of his sculptures are at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. His bronze Tribute to Code Talkers is a Phoenix landmark. There are several of his works in the Heard Museum collection, including Intertribal Greeting, which depicts five women in their distinctive tribal dress.

Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (Hopi Pueblo)
Director, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office

Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa is Honanwungwa/Poovolwungwa (Badger/Butterfly Clan) from the Hopi Village of Hotevilla on Third Mesa in Northern Arizona. He currently serves as director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. As an ethnohistorian advocate for public education, he is actively involved in capturing oral histories, conducting ethnographic research and collaborating with many different organizations and agencies.Koyiyumptewa is co-author of the book The Hopi People: Images of America, as well as an editor and contributor of a two-volume publication titled Becoming Hopi: A History, Vol. 1 Moquis, Spaniards, and the Truma of History 1540-1676 and Vol. 2 Moquis, Kastiilam 1680-1781. Aside from his work, Koyiyumptewa is actively involved in the Hopi culture as a husband, father and dry farmer.

Classification VI  Weavings and Textiles

Laura J. Allen
Curator of Native American Art, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ

Allen is an interdisciplinary curator, scholar and writer with specialization in Indigenous and intercultural dress, fashion and textile history in the Americas, particularly from the Northwest Coast. She holds an M.A. in decorative arts, design history and material culture from Bard Graduate Center and served as the curatorial associate for the Northwest Coast Hall renovation at the American Museum of Natural History from 2017 to 2018. After joining the Montclair Art Museum in 2021, she worked closely with the Heard Museum staff to mount the textile exhibition Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles for its last tour venue. As curator, she has organized and co-organized numerous exhibitions, gallery activations and rotations, performing arts presentations, workshops and public programs at Montclair Art Museum.

Clarenda Ann Begay (Diné) 
Retired Curator of the Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock, AZ

Clarenda Begay is a former National Park Service Museum Aide, Technician and Curator (1982-1991) and the former curator of the Navajo Nation Museum (1991-2018). Through this profession, she coordinated the Navajo Nation Fair Arts Competition in Window Rock, Arizona. She has experience judging at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial and for the Natural History Museum of Utah. Begay continues to advocate buying directly from Native American artisans and small businesses. She continues to do consulting work and has a tourism business, Hummingbird Tours. Begay’s passions and hobbies include being a seamstress, designing Native contemporary clothing and goods through her Annbah Creations brand.

Carol Ann Mackay 
Collector and Heard Life Trustee

Carol Ann Mackay taught at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center for more than 30 years and served for 14 years on the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is a noted scholar of Navajo textiles and has amassed an important collection featured in two Heard Museum exhibitions: Brilliant: An Exhibition of Navajo “Eye Dazzler” Blankets and Rugs, and Picture This! Navajo Pictorial Textiles. More recently she was co-curator of two Heard exhibitions: Beauty Speaks for Us and Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles, which featured many weavings from her collection. Now she also has lent weavings to the Heard Museum’s permanent exhibition, Substance of Stars.

Classification VII  Diverse Arts

Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa)
Curator of Indigenous Art, Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR Beadwork Artist

Jordan Poorman Cocker is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe and Tongan. As the new full-time curator of Indigenous art at the Crystal Bridges Museum, she plays a key role in strengthening relationships with Indigenous artists, expanding the collection of Indigenous art, providing opportunities for reciprocity through collaboration and helping shape the vision for the museum’s expansion. Prior to her current appointment, Cocker held curatorial positions at various institutions, including the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She serves as the 2021-2025 Terra Foundation Guest Co-Curator of Indigenous Art at the Block Museum of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

Alexander Brier Marr    
Assistant Curator for Native American Art, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO

Alex Marr recently organized the exhibition Southwest Weavings: 800 Years of Artistic Exchange. He is co-editor of Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection, revised edition (2016). His writing has appeared in Winterthur Portfolio, HALI and American Indian Art Magazine, and he has received grants from the Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the American Philosophical Society and the Missouri Humanities Council. Marr received his Ph.D. in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester.

Ellen N. Taubman   
Guest Curator and Private Curator

After leaving her position as vice president of American Indian, African and Oceanic Art at Sotheby’s in New York, Ellen Taubman organized and curated a landmark three-part exhibition series titled Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation for the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. The series focused on current trends in Native North American, First Nations and Inuit art, with each of the three exhibitions on view in venues throughout the United States and Canada. Her current affiliations include trustee, Brooklyn Museum, New York City; Rock Foundation, New York; Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, New York City; member of Art Advisory Committee, Hunter College, City University; exhibition committee, American Federation of Arts; and a member and supporter of numerous other arts-related organizations.

Adrian Standing-Elk Pinnecoose with his ribbon-winning piece from the 2023 market. Dozens of artists win awards across many categories.

Classification VIII Baskets — Idyllwild Arts Association Award and the Indian Arts & Crafts Award

Janet Cantley    
Interpretive Planner and Museum Consultant

Janet Cantley is a curator with more than 35 years of experience in museums working with collections and developing exhibitions. During much of her career, including 22 years at the Heard Museum, she focused on the interpretation of untold histories. She managed the renovation of the Heard Museum exhibition on American Indian boarding schools. The project includes a micro-website, publication and a traveling exhibition supported by NEH. In 2020, the exhibition received an award of excellence from the American Association for State and Local History. Currently, she is consulting as an interpretive planner for the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona, and a project at the Grand Canyon.

Terry DeWald
Owner, DeWald American Indian Art, Tucson, AZ

As owner of DeWald American Indian Art in Tucson, Arizona, Terry DeWald specializes in historic Southwest, Great Basin and California basketry, as well as contemporary Tohono O’odham and Apache basketry.

Shelby Tisdale 
Retired, Director of the Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO

Dr. Tisdale is the former director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico. She has also served as an administrator and curator in other museums focusing on Native American art. Over the past 45 years, she has curated numerous exhibitions on Native American art, culture and history and is an award-winning author publishing books and articles related to American Indian art. She contributed to and directed the Oklahoma Book Award winner Woven Worlds: Basketry from the Clark Field Collection, for the Philbrook Museum of Art (2001). Her book, Fine Indian Jewelry of the Southwest: The Millicent Rogers Museum Collection (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006) received two book awards.

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