Indian art held in 'deplorable' storage
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From Today's USA Today:
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Indian art held in 'deplorable' storage
WASHINGTON - Over the last half century, a tiny and obscure
federal agency quietly has amassed the nation's finest
collection of
contemporary American Indian arts and crafts.
The 23,000 pieces - pottery, sculpture, paintings, basketry
and dolls -
are a "national treasure," according to the agency's acting
director. The
collection is invaluable, other government officials say,
because it
includes masterpieces that represent the best of the last 50
years of
Native American culture.
But most of this collection never has been seen by the public.
What's
more, thousands of fragile artworks, some made of perishable
clay,
fabric and skin, are stored so precariously that the pieces
themselves
are imperiled.
More than 8,000 of the best works are in Washington, at the
Department of Interior, held in what one official calls
"deplorable"
condition.
Thousands of those pieces - no one knows just how many - are
housed
in a cramped area between the fifth and sixth floors of the
Interior
headquarters. They're stacked by water pipes, air ducts and
electrical
lines, according to at least five people who have seen them,
with the
pieces placed so closely together that officials say they
can't do a
proper inventory for fear of harming them.
A July 1997 report by Interior Department officials described
where
some of the art in Washington is kept: "Access to one storage
location
requires climbing over pipes. Water pipes run through the
storage area,
introducing risk of flooding and water damage."
USA TODAY was not allowed to see that storage area, which also
houses functions that run the building; it's not accessible
from any of the
elevators or stairwells open to the public.
Elsewhere in the Interior building, hundreds of valuable
pieces of the
collection are jammed in drawers.
Some of the finest works are stored openly atop file cabinets.
A
stunning clay sculpture of two figures embracing, called
Friendship, sits
without protection on a metal file cabinet. Behind it hangs a
mask made
of driftwood, paint and goose feather quills. Other masks on
the walls
easily could be bumped by people walking by.
Storage of the pieces at Interior is "deplorable," Deputy
Commissioner
of Indian Affairs Hilda Manuel said in a recent internal memo
urging
officials to find the money to fix the problem. The situation,
she wrote,
could become "a potential public embarrassment for Interior."
The agency that acquired the collection is the Indian Arts and
Crafts
Board, a tiny arm of the Interior Department that officials
say can't
afford to take care of its art.
Everyone familiar with the Arts and Crafts Board collection
agrees the
art is worth saving.
"It really is an invaluable and significant collection and so
we should be
paying attention to it," says Rayna Green, director of the
American
Indian Program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
American
History. "Instead, it seems like it's been treated like a
stepchild."
Adds Richard West, director of the museum: "The conservation
of this
material, much of which is fragile, is critical."
No high-ranking Interior Department officials, including
Secretary
Bruce Babbit, will discuss the artwork, says spokeswoman
Stephanie
Hanna. She says only that preservation of the collection will
be "a
priority in the coming months."
Purpose wasn't collecting
One of the oddest aspects of the imperiled art collection is
that it
probably shouldn't exist at all.
When Congress created the Indian Arts and Crafts Board in
1935, its
primary mission was to promote the sale of Indian Art, not to
collect it.
But, using taxpayer dollars, the best examples of contemporary
art
were purchased from all over the country for use in marketing
campaigns.
Over the decades, the collection grew and grew.
"The hidden treasures they have there in Washington aren't
helping the
people," says Andy Abeita, a sculptor from Iselto Peublo,
N.M., who
is past president of a trade group of Indian artists and
dealers.
"Somewhere, they lost their direction and became a museum
agency."
But even critics say the agency isn't alone in blame. They
note the
$967,000-a-year Indian Arts and Crafts Board largely has been
forgotten, poorly funded by Congress and badly managed by
Interior.
The program's biggest fan on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Kyl,
R-Ariz., says
what's happened to the arts agency is a "good example of us
falling
down on our responsibilities. . . . This program is well worth
the small
investment. There's a lot of history to be preserved here."
The agency, says Martin Sullivan, director of the Heard Museum
in
Phoenix, the nation's most prestigious private Indian arts
center, "has
limped along without any funding or visibility for years.
"They have a wonderful collection, and I think a little
criticism is a price
well worth paying if it means the government will be forced to
give
proper care to the collection."
The chairman of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Montana
artist
George Burdeau, says the agency is lucky to still exist. Two
years ago,
House Republicans deleted the program from the federal budget.
Senate Republicans put it back in, but the move has made arts
agency
officials fearful.
"We've got real serious problems . . . but for a long time we
were just
maintaining the status quo," Burdeau says. The five-member
arts board
- volunteers appointed by the Interior secretary - loosely
monitor the
agency's 13 employees. The board hasn't met in over a year.
"I know the staff is doing the best it can," Burdeau says.
"We're in a
vulnerable position. . . . Our focus has been on survival."
Turf war at play?
Some officials say that if money can't be found to improve the
collection's storage facilities, the artwork ought to be
transferred to the
Smithsonian's new National Museum of the American Indian,
scheduled
to open in 2001. The Smithsonian's best Indian works were
crafted
before 1930, so the agency's more contemporary pieces fill the
gap.
"It might be wiser for this to become part of the
Smithsonian," says
Senate Indian Affairs Committee chairman Ben Nighthorse
Campbell,
R-Colo.
But so far, Interior officials seem to want to keep the
artwork - a
situation some chalk up to turf wars.
"I think they viewed the potential divestment of the
collection more as a
threat to the 'Department' losing something of value and
failed to view
the collections as a national resource," Manuel wrote in her
memo.
Department officials disagree. In last summer's report, they
described
the pieces as one of "the largest and best collections of
contemporary
Indian arts and crafts that exist" and noted Interior's
"unique
responsibilities" to the Indian community.
Their recommendation: spend $200,000 to improve access and
storage
of the art. Interior spokeswoman Hanna says that
recommendation is
preliminary.
Leo Calac, the board's vice chairman, says the collection
should not be
allowed to languish and that the Smithsonian might be a better
place.
"Having our work stored in dark places is no good," says
Calac. "It's
part of Native American history and culture and will never be
made
again. Most of these artists have died. If we don't take care
of it, it will
be a loss of a great heritage of our culture."
Artists saw sales jump
Lloyd Kiva New, a famed Cherokee artist and former board
chair,
says that when Congress created the Indian Arts and Crafts
Board in
1935, it wasn't to collect art.
"It was never a major authority of what we were supposed to
do, we
just did it," New says. "I'm glad we did it because no other
agency did."
The main purpose of the board was to improve the economic
status of
Native Americans by promoting their art.
In its early years, the crafts board sent employees to
reservations to
encourage artists to market their works and created a small
experimental art laboratory in Tesuque, N.M. To promote the
art, the
board sponsored exhibits at world fairs in Paris and San
Francisco, and
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
When those exhibits ended, the board retained some of the
artwork to
promote future sales and exhibits of Indian arts and crafts,
establishing a
trend it would follow for decades.
In the early 1950s and mid-1960s, the crafts board acquired
three
Bureau of Indian Affairs museums in Montana, Oklahoma and
South
Dakota, dramatically increasing its collection. The museums
were
supposed to be held in trust for local tribes until they
established the
wherewithal to run them themselves. That's never happened.
The crafts board still runs the museums, with varying success:
The Southern Plains Museum in Anadarko, Okla., averages 41,000
visitors each year and its 3,600-piece collection includes
especially fine
nickel silver art.
The Museum of the Plains Indians in Browning, Mont., averages
81,000 visitors a year. It's in poor repair. Space is limited,
water seeps
into the basement and most of the facility's 7,100 works sit
in storage.
The third facility, the Sioux Museum in Rapid City, S.D.,
holds 4,800
objects. Last May, it moved into a new cultural center jointly
operated
with local officials.
In the late 1960s and throughout the 1980s, employees from the
crafts
board searched the nation for aspiring Indian artisans. Often,
when they
found a particularly promising artist, they commissioned a
work for the
government collection.
"For many artists, it was like a dream come true," says
Meridith
Stanton, now the craft board's acting director.
Marleita Wallace, a Tlingit-Tsimshian dollmaker from Alaska,
is one of
hundreds of artists board employees discovered during those
visits.
Wallace says business soared after Stanton visited her in 1987
and
bought two $100 dolls. Wallace then was placed on the agency's
list of
approved artists, mailed annually to 40,000 artists,
collectors and
dealers.
"You have no idea how much it means to have that government
stamp
of approval on your work," Wallace says. "I think those people
in
Washington are pretty wonderful."
Not all artists pleased
But other Indian artists and dealers are less pleased with the
craft
board's activities. Some say the agency no longer has the
money or the
expertise to operate effectively.
While Indian art and crafts generates $700 million to $1
billion in sales
annually, the agency's budget, when adjusted for inflation,
now is 46%
lower than it was 30 years ago.
In addition to its marketing responsibilities, the board is
supposed to
administer a 1990 law designed to stop the flood of fake
Indian art -
"Navajo" rugs from Mexico, "Hopi" kachina dolls from China,
"Zuni"
bracelets from the Philippines.
The law never has been used to make a criminal case, and
counterfeiting has grown. In New Mexico, the hub of Native
American
art, officials say at least 20% of the work for sale is bogus.
"The federal government hasn't done much to protect our
market, and I
don't expect them to," says Navajo Nation President Albert
Hale. "If
they're sitting there in Washington collecting art, no wonder
we're
having these problems."
But the 1990 law only added to the crafts board's troubles.
"It's a small, backwater agency that's been given an ambitious
mandate
and then has been inadequately funded," says Susan McGuire,
executive director of the Indian Arts and Crafts Association,
a national
trade group based in Albuquerque. "If you call and ask them
for help,
they can send you a brochure."
Burdeau, the board chair, says the criticisms are fair. The
collection
needs to be properly stored. The fraud problem is serious. The
marketing effort could be better. It's a question of money, he
says.
Interior submitted its fiscal 1999 budget request to Congress
earlier this
month. The new line item for the art agency cuts its total
funding from
$967,000 to $932,000 a year.
"We've reached a point of critical mass in terms of
performance,"
Burdeau says. "When you reach a crisis like this, it wakes a
lot of
people up, and I think, this crisis (will be) beneficial,
ultimately, to
Native American art."
By John Shiffman, Special for USA TODAY