Sandra Hale Schulman
ICT
The latest: Top museum exhibits, myth and reality in stories, Blackfoot men in film
ART: Community and Cherokee tales in art
Two ambitious shows now open in California and Arizona.
At The Autry in Los Angeles through June 27, 2027 is Creative Continuities: Family, Pride, and Community in Native Art, explores the meanings embedded in three aspects of Native culture: Knowing, Create, and Transference. Three contemporary Plains Indian artists — John Pepion, Blackfeet, Brocade Stops Black Eagle, Crow, and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder, Dakota/Nakoda ― reflect upon their relationships with works created by their ancestors.
The three each curated a section of the exhibit, framing works of painting, beadwork, sculpture, that originated within their communities with one of the three concepts at the heart of the exhibition. Through this unique combination of cultural objects and stories, the show aims to educate visitors about the diversity of Native American culture, history, and tradition that crosses tribal boundaries; past and present.
On Jan. 23, The Heard Museum opened two new related exhibitions: Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River School and Paintings from the Heard Museum. Each showcases the artistic talent and curatorial expertise of celebrated Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick.
Organized by the New York Historical Society, the show brings WalkingStick’s bold landscapes into dialogue with iconic 19th century paintings from the Hudson River School. WalkingStick’s work both connects to and diverges from the Hudson River School tradition and explores the depth of art in shaping human relationship to the land.
Highlights of the exhibition include WalkingStick’s paintings that are directly inspired by Hudson River School artists — a landscape that references the Trail of Tears, a journey WalkingStick’s Cherokee ancestors were forced to take, and examples of her early painted sculptural abstractions inspired by nature. More recent paintings, such as Niagara and Aquidneck, After the Storm, overlay abstract Indigenous patterns onto representational landscapes to imprint an Indigenous presence in depictions of North America as a pristine and unpopulated wilderness.
In 2002, the Heard Museum debuted So Fine! Masterworks of Fine Art from the Heard Museum, guest curated by WalkingStick. More than two decades later, she returns to select rarely exhibited large-scale paintings for a new look at the collection’s strength and will feature more than 30 works by Native American artists spanning multiple generations, offering a dynamic view of Native painting through the decades.
“Kay Walking Stick has contributed in transformative ways to our collection and archive, and these two exhibitions allow us to share with our visitors the dynamic relationship we have with her as an artist, scholar, interpreter, mentor, and friend,” said David M. Roche, Heard Museum Dickey Family Director and CEO.
“Kay’s willingness to work with our curator, Roshii K. Montano, on the installation of Paintings from the Heard Museum ensures a rare opportunity for the transference of knowledge from one generation of Indigenous leadership to the next.”
BOOKS: Salish and Cherokee stories move from ancient to futuristic
Coast Salish storyteller and multimedia artist Andrea Grant recently released MODERN NATIVES: An Illustrated Collection of Reimagined Coast Salish Myths, a community-rooted work that brings Coast Salish ancestral stories into contemporary Indigenous life.
Created with the knowledge and approval of Grant’s elders and grounded in Coast Salish protocol and responsibility to story, the project began following a visit to Penelakut Island, where Grant’s tribe is from. There she was gifted access to archival materials and ancestral knowledge, which became the foundation and inspiration for the book.
Blending short fiction, poetry, and illustration, Modern Natives sees a world where the spirits never left: tricksters walk city streets, wolves appear under streetlights, and ancestral beings move through urban spaces. Grant, the recipient of First Nations Storyteller Grants, writes from lived experience, bridging territory, diaspora, ceremony and city life. Illustrations by acclaimed Coast Salish artist Qwalsius–Shaun Peterson and Bowera Studio, place the book as a collaboration rooted in Indigenous community.
Woman of Many Names is a deep look into a woman who helped shape the history of the Nation. Nancy Ward had ties to Daniel Boone and George Washington, including having saved Washington’s life (and, it’s believed, vice versa). A letter written by Ward to Washington was found in Thomas Jefferson’s artifacts.
A role model akin to Joan of Arc, for young girls, Ward is also known as Nanyehi, she foretold one of the great American tragedies, the Trail of Tears. Her life story is rich with anecdotes.
Debra Yates hails from Ohio but now lives in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Being of Cherokee descent and having had stories passed down from generation to generation, Debra found herself drawn to family history, traveling to destinations along the East Coast and in the Midwest to write the stories of her seventh-great grandmother’s historic life.
FILM: Big Sky Country screens a film fest
In-person screenings at Big Sky 2026 in Missoula, Montana will take place February 13-22 at The Wilma, the Missoula Children’s Theater (MCT), The Roxy and the ZACC Showroom. The Big Sky Film Institute has announced the official selections of the 2026 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Entering its 23rd season, the festival is an expansive exhibition of nearly 140 nonfiction films in venues across downtown Missoula, Montana with screenings in the festival’s virtual cinema streaming February 15-25.
Big Sky’s 2026 official selections include 46 features and 69 short & mini documentary films, including 27 World Premieres, 11 North American Premieres and 10 U.S. Premieres. This year’s program is a powerful collection of storytelling from across the globe, showcasing the power of the human spirit, the beauty of the natural world, aging gracefully, Indigenous stories and the value of living life in the day-to-day.
A standout is the U.S. premiere of Blackfoot tribal member Sinakson Trevor Solway’s award-winning documentary SIKSIKAKOWAN: THE BLACKFOOT MAN on Saturday, February 21. The film had its world premiere at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto and received the 2025 imagineNATIVE audience Award, among others. Trevor Solway received the 2025 Jean-Marc Vallée Discovery Award from the Directors Guild of Canada.
Solway portrays the lives of Blackfoot men as they navigate identity, kinship and the complex expectations of manhood. Through raw moments and revealing conversations placed against the vast landscape of the Prairies, the film reimagines what it means to be a Native man in an ode to strength and vulnerability.