Mary Annette Pember
ICT
CINCINNATI, Ohio — Dan Friday has a car mechanic’s hands. They bear the scars and the almost-healed wound of a man who works with machinery.
But Friday’s battle scars come not from work on cars – which he did in his youth – but from his work as a glass artist.
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His remarkable sculptures, clearly influenced by his Lummi culture with support from famed glass artist Dale Chihuly, challenge common expectations of an art form mostly associated with European artisans.
“Glass is such a dynamic material,” Friday told ICT during a recent visit to the Cincinnati Art Museum. “It commands your attention in a way other materials don’t. It’s hot, it’s moving, it’s teamwork, such a dynamic process.”
The red-hot molten glass can also be dangerous.
“Sometimes you get so wrapped up in what you’re doing and make a mistake,” he said. “The glass is really hot, like 2300 degrees.”
Friday’s work is featured at the Cincinnati Art Museum in a special traveling exhibition, “Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass,” that also includes works from more than 30 other Indigenous artists — including his sister, Raya Friday — from Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia.
The “Clearly Indigenous” exhibit runs through April 7, 2024, at the Cincinnati museum, before moving on to Michigan, Virginia, New York, California and Washington state.
The exhibition originated at the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was curated by Letitia Chambers, former chief executive of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and by artist and museum consultant Cathy Short, Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
“The art created by Indigenous artists is not only a personal expression of each artist but also is imbued with their cultural heritage and ways of knowing,” Chambers said.
“Whether reinterpreting traditional stories and designs in the medium of glass or expressing contemporary issues affecting tribal societies, Native glass artists have created a content-laden body of work,” Chambers said. “The merging of studio glass art with the history and iconography of Indigenous peoples has created a tribal aesthetic that reflects the 21st century.”
‘What I wanted to do’
Friday sat down for an interview with ICT during the recent visit to Cincinnati, where he presented a lecture at the art museum.
He said he has been greatly influenced by the carving and weaving traditions of his Lummi ancestors, one of several tribes that make up the Coast Salish peoples whose homelands encompass the Salish Sea in Washington state and Canada.
His great-grandfather Joe (Kuwl Kuwl) Hilliare was a well-known totem-pole carver, and his aunt Fran James was a master weaver whose work resides in the National Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institution.
His earliest memories include watching his grandmother and other relatives making things with their hands.
“We grew up without TV, which I think is a big part of why our family is so creative,” he said.
Although he always considered himself an artist, he went to trade school to learn auto mechanics. By age 16, he owned his own tow truck and earned money fixing and towing cars.
“Being an artist didn’t seem practical; you need shoes and food, you know?” he said. “I was a car gypsy and kind of a low-level criminal. “
Until the day he walked into a glass workshop at age 20.
There was something about the heavy equipment associated with glass furnaces and the business of maintaining it that appealed to him, he said.
“I knew right away this is what I wanted to do,” he said.
At first, he helped build a furnace, then soon after began making commemorative glass paperweights for a studio, before expanding his work. He uses wet newspaper to form the unusual shapes.
The worst wounds, however, are not incurred by the hot glass but by the metal tools used to handle the material.
“The glass just sort of slips off your skin, but touching hot steel peels your skin away, almost like a branding iron,” he said.
He eventually began studying with well-known glass artist Chihuly, who co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington in the 1960s, making Seattle a hub for the contemporary American studio glass movement.
Chilhuly started a glass teaching program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in the 1970s, and today, according to curators of “Clearly Indigenous,” most Native artists working in glass have connections to the Pilchuck school or IAIA.
Indeed, the more than 100 works of art in the exhibition reflect each artist’s vision touching on traditional Indigenous arts, such as basketmaking, textiles and pottery. The “Clearly Indigenous” exhibit also includes works by Chihuly, who is not Native but who has drawn inspiration from Native design such as Navajo weaving designs.
A new perspective
Much of Friday’s art defies one’s notion of glass altogether. Surfaces are often matte and opaque. The shapes have a massive quality, as though carved from chunks of organic materials such as stone or wood. A series of pieces influenced by anchor stones that are included in the exhibit are especially surprising.
Anchor stones, carved from stones, he explained, were used to hold down traditional fishing nets made from cedar, willow or nettle to the bottom of the sea floor.
Friday’s glass anchor stones are like weighty artifacts from another world, the colorful surfaces feature a crackled pattern. Heavy rope made of cedar loops through the hole of the stone.
Greatly influenced by Salish tribal weavings, Friday also made a series of glass blankets modeled on designs from the now-extinct Salish woolly dog hair blankets.
Since he wasn’t trained formally as an artist, Friday was a bit unsure of himself in his first years creating glass. When he showed his work to his Aunt Fran, the weaver, she wanted to know his future plans for the art.
“I said, ‘Auntie, I’m just somebody who makes things with my hands; I don’t have a degree or anything,” he recalled.
“She told me, ‘Hey, I don’t have a degree, but my work is in the Smithsonian. You don’t need anyone’s permission to make art.”
More info
A traveling art exhibition, “Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass,” features Native glass artists from the U.S. Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The exhibition is featured at the Cincinnati Museum of Art through April 7, 2024, before moving on to other locations through January 2028.Upcoming exhibition locations and dates:
*Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan, May 3-Aug. 23, 2024
*Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, June 13-Sept. 14, 2025
*National Museum of the American Indian, New York, New York, Oct. 10, 2025, to February 13, 2026
*Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California, June 27, 2026, to Sept. 20, 2026
*Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, Washington, Oct. 16, 2027, to Jan. 9, 2028
Featured artists
In addition to Lummi artists Dan Friday and his sister, Raya Friday, the “Clearly Indigenous” exhibit also features the following glass artists:
*Larry Ahvakana, Inupiaq
*Marcus Amerman, Choctaw
*Angela Babby, Lakota
*Brian Barber, Pawnee
*Ivan Concha, Isleta Pueblo
*Priscilla Cowie, Māori
*Joe David, Nuu-chah-nulth
*Alano Edzerza, Tahltan
*Joe Fedderson, Colville
*Gunbi Ganambarr, Yolngu
*Tammy Garcia, Santa Clara Pueblo
*Lewis Tamihana Gardiner, Pounamu
*Tony Jojola, Isleta Pueblo
*Ramson Lomatewama, Hopi
*Carol Lujan, Diné
*Ira Lujan, Taos Pueblo
*Djamba Marawili, Aboriginal Australian
*Robert (Spooner) Marcus, Ohkay Owingeh
*Henry Martinez, Taos Pueblo
*Jody Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo
*Ed Archie NoiseCat, Salish/Shuswap
*Haila Old Peter, Skokomish/Chehalis
*Carl Ponca, Osage
*Marvin Oliver, Quinault/Isleta Pueblo
*Virgil Ortiz, Cochiti Pueblo
*Shaun Peterson, Puyallup
*Lillian Pitt, Wasco/Yakama
*Susan Point, Musqueam
*Harlan Reano, Santo Domingo/Kewa Pueblo
*Ryan Romero, Taos Pueblo
*Preston Singletary, Tlingit
*Raven Skyriver, Tlingit
*Rory Erler Wakemup, Bois Forte Band of Minnesota Chippewa
*Adrian Wall, Jemez Pueblo
*Update: This story has been updated to note that artist and museum consultant Cathy Short, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, also curated the exhibit in concert with Letitia Chambers, former chief executive of the Heard Museum in Phoenix.
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