Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
An acclaimed visual artist, two museum directors, an architect and a playwright are among the new Indigenous trustees appointed by President Joe Biden to the Institute of American Indian Arts.
The White House announced on July 14 the appointment of new members Johnpaul Jones, Choctaw and Cherokee; Madeline Fielding Sayet, Mohegan; Jane Semple Umsted, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; Rose B. Simpson, Santa Clara Pueblo; and Manuelito Wheeler, Navajo Nation.
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“We are very gratified and honored by the President’s addition of these eminent Native American professionals and artists to our distinguished board of trustees,” IAIA board Chair Loren Kieve, Cherokee Nation, said in a written statement.
“We are particularly looking forward to having one of our own, Rose B. Simpson, join her fellow IAIA alumna, Beverly Wright Morris (Aleut), on our board,” Kieve said.
The IAIA, one of the leading art institutes in the nation, is the only college in the world dedicated to the study of contemporary Native American and Alaska Native arts. Since its founding in 1962, it has served as a foundation for a number of emerging artists.
The institute now serves 500 Native and non-Native students from around the globe, and has been named one of the top art institutions by UNESCO and the International Association of Art. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
IAIA offers undergraduate degrees in cinematic arts and technology, creative writing, Indigenous liberal studies, museum studies, performing arts, and studio Arts. It offers graduate degrees in creative writing, studio arts, and cultural administration, and certificates in broadcast journalism, business and entrepreneurship, museum studies, and Native American art history.
Here are the new members.
Rose B. Simpson
Simpson, a sculptor who lives and works on her ancestral homelands of Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, attended IAIA in 2018.
In 2022, she debuted her first large-scale public work, “Counterculture,” on Field Farm in Massachusetts that was commissioned by the managers of the large nature preserve.
She is having a career-high moment with a current exhibit of her angular, figurative sculptures at the Whitney Museum in New York City. The “Counterculture” exhibit will run through Aug. 13, then will close briefly before opening again from Oct. 4 to Jan. 21, 2024.
“My lifework is a seeking out of tools to use to heal the damages I have experienced as a human being of our postmodern and postcolonial era — objectification, stereotyping, and the disempowering detachment of our creative selves through the ease of modern technology,” Simpson said in an artist’s statement issued with the exhibit.
“These tools are sculptural pieces of art that function in the psychological, emotional, social, cultural, spiritual, intellectual, and physical realms. The intention of these tools is to cure, therefore, my hope is that they become hard-working utilitarian concepts.”
Manuelito Wheeler
Wheeler, born and raised on the Navajo Nation, is currently the director of the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona. Since he became director in 2008, he has worked to see the completion of numerous exhibits that are entirely Native built from concept, curation and through to creation.
“A tribal museum can help redefine what a museum can be for its community, which is more than just a community gathering place,” Wheeler said in a lecture at the Heard Museum. “It’s a place you can go and experience a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder is important — it gives us hope that humans have a future in this universe.”
Wheeler has also created innovative projects to preserve Navajo culture, including a Navajo collaborative project with artists Ai Weiwei and Bert Benallie, dubbing the movies “Finding Nemo” and “Star Wars” into the Navajo language, and facilitating the donation of one of three copies of the Navajo Treaty of 1868 to the Navajo Nation Museum.
Johnpaul Jones
Jones has a distinguished 52-year career as an architect and founding partner of Jones & Jones, based in Seattle, whose design philosophy emerged directly from his Choctaw-Cherokee ancestors in connecting his work to the natural, animal, spirit and human worlds.
Jones’ designs have won acclaim for their reverence for the earth, for paying respect to regional Indigenous architectural traditions and to native landscapes, as well as for heightening understanding of Indigenous people.
He served 12 years as overall lead design consultant for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and in 2014 was awarded the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.
He is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Madeline Fielding Sayet
Fielding Sayet, who is based in Connecticut, is a Mohegan playwright, director and performer who believes the stories that are passed down inform collective possible futures.
In her work, she has been honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment; a TED Fellow; a National Directing Fellow from the nonprofit National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development; a Native American 40 Under 40; and a recipient of the White House Champion of Change Award from President Barack Obama.
Her plays include “Where We Belong,” “Up and Down the River,” “Antigone Or And Still She Must Rise Up,” “Daughters of Leda,” “The Neverland,” and “The Fish.” Her theater directing work has been seen at Long Wharf Theatre, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Perseverance Theatre and the Connecticut Repertory Theater, among many.
She currently serves as an assistant professor at Arizona State University and is executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program.
Jane Semple Umsted
Semple Umsted is a Choctaw artist who works in a variety of media including oils, acrylics, watercolor, sculpture, and batik. A descendent of two Choctaw chiefs, her art exudes the spirit of her Native roots and the themes and visual images of the Choctaw culture.
Semple Umsted, who owns the Indian Territory Art Gallery in Durant, Oklahoma, also serves as curator of the Semple Family Museum of Native American Art at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
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