Kay WalkingStick
Kay WalkingStick | |
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Born | National Endowment of the Arts; Joan Mitchell Foundation award; Women's Caucus for Art National Honor award for Achievement in the Arts Distinguished Artist Award from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art; Lee Krasner award for lifetime achievement of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation | March 2, 1935
Website | kaywalkingstick |
Kay WalkingStick (born March 2, 1935) is a Native American landscape artist and a member of the Cherokee Nation. Her later landscape paintings, executed in oil paint on wood panels often include patterns based on Southwest American Indian rugs, pottery, and other artworks.
WalkingStick's works are in the collections of many universities and museums, like the
Ms. WalkingStick is an Honorary Vice President of the National Association of Women Artists, Inc. www.thenawa.org [1]
Personal life
Kay WalkingStick was born in Syracuse, New York, on March 2, 1935,[2][3] the daughter of Simon Ralph Walkingstick and Emma McKaig Walkingstick.[4] Emma was of Scottish-Irish heritage, and Kay's father, Ralph, was a member of the Cherokee Nation, who wrote and spoke the Cherokee language.[5][6] Ralph was born in the Cherokee Nation capital of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and attended Dartmouth College.[7] Kay's parents had four other children, and as they raised their family Ralph Walkingstick worked in the oil fields as a geologist. He became an alcoholic.[8] While pregnant with Kay, her mother left Oklahoma with their other children and moved to Syracuse, New York. WalkingStick grew up in Syracuse without having experienced the cultural heritage of her Cherokee ancestors. Her siblings, who spent some of their childhood in Oklahoma, had a better understanding of their father's Cherokee traditions.[5][6] Her mother told her "Indian stories" and talked about her handsome father. The family was proud to be Native Americans. Kay liked to color and draw from a young age.[8]
WalkingStick married R. Michael Echols in 1959, and they had two children, Michael David Echols and Erica WalkingStick Echols Lowry. Michael Echols died in 1989.[9][10] She married artist Dirk Bach.[10][nb 1] They married in November 2013 and have lived in Easton, Pennsylvania.[4]
Education
WalkingStick received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1959 from Beaver College, Glenside, Pennsylvania.[nb 2] Ten years later she received the Danforth Foundation Graduate Fellowship for Women, and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She received her Master of Fine Arts in 1975.[2][5][9]
WalkingStick was at the
Career
Artist
She created
My wish has been to express our Native and non-native shared identity. I want all people to hold on to their cultures — but I also want to encourage a mutual recognition of a shared being.
Kay WalkingStick[12]
In another personal search, Walkingstick created Messages to Papa in 1974 to better understand the conflicted feelings that she had for her father. The work was a stereotypical image of a Native American dwelling, the tipi, although it was not a Cherokee structure. She used the image, as a symbol of Native Americans to people of non-native descent. In the middle of the work she hung a Cherokee language translation of the Lord's Prayer and a letter to her deceased father.[5]
After her husband died unexpectedly in 1989, she introduced waterfalls to her works, like the painting Abyss, an abstract painting with blood-red water and white foams. She said that the waterfall paintings are "a metaphor for the onrush of time and the unstoppable, ultimate destiny of our lives."[9][13]
The landscape that she made in 1991, Where Are the Generations? reflects the rugged mountains and desert of the
In 1995, she was included in art history textbook, H. W. Janson's History of Art, which is a standard of universities and colleges.[13] The diptych Gioioso Variation I (2001) of the Italian Alps, inspired by the many trips WalkingStick made to Italy between 1996 and 2003, "contains sensuous, mountain crevasses that fold and ripple to create a lush visual space; on the right side is a dancing couple, brown against a lighter brown ground, both sides under a shiny, gold sky. The physicality and sensuousness of this image is both poetic and erotic."[9]
In 2004, she painted, Wallowa Mountains Memory, Variations, a painting of the
Educator
In 1988, WalkingStick was hired by
Awards
She is the recipient of the following:
- 1983 - National Endowment of the Arts grant[3]
- 1991- Richard A. Florsheim Art Fund Award, Tampa, Florida, used to purchase diptych "Letting Go From Chaos to Calm" for the Rockwell Museum of Western Art[18]
- 1995 - Joan Mitchell Foundation award[3][19]
- 1996 - National Honor award for Achievement in the Arts, Women's Caucus for Art[3][19]
- 2003 - Distinguished Artist Award from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the first woman to win this award[12][19]
- 2011 - Lee Krasner award for lifetime achievement, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation[19]
Works
Art
Works of art
- Message to Papa, 1974[5]
- Chief Joseph series[5]
- Paper Piece #1, ink, acrylic, and tape; 16" x 20", 1975[20]
- Abyss, 1989[9]
- Where are the Generations?, acrylic, oil, wax and copper; 28" x 50", 1991[15]
- Gioioso Variation I, diptych, 2001[9]
- Wallowa Mountains Memory, Variations, painting on wood, 2004[9]
- Night Magic, 2001.[21]
- Winter Flight, 1998–1999.[22]
Exhibitions
According to author Deborah Everett, "WalkingStick became solidly established in the mainstream art world during the 1980s and 1990s. For instance, her works went on a touring exhibition in 1994 after she exhibited at the Cairo Biennial.[8] Her works have been shown in many European and American exhibitions, including both solo and group exhibitions,[19] a few of which are National Museum of the American Indian, National Gallery of Canada and Heard Museum. She was represented by New York's June Kelly Gallery,[8] who has held exhitibions of her work.[23]
In 2008, her "American Abstraction: Dialogue with the Cosmos" that honored Native American women was exhibited at the Montclair Art Museum. It contained parfleche bags with images of landscape designs, like the Wallowa Mountains, and abstract designs of the Nez Perce and other indigenous tribes. The bags were used to store and carry food and other items.[23]
WalkingStick's works were shown in the 2015–2016 exhibition "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist," at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.[24] and the Heard Museum in Phoenix. The show is the first to trace her four-decade-long career and includes many works that reflect "own hybrid cultural identity, engaging Native history along with feminism, Minimalism, and other key art historical movements. She has become particularly renowned for her majestic and sensual landscapes, which imbue natural scenery with the charge of personal and collective memory."[25]
The Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, began its 2017 special exhibition season with "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist". The exhibit ran February 2017 through May 2017.[26] "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist" was also shown in 2018 at the Montclair Art Museum.[27]
In 2020, the art of WalkingStick was exhibited in the exhibition Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[28]
In 2023, the exhibition Kay WalkingStick/Hudson River School opened at the New-York Historical Society. At this time, this was the artist's largest museum exhibition in New York City.[29]
Collections
WalkingStick's works are in the collections of:
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, an art museum in Buffalo, New York[30]
- Bailey-Howe Library, University of Vermont[30]
- Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum (formerly the Kresge Museum of Art), East Lansing, Michigan[30]
- Cherokee Heritage Center, Park Hill, Oklahoma[30][31]
- Cherokee Nation Foundation, Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation[19]
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
- Davidson College, North Carolina[30]
- Denver Art Museum, Colorado[19]
- Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan[19]
- Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis[30]
- Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma[31]
- Heard Museum, Phoenix[30]
- Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell, Ithaca[30]
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem[9][30]
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York[30]
- Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey[19]
- Muscarelle Museum of Art, Virginia
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa[9][30]
- Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.[9]
- Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York[19]
- Newark Museum, New Jersey[30]
- New Jersey State Museum
- Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts[32]
- San Diego Museum of Art[31][33]
- Southern Plains Indian Museum, Anadarko, Oklahoma[31]
- Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas[34]
- Steinman Hall and Shepard Hall, City University of New York[30]
Publications
- Kay WalkingStick Alfred Bierstadt. "Primal Visions: Albert Bierstadt 'Discovers' America," catalog essay, A Cherokee Artist Looks at the Landing of Columbus. Montclair Museum, New Jersey, 2001.
- Kay WalkingStick. "Democracy, Inc: Kay WalkingStick on Indian Law." Artforum 30, November 1991, pp. 20–21.
- Kay WalkingStick, "Native American Art in the Postmodern Era." Art Journal 51, Fall 1992, pp. 15–17.
- Kay WalkingStick, "So Fine! Masterworks of Fine Art from the Heard Museum," curator's essay, Great American Artists, Heard Museum, Phoenix, 2002.
- W. Jackson Rushing III and Kristin Makholm, foreword by Kay WalkingStick "Modern Spirit, The Art of George Morrison". University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 2013.
- Kay WalkingStick, "Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 3", essay "No Reservations," Museum of Art and Design 2012.
Notes
- ^ Dirk Bach received his bachelor's degree and master's degree in painting at the University of Denver and his master's at the University of Michigan in Far Eastern art history. He taught Contemporary art and Asian art at the Rhode Island School of Design until 1992. His works are exhibited in museums and galleries, including the Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland, Maine and the Nicole Fiacco Gallery in Hudson, New York.[4]
- ^ She received a scholarship to attend Beaver College, which she credits for giving her the education to "feel like the artist I knew I was" and led her to become an educator.[10]
References
- ^ http://www.thenawa.orgnawa-team-now-and-then/
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30374-6. p. 108.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-136-59901-9.
- ^ a b c d "Kay WalkingStick and Dirk Bach". The New York Times. 1 December 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4381-0788-2. p. 260.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30374-6. p. 114.
- ^ "The Indian History of an American Institution/Native Americans at Dartmouth" by Colin G. Calloway. Dartmouth College Press Hanover, N.H. 2010 pgs. 134, 141-43, 161.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-33762-8.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Gail Trenblay. Kay WalkingStick. Institute of American Indian Arts. Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
- ^ a b c Kay WalkingStick. Arcadia University. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
- ^ "An Afternoon with Kay WalkingStick '59, '11H at the National Museum of the American Indian". Arcadia University. April 5, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2018.
- ^ a b "Meet World-Class Alumna, Kay WalkingStick '59". Arcadia University. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4381-0788-2. p. 261.
- ^ Lesk, Sara Mark, ed. Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: Artrain USA, 2004. ASIN B001VAG28W
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30374-6. p. 115.
- ^ From an interview with Kay WalkingStick, January 2015
- ^ "Kay WalkingStick". Cornell AAP. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ^ "Grant adds Native American art to Rockwell's collection". Star-Gazette. 2001-01-05. p. 13. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Exhibition of New Paintings by New York City Artist Kay WalkingStick at the June Kelly Gallery". artdaily.org. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- )
- ^ "Spencer Museum of Art - Collection - Night Magic". collection.SpencerArt.KU.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
- ^ "Spencer Museum of Art - Collection - Winter Flight". collection.SpencerArt.KU.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
- ^ a b "Kay Walkingstick's stairway art at MAM". The Montclair Times. 2008-09-11. pp. D16. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ^ "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist - National Museum of the American Indian". www.NMAI.SI.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
- ^ "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist". Arizona Republic. 2016-12-21. pp. A23. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ^ "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist - Dayton Art Institute". www.DaytonArtInstitute.org. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
- ^ "Montclair Art Museum: Art in Bloom". The Montclair Times. 2018-05-10. pp. B5. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ISBN 978-0295745794.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30374-6. p. 111.
- ^ a b c d "Kay WalkingStick". Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection. The National Museum of the American Indian. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
- ^ "Peabody Essex Museum - Explore Art". Explore-Art.PEM.org. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
- ISBN 0-8061-9936-9.
- ^ "Spencer Museum of Art - Collection - WalkingStick, Kay Kay WalkingStick". collection.SpencerArt.KU.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
Further reading
- 20th Century Native American Art: Essays on History and Criticism, ed., J.W. Jackson Rushing (1998)
- Lawrence Fraser Abbott. "Kay WalkingStick." In I Stand in the Center of the Good: Interviews with Contemporary North American Artists. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. pp. 269–283.
- Margaret Archuletta. "Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee)." In Path Breakers. Indianapolis, Indiana: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and West, 2004. pp. 13–30.
- Richard A. Bivens, '"Kay WalkingStick." Contemporary Native American Art. Oklahoma: Metro, 1983.
- Nancy Cane; Alice Dillon; Sheila Stone. 3 artists, 3 stories: Nancy Cohen, Kay WalkingStick, Bisa Washington. New Jersey Center for Visual Arts; 1999.
- Holland Cotter, Thomas W. Leavitt, Judy Collischan. Kay WalkingStick: paintings, 1974-1990. Long Island University; 1 April 1991.
- H. W. Janson. (1995) History of Art. New York: Prentice-Hall & Abrams.
- Thalia Gouma-Peterson and Kathleen McManus. Zurko. "Kay WalkingStick" in We, the Human Beings: 27 Contemporary Native American Artists. Wooster, OH: College of Wooster Art Museum, 1992. 39.
- Jeff Chang, "Who We Be, The Colorization of America". AFTER THE EITHER AND THE OR, pg. 139–141. St. Martin's Press, New York, NY. 2014.
- Stanley I. Grand, and Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. Kay WalkingStick: mythic dances, paintings from four decades. Southeast Missouri Regional Museum; 2004.