The Jurors
Invited Jurors
Invited jurors (left to right) Rachel Sahmie, Polly Folwell, and Terry DeWald. Paddy Schwartz (right), Friends of the ASM Collections event chair, looks on.Terry DeWald is a respected authority on southwest Native arts. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from The University of Arizona, specializing in anthropology and the history of the West. He is an active dealer in both contemporary and historic Native American art since 1973, purchasing basketry and textiles from over 75 Native Americans monthly, and wholesaling these items nationwide to museum shops, national park outlets, retail stores, and galleries.
DeWald is author of The Papago Indians and Their Basketry, 1979, and has authored several articles in Arizona Highways magazine. He is a noted appraiser, having worked for the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, OK, the Heard Museum's Appraisal Day, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Los Angeles, CA, Arizona State Museum, and Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, AZ. Terry has served as a judge at Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair, and O’odham Tash.
Terry DeWaldPhoto by Jannelle Weakly
In addition he has advised major auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie's, Bonhams & Butterfields, Heritage, and Cowan’s. DeWald is a member of the editorial advisory board of American Indian Basketry magazine.
For over three decades he has given lectures and presentations for Smithsonian groups, archaeological seminars, major art auctions, exhibitions, and resorts, such as Western National Parks Association, The Fred Harvey Company, Tucson Museum of Art, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Kitt Peak National Observatory, the Heard Museum, and Arizona State Museum.
Terry DeWald is a current instructor and field guide for “The Learning Curve,” adult education classes for the arts, humanities, music, literature, and history in Tucson. DeWald is a full international member of ATADA (Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association).
Polly Folwell
Polly Rose Folwell of Santa Clara Pueblo is a sixth generation potter. Her grandmother is Rose Naranjo, her mother Jody Folwell, and her sister Susan Folwell, all potters of excellence. Polly Rose won the 2003 Best of Pottery Award at the Heard Museum Fair for a sgrafitto pot portraying the split second before the planes crashed into the World Trade Center. She innovates by employing novel decoration yet remaining within family tradition. “I think Mother Earth works through each of us—through my grandmother, mother, my sister and me, and now through my daughter.”
Rachel Sahmie is a Hopi-Tewa artist who expresses her art in pottery, painting and fiber arts. Rachel began making pottery at her family home in Polacca located below First Mesa in northern Arizona. Taught by her mother, Priscilla Namingha Nampeyo, Rachel loved working alongside her mother, learning traditional designs and pottery techniques. These were passed on through her Corn Clan for generations and revived by her great-grandmother, Nampayo of Hano. The family stories have become part of her feelings expressed in her clay work. She learned many of them as she enjoyed her mother’s company and traditional work ethic.
Rachel SahmieFor years Rachel displayed her work only at her home. During this time Rachel participated in workshops teaching traditional pottery for the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, hosting demonstrations of pottery firing at her home and teaching summer workshops for students at community schools. In 1999 she and her daughter, Carla, attended a Harvard University seminar where she enjoyed the opportunity to meet other Pueblo potters and potters from other countries.
Since her mother’s passing, Rachel has ventured into the professional artist’s markets, displaying at the Heard Museum Indian Market in Arizona, the SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, and the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.
She was appointed to the board of the Arizona Living Treasures where her interest in the history of her peoples continues. She has reviewed major collections of pottery throughout southwestern museums and recently reviewed the Peabody collection of historic Hopi pottery in Boston.
Rachel’s work is part of museum collections and galleries throughout the United States.
Youth Award Juror
Dawn CromwellDawn Cromwell was the founding program coordinator of the Southwest Indian Art Fair.
The program as we know it today is largely due to her initial vision. In addition to her twenty-four years of experience developing multicultural education programs in the public programs division of Arizona State Museum, Dawn holds two degrees in fine art from The University of Arizona and has a broad background in the studio arts. She has been a leader and mentor for local, state and regional education programs as well. She has served as a past juror for the Youth Awards category at SWIAF and is a patron of all the arts including music, creative writing, studio arts, theatre , architecture and interior design.
Dawn has had a long commitment to youth arts and embraces the philosophy, “If we believe the creative process is an essential component for living, then we must nurture this in our youth today.”
Acquisition Award Jurors
A representative of Tohono O'odham Community Action (center) accepts the Friends of the ASM Collections Acquisition Award from Diane Dittemore. Don Morehart is at left.
Photo by Jannelle Weakly
Patrick Lyons, Head of Collections and Acting Associate Director at ASM, combines a knowledge of the needs of the ASM collections with expertise in many crafts to help select this year's purchase awards.
Patrick LyonsDiane Dittemore, Ethnological Collections Curator at ASM, has extensive knowledge of ASM's broad contemporary and historic collections.
Pat Messier, Don Morehart, and Linda Van Straaten, who constitute this year's Friends of the ASM Collections Acquisition Award Committee, are avid students as well as collectors of Southwest Indian art.
Photos by Lana Tupponce, except as noted