The Sound of Drums: A Memoir of Lloyd Kiva New

By Lloyd Kiva New

In a series of personal anecdotes, supplemented by photographs, essays, and manuscripts, The Sound of Drums is a memoir of celebrated Cherokee artist, fashion designer, and educator Lloyd Kiva New (1916–2002). An important figure in Native American art, d

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781611394665

Lloyd Kiva New

Lloyd Kiva New’s life was one of the “Greatest Generation”—he experienced first-hand the Great Depression, the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the struggles of a Native man in an assimilationist society. The Sound of Drums is the words of a man who h

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The

Sound of Drums

A Memoir of Lloyd Kiva New

imagefortitlepage.tif

Lloyd Kiva New

Edited by

Ryan S. Flahive

© 2016 by Aysen New and the Institute of American Indian Arts

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including

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For information please write: Special Markets Department, Sunstone Press,

P.O. Box 2321, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2321.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: New, Lloyd Kiva, author. | Flahive, Ryan S., 1978- editor.

Title: The sound of drums : a memoir of Lloyd Kiva New / by Lloyd Kiva New ;

edited by Ryan S. Flahive.

Description: Santa Fe : Sunstone Press, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2015042314 | ISBN 9781632931009 (softcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: New, Lloyd Kiva. | Cherokee artists--Biography. | Cherokee

educators--Biography. | Institute of American Indian Arts.

Classification: LCC N6537.N4795 A2 2016 | DDC 709.2--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042314

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Lloyd Kiva New

Cherokee Drums

The life story that follows is simply an account of one young person’s struggle to find his way through the swirling entanglements of Indian/white identity problems, the strands of which at times seemed to form a kind of restrictive cocoon requiring a lifetime of struggling behavior to get the butterfly within to emerge. He was to learn, as innocence gave way to the realities of life, that the world operated very differently from the halcyon realm of Timber Hill secured by the heroic tales by his Cherokee mother and that there was a different life out there to be experienced before he metamorphosed into the new form that would enable him to spread his wings and soar into the sunshine and fresh air of self-knowledge and happiness.

—Lloyd Kiva New

Acknowledgements

by

Aysen New

Iwish to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Valorie Johnson and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for enabling us to finish Lloyd’s story. I will be forever indebted to Hon. Wilma P. Mankiller (1945–2010), Hon. Stewart L. Udall (1920–2010), and Alfred Young Man Ph.D for their unyielding encouragement and support for this publication and their invaluable contributions. To Dr. David Warren, Della Warrior, Veronica Gonzales, editor Eileen McWilliam, project director Kyle Smith, technical assistant Anthony Coca, and gifted Cherokee artist America Meredith; thank you all from the bottom of my heart for participating in this project with pride, joy, and love for Lloyd.

Lloyd died unexpectedly on February 8, 2002. Although he expressed his thoughts and opinions on Indian arts, government policies toward Indian art education, and the events that led to the birth of IAIA, he did not include his IAIA years in his memoirs. Lloyd did not have the time to include these important years in the writing, but he also believed it would not be appropriate for him to do so. Whenever we discussed his role in the birth of IAIA he would say, it should be recorded by someone else. Those dedicated to the completion of these memoirs understood that the ‘someone else’ could only be James McGrath, IAIA’s first Assistant Arts Director and whose oral history of the first years of IAIA is included in this book. Lloyd called McGrath one of the best art teachers I’ve ever known. I am deeply grateful to James for his valuable contribution to Lloyd’s memoirs.

Many thanks to those at IAIA, in particular Archivist and Editor Ryan S. Flahive for realizing the publication of the memoirs and to IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin for his unending support of the project. I thank you for providing leadership to bring this publication to fruition. I know Lloyd would be grateful and happy to know that his story will inspire young Native Americans to be the best they can be against all odds.

Editor’s Note

by

Ryan S. Flahive

I’ve been fortunate to spent the past five years of my career actively collecting the papers and works of Lloyd New. His thoughts, writings, personal artifacts, artwork, and other materials are now safely held at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. The collections illuminate his influence on the Contemporary Native Art Movement as well as on the use and evolution of culturally based education as a means of affective change. New’s historical importance cannot be understated; I am humbled by the opportunity to complete this project. Editing a memoir is not an easy task, and I received plenty of professional assistance in the process.

Much of my work pertaining to Lloyd New should be credited to Aysen New, Lloyd’s widow and long-time champion of his legacy and this publication. I first met Aysen at lunch after an IAIA commencement in 2009. After a polite greeting, I handed her my business card and asked about archives and records that Lloyd may have left behind. A few weeks later I picked up a couple boxes of stuff: photographs, manuscripts, magazines, and miscellaneous materials that were collected by Aysen over the years since Lloyd’s death. Over the next two years I spent many hours with Aysen looking for more stuff; we excavated the garage, office, and the nooks and crannies of Lloyd’s home and the Lloyd H. New Papers grew exponentially to nearly sixty boxes of materials. The collection is the backbone of the IAIA Archives in Santa Fe.

Throughout the process, Aysen and I developed a working friendship. We enjoyed meals while discussing Lloyd’s legacy. We also discussed frustrations over how to best teach younger generations about his writings, art, and career. At some point during the conversation, we discussed the potential publication of The Sound of Drums. Over the course of many years, the manuscript had been turned away from large presses in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Arizona; Aysen spent many hours and thousands of dollars in an effort to publish the memoirs. We concluded that the publication was the best and most effective way to tell his story and solidify his legacy. In early 2015, a year prior to the anniversary of New’s 100th birthday, I asked Aysen if IAIA could publish the book. Hesitantly, she agreed; I am fortunate and blessed to be entrusted to publish the manuscript.

As the final editor of this project, I would like to thank the myriad of folks who worked on this publication long before I became involved. In particular, I would like to thank Eileen McWilliams, whom I have only met through historic correspondence. McWilliams edited and organized Lloyd’s writings in 2009 and 2010, years prior to my late contributions to the publication. I was asked to leave New’s words as they were given to me; my work on this volume was primarily to provide context to New’s words in the form of notes, photographs, and appendices. McWilliam’s work on the body of the memoirs was incredibly helpful and I am forever grateful for her effort. Dr. David Warren and James McGrath, longtime friends and colleagues of Lloyd Kiva New, were key to the early stages of the editing process, providing Aysen with support and encouragement. They are to be commended for assisting this project.

I would like to thank my colleagues at the Institute of American Indian Arts, including our president, Dr. Robert Martin. Dr. Martin provided support and a budget for the 2016 celebration of Lloyd Kiva New that included this publication, three Lloyd Kiva New exhibits at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, a symposium, and an academic course centered around his influence on the Contemporary Native Art Movement. IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts staff including Curator of Collections Tatiana Lomahaftwa-Singer, Registrar John Joe, and Graphic Designer Sallie Wesaw each played a role in the project, assisting me along the way. Thanks to Rose Marie Cutropia, IAIA alumni and part-time archivist who assisted me in the processing of the Lloyd H. New Papers and who has been a wonderful sounding board throughout this process. I appreciate IAIA student and archives intern Arielle Mills who assisted with transcription services, IAIA faculty member Steve Wall, as well as my colleagues in the IAIA Library—your support of my work is invaluable. I am truly thankful for the wonderful people I have the honor to work with at IAIA.

Several other folks are to be recognized for their assistance. Joan Fudala of the Scottsdale Historical Society and historian extraordinaire for the city of Scottsdale was quite helpful in providing period photographs of Scottsdale for the publication. Mario Klimiades of the Heard Museum, Tony Chavarria of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Daniel Kosharek of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, and Mary Ann Quinn from the Rockefeller Archive Center deserve my gratitude for providing photographs and graphics for the book. Thank you all for your help.

Finally, I would like to thank Lloyd Kiva New. His memoirs are those of a man of the Greatest Generation—a storyline understood by millions of Americans. Born on a small farm in Oklahoma, New escaped to the big city to chase his artistic dreams only to have them altered by a conscious decision to make the world a better place through art education. The drive to know his Native heritage (the Sound of Drums) led him to receive menial pay as an art teacher at the Phoenix Indian School during the pre-war years of the late 1930s. A World War II veteran, New returned from his duty on the Pacific Front with perspective; as many veterans before him, Lloyd was bothered by the death that surrounded him and continued his search for beauty in art and culture. Lloyd Kiva is an immortal name in Scottsdale, Arizona. A name mentioned in the same breath as the great architect and Arizona resident Frank Lloyd Wright, who both who helped to build Scottsdale into the cosmopolitan arts and crafts center we know it to be in present day.

His Sound of Drums led him to Santa Fe. As a well-known fashion designer, New made a very handsome living selling his goods—there were few monetary reasons for him to deviate from his professional life in Scottsdale. Despite resounding success in the fashion world, New chose to invest his time in Indian youth. Lloyd New developed a pedagogical concept that should be recognized as groundbreaking and revolutionary. In the words of New’s long-time friend and colleague, Dr. David Warren, New was Probably unaware of his thinking as far reaching or breaking new ground, Lloyd was in the company of leading authorities in American educational theory, styles of learning, and the concept of culture as a vital if not the most critical for human learning. Warren contends that New’s pedagogy in using cultural difference as a basis for creative expression is on par with the Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory, a theory taught and revered in educational curriculums worldwide. I couldn’t agree more.

Although The Sound of Drums concludes with the creation of the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1962, I can’t help but express the success of Lloyd’s life between 1962 and 2002. As a teacher and mentor, New impacted thousands of Native youth through is work at IAIA. Having retired from IAIA in 1978, New contributed to the field though dedicated service to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, the Native American Center for the Living Arts, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian to name a few.

It is my hope that this volume will extend the legacy of Lloyd Kiva New in perpetuity and that other students, scholars, and writers will come to know, understand, and teach his message to generations to come.

Foreword

by

Hon. Wilma Mankiller

The seeds for Lloyd Kiva New’s extraordinary creative gifts were planted during his early years on a farm in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. His childhood was rich with Cherokee culture and stories.

As is often the case with Cherokee women, his mother Josie taught him about culture and values by her example and through the sharing of stories that had been passed down to her from generation to generation. Even as a child, Lloyd somehow seemed to understand that many Cherokee stories represented the collective memory of the people.

The stories and dreams Josie shared with her young son fueled his imagination and provided a backdrop for his life as an artist, a designer, and a teacher. She told stories about the time when Cherokee people could communicate with animals and most every other living thing. She explained the healing power of water to cleanse and renew oneself. Her stories had such depth and meaning the line between the story and reality was often blurred. Lloyd said the stories from her pre-Christian world evoked an exotic world that was imbued with good and bad forces. But the most poignant memories of all were those in which fantasy melded with the mundane to the point that reality became indistinguishable from the fantastic.

On the farm Lloyd developed a special sense of place and appreciation for the land. One of his first art projects involved gathering clay from a farm and fashioning it into ceramic figures of farm animals and other objects. Josie, even then the greatest champion of his art, dutifully baked the figures, along with bread for the family meal.

The Sound of Drums is an important book about a visionary artist who literally transformed the landscape of Native American art in the Southwest. The late acclaimed artist Fritz Scholder said, his creative mind transcended the mundane. This quiet insight was powerful to everyone. His vision influences us all. Lloyd Kiva New not only thought outside the box, he never acknowledged there was a box that could contain one’s thoughts. As he modestly chronicles his role in the early development of art initiatives in Scottsdale, it is clear that much of the commercial and artistic success of Scottsdale can be attributed to Lloyd New’s farsighted dreams and his practical ability to make those dreams a reality.

Motivated by his belief that there was enormous untapped creativity in Tribal communities and a dearth of art courses and programs for Native students, Lloyd was instrumental in the conceptualization and development of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To provoke the imagination of his students, Lloyd often brought in instructors and speakers with new ideas. In 1974, Dale Chihuly, the preeminent glass artist, accepted Lloyd’s invitation to offer a workshop at the Institute. As the late Gary Avey once said, the real legacy of Lloyd Kiva New isn’t necessarily found in the structures of these fine institutions, but rather in the hearts and minds of the teachers, staff, and students who have flowered with him.

In addition to chronicling his professional journey as an artist and visionary, The Sound of Drums frequently reads like a novel as Lloyd provides a fascinating description of his relationships with family members. He poignantly describes leaving the farm and the presence and guidance of his mother to enter the Art Institute of Chicago. The first time he visited the Institute he said it was like seeing the tip of a sunrise. It was then that I knew that art would be my life. During his time at the Art Institute, he was so profoundly affected by his studies and also by the distance from his family he examined his Cherokee identity and his identity as an artist.

Aside from this other life experiences, the Great Depression had a lasting impact on him as did his distinguished service in the United States Navy during World War II and his brief but important foray into high fashion design. Through his fashions were worn by such luminaries as Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird Johnson, and his work featured in Life Magazine and the London Herald, his love for Indian art led him back to that work.

Those of us who were fortunate to know Lloyd were in awe of his extraordinary talents and his pragmatic vision for the future of Indian arts. He was a kind and gentle man who made a lasting difference in the lives of an incalculable number of people. It is my hope that this book will encourage young artists to lead with their spirit and heart, as he did. It is often said that the Earth will always remember people as long as we speak their name. The Earth will remember Lloyd Kiva New for a very long time.

Preface

Lloyd Kiva New: The Visionary I Knew

by

Hon. Stewart Udall

When I look at this country’s history, it is clear to me that some of its extraordinary events happened as a result of an extraordinary group or individual. Lloyd Kiva New was one such individual.

I first met Lloyd in the fall of 1962 when he came to Santa Fe to launch what would become the Institute of American Indian Arts. He had decided to leave his thriving fashion business in Scottsdale, where Eleanor Roosevelt and Frank Lloyd Wright had been among his clients, for one year to create a new school dedicated to helping young Native artists transform their lives by the extension of culture.

When I became the Secretary of Interior under John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Indian termination policy, established by Congress in 1953, had been in place for almost a decade. During the Eisenhower Administration leading Democrats and Republicans had reached a consensus that the Indian Reservation system had failed and a new approach was needed. The long-term objective of the termination policy was to terminate ownership of Indian lands by Indian tribes and relocate Native peoples to big urban areas where they could obtain jobs. The political, cultural, and economic effects of this policy on Indian life were devastating—had it been carried out in full it would have been a disaster for every tribe of American Indians.

Lloyd recognized that the termination policy was a huge mistake. He understood the importance of the relationship between people’s land and art and culture—it was at the center of his own vision of American Indian art—and could see the oncoming destruction of Indian culture in the wake of the new policy. As the Native saying goes, take my land, take my life.

I had not yet met Lloyd when I arrived at the Department of the Interior, but I had heard of him—an accomplished artist who was able to inspire other artists. Young and old, gifted Native Americans were waiting for an educator with a vision, with a message of hope, and they found one in Lloyd. He urged artists to create new works of art that expressed their own feelings about their land and their culture, to draw on their cultural traditions for inspiration and ideas but not to be bound by the past. By encouraging people to create their culture as well as to honor it, he liberated them.

As Lloyd articulated the hope and ideals of other Indian artists, giving them an effective credo for their work, others joined him in his dream of a school of Indian arts where students could express themselves freely. The Institute of American Indian Arts, which has flourished ever since it’s founding, is a living testament to the visionary genius of Lloyd Kiva New.

Introduction

by

Alfred Young Man, PhD

It has been some time since Lloyd Kiva New first appeared as a person of articulate authority and impact on my life; he remains an important personality of influence and distinction in the discipline of American Indian fine arts, and the history of the Institute of American Indian Arts’ early years.

My connection with Mr. New, as his former students still affectionately remember him, harkens back to the 60s when IAIA was established on the Santa Fe Indian School campus on Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe. Mr. New was the arts administrator and later the director of the Institute, a moment in time in this memoir that takes up a small part of his long life; but which defined him like no other and that is the part of his memoirs this introduction will be mainly be focused upon. Lloyd was in the area with pen in hand, albeit not yet on campus full time, when I arrived to start school at the new Institute of American Indian Arts—what was to become a United Nations of Indian fine art students from throughout North America. James McGrath, Mr. New’s assistant at the time, narrates an eye opening oral history towards the end of this volume that outlines the early history of IAIA. McGrath provides the reader with a history of how the school managed to survive those early years, including the recruitment of students and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and wife Lee’s great support and involvement in the school.

When I arrived in 1963 Mr. New was not yet employed full time at IAIA. However, his more permanent full time status was met with significant fanfare and great expectations since students were told that he was an Indian artist who, having already taken on the world of graphic arts, had previous experience working in the Native art world. Here was a professional who could understand the many issues and problems young Indian artists contended with on a daily basis. Here was a man who could talk the talk and walk the walk, one who could understand the predicaments many Indian art students would face in the future.

IAIA was a novel experiment in Indian education and showcased some of the most talented, gifted, and dedicated contemporary and traditional Native art, drama, and music instructors anyone could hope for. Mr. New was at the forefront of that list and on the cutting edge that important group of educators. Others included were Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache), Charles Loloma (Hopi), Otellie Loloma (Hopi), Neil Parsons (Blackfeet), Josephine Wapp (Comanche), Fritz Scholder (Luiseno), Louis Ballard (Cherokee/Quapaw), and Rosalie Daystar Jones (Blackfeet). Non-Indian instructors including James McGrath, Seymour Tubis, Ralph Pardington, and Terry Allen no doubt played a critical role in how IAIA became intellectually, historically, and politically established.

IAIA’s early history has been written and recounted mostly by those who were not there, such as Jamke Highwater, Margaret Archuleta, Rennard Strickland, and Edwin Wade, just to name a few historians, all of whom were outside its original frame of reference, external to its source. Other stories and histories are invented and flawed and are essentially based upon erroneous research that is endlessly repeated by writers and scholars. So it is for this reason that students, their teachers, the majority of Indian fine art scholars, and the public have little idea what actually emerged in those early years. There are only a few real sources of that history today, these memoirs, including the McGrath conversation at the end of Mr. New’s writings, and the reminiscences of those alumni who are still living.

So who were these first young Indian artists who came to IAIA? What were they going to be expressing, creating? How could anyone imagine such students in the 60s creating something as remarkable as Indian fine art when no such label yet existed as Art writ large? The very idea of Indian Art seemed to be a misnomer, an anachronism, a paradox, an absurdity, a conundrum, and a contradiction in terms. Even today, any such articulation is looked upon with indifference and cynicism by those who would prefer to see Indians assimilated into some great melting pot of American and Canadian history and society, political correctness, or multi-cultural idealism notwithstanding.

Lloyd New fortunately was one of those who had the vision to move boldly forward with the idea of there being something we could call Indian fine art. In the 1960s, Peggy Guggenheim made a trip to Santa Fe specifically to visit IAIA and felt moved to make the pronouncement after her tour that what she found astonished her. The energy, passion, excitement, obsession, technique, imagination, creativity, the depth of artistic knowledge and integrity, the resolute dedication to the Indian fine art movement, rivaled anything that happened on the East coast. It sat among equally energetic art movements like the Ash Can School, Pop Art, Dadaism, and Abstract Expressionism. Such an important comparison by this high profile personality is of great importance. But we should not forget that this outcome was based in the concepts and pedagogies established by Lloyd Kiva New.

Art schools live or die through their history relative to what their students create in style, meaning, statements and inspiration, originality, conceptualization, energy, and how they leave their mark in history as a definable practice of art and world influence. The meaning of the term art school is, after all, to be found in that raison d’etre. Some of the greatest and most influential art schools in Europe take the responsibility to define who they are very seriously. They take extreme care to insure their institutional history is properly researched, presented, and written about, and that it survives into the future and is taught to subsequent generations of their students. They have been doing this for generations, for centuries. There is, for example, a definable Slade School of Art style of painting and a Royal College of Art style, a Bacon School style, the Studio style of painting of Dorothy Dunn. Mr. New understood that important quality of art implicitly and that the history needed to be preserved and taught at all costs even as he and James McGrath continued to act as our mentors well into our adult years. With the destruction of the old campus on Cerrillos Road in 2009, memories of that school and its history have largely been lost.

To his great wisdom, Mr. New treated his students as young art professionals with something important to give to the world. Their brains were not merely treated as empty vessels into which one could pour endless volumes, quantities of predigested pedagogical dogma from another culture. It is true that he had to struggle with impossible government bureaucracy and rules, as did we all, but he realized students were talented artists in their own right. They were trying to make it in a world whose view of Native Americans and First Nations peoples was often based in racism and stereotypes. In other words, we were being compelled to live by someone else’s law, dreams, and hypothetical descriptions of who we were supposed to be.

Mr. New confronted the stereotypes and racism with his edict that IAIA was there to let Indian art students explore being the people they were; the school was not there to shove anybody’s culture down their throats. This attitude was directly opposite to what anthropological discourse and popular political opinion of the time embraced. It was that statement, above all others, that told the students everything they wanted to know about Mr. New. He was on our side, he was our leader and mentor. He held great influence in the area of Indian fine art at a time when many believed that Indians were unable to transcend craft and enter world of fine art. Students recognized, respected, and welcomed New’s method for he could be trusted to understand and honestly deal with their problems. This was something not everybody could do—and many tried—no matter their credentials in that western didactic of art dialogue.

Mr. New writes candidly and subjectively in these memoirs and he writes from his enormous depth of knowledge and emotional experience. He is a wonderful storyteller and an excellent wordsmith. His imagery flows from a wellspring of personal conviction and professional dedication. He writes as a man whose life is filled with love, fond remembrances, enormous wisdom, and impossible dreams that in the end defined his life and helped bring about a transformation in Indian fine