Douglas Miles Sr. (San Carlos Apache/Akimel O’odham) and Loren Aragon (Acoma Pueblo) both use the traditional designs of their cultures on contemporary clothing. Miles, founder of Apache Skateboards (San Carlos, Ariz.) was one of the first Native artists to paint on skateboards. Now he also designs shoes. He sees a connection between skateboarding and the Apache warrior tradition, since both involve concentration and stamina. The designs on Pueblo pottery influence Aragon’s textile designs. He believes that his work strengthens his connection to his family and helps push the boundaries of his ancestral arts.
Douglas Miles Sr. (San Carlos Apache/Akimel O’odham) – Apache Skateboards. Apache Classic skateboard, 2018. San Carlos, Ariz. Seven-ply maple wood, acrylic paint.
Franck Boistel, Douglas Miles Sr. (San Carlos Apache/Akimel O’odham), and Douglas Miles Jr. (San Carlos Apache/Akimel O’odham), IPATH X APACHE shoes, 2008. San Carlos, Ariz. Action leather suede upper, cup sole.
ABOVE: In the early 1800s, women of the Chilkat division of southeast Alaska’s Tlingit people began to master a new weaving technique. With mountain-goat wool and shredded cedar bark, they wove fringed dancing blankets, using curvilinear designs that men painted on pattern boards. Known as Chilkat, the technique, which is still practiced, yielded widely traded ceremonial robes. They express the drama and complexity of the region’s Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian clan histories. This Chilkat blanket from Alaska dating to the 1890s complements Raven and the Box of Daylight, a 2017 glass sculpture by Preston Singletary (Tlingit).
Tlingit Chilkat blanket, ca. 1890. Alaska. Wool, cedar bark, dye. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture 26160/12
Preston Singletary (Tlingit), Raven and the Box of Daylight sculpture, 2017. Seattle, Wash. Glass. Courtesy of the artist.
Haida bracelet, ca. 1920. Northwest Coast. Silver. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture 10450/12
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 37
PHOTOS BY DAVID ROARK
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