Peep

Label

These intricately beaded boots feature antique glass beads meticulously hand stitched by artist and fashion designer Jamie Okuma. Okuma’s designs, which often include abstract floral motifs as well as pictorial elements like the bird featured in this pair, are rooted in beading styles from the Plains, Great Basin, and Plateau regions. This pair of boots commissioned for the Hood Museum of Art’s collection, is inspired by a California scrub-jay taken in by the artist’s family during Okuma’s childhood and features Lupines and Indian paintbrushes. After falling out of its nest and refusing to return to the wild on multiple occasions, “Peep” became Okuma’s pet and lived with her family for 26 years.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 22, 2023-January 15, 2024; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, April 18-September 15, 2024.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Publication History

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Joy Harjo, heather ahtone, and Shana Bushyhead Condill, The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans, Princeton and Oxford: National Gallery of Art, Washington in association with Princeton University Press, 2023, p. 106, ill. p. 107.

Provenance

The artist, Jamie Okuma; sold to present collection, 2021.

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