Clearly Indigenous Artists’ Exchange and Hands-On Exploration

Dr. Letitia Chambers began her career as an educator in state and local education agencies. She then worked for the staff of the United States Senate, rising in 1979 to become the first woman to be staff director of a major standing committee of the US Senate. She moved to the private sector where she was CEO of a Washington, DC, based public policy consulting firm for over twenty years. She returned to public service on two occasions, taking a leave of absence when President Clinton appointed her to serve as the US Representative to the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, and again in 2004 when she became head of the higher education agency for the State of New Mexico.

Chambers has been involved in issues affecting Native Americans throughout her career, serving on a number of boards of organizations serving American Indians, including as a trustee of the Institute of American Indian Arts, and as a founding director and board chair of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. Chambers was also a founding member and vice chair of the board of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Combining her interests in art collecting and her career as a business executive, in 2009 Chambers was named CEO of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, from which she retired in 2012. Chambers now lives in Santa Fe where she has curated several art exhibits for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.

Daniel Joseph Friday is a Native of the Lummi Nation and a lifelong resident of Washington State’s Puget Sound region. Drawing from cultural themes and using modern processes, Friday’s work is contemporary in format while maintaining basic Native American qualities. He typically works with simple themes and forms, often employing subtle silhouettes in his totems. His more narrative work is usually a personal expression or a means of processing a life event, often with an underlying statement.

Friday has spent the past two decades working with artists such as Dale Chihuly, Paul Marioni, and Preston Singletary. He lives in Seattle, where he maintains an independent glass studio. His work can be found in collections around the world.

Carol Lujan, a clay and glass artist, is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and lives and works in both Arizona and New Mexico. She is of the Totsohnii (Big Water) clan, and her original clan is Hashtl’shnii (Mud Clan). Carol’s contemporary clay and glass art is inspired by her family, her Native culture and heritage, and the beautiful landscape of the Southwest.

Her colorful clay masks are influenced by the Navajo deities, and her clay sculptures reflect the strength, humor and spirit of Indigenous women of the Southwest. Additionally, her glass art transforms traditional Native art into a contemporary nontraditional art form. The designs on her glass rugs are inspired by her grandmother’s rugs as well as by historical Navajo rug designs from the mid-1800s. Various traditional Indigenous designs and symbols, combined with the contemporary medium of glass, complement and strengthen one another and provide a unique piece of art.