Feathered Relations: Works by Marwin Begaye

By Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit)

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The birds knew something was happening. They were observing change.

Marwin Begaye

When I was a little girl I used to wake up to mockingbird songs. I can still hear the long high note that started it off, dipping down into the melodic sing-songey four notes that followed. Over and over the mockingbirds sang their song. For a while during my surly teen years their song got on my nerves. “Don’t they know any other song – jeez!” And now, thirty some years later, I can’t get their song out of my head: I wish I could wake up to their sweet little tune.

Marwin and I grew up less than 30 minutes from each other in west central New Mexico and I’m willing to bet he grew up hearing the same song. The birds move freely between Zuni Pueblo and the area outside of Jones Ranch where Marwin spent his childhood. The birds travel well beyond our little section of the world to wherever birds go.

The high-desert/plateau landscape of western New Mexico is not the harshest desert in the southwest by any means, but it does require a deep respect of the land, water, animals and seasons in order to survive, let alone to thrive for millenia, as both Marwin and my respective ancestors have done. Survival for thousands of years requires careful observation of one’s environment and surroundings and has influenced every aspect of our aesthetics; the richly layered textures, the subdued color palette of the desert floor, the intense fiery sunsets all show up in our pottery, weavings, baskets, and paintings.

The interdependence of plant people, animal people, insect people, winged people and human people forms the basis of most Native and Indigenous epistemologies. Our philosophies instill values about what it means to be human in this world. Our languages reflect our kin and how we assign levels of respect and reverence based on our closeness and proximity to various entities, both human and non-human.

Both our respective communities use feathers in ceremony. I grew up watching the men in our family carefully lash different types of feathers to wooden sticks several times a year. My father explained the feathers carry our prayers, blessings and aspirations to our ancestors and to our spiritual helpers. My uncle explained the feathers were from birds associated with the six directions. Each time I’ve witnessed family members making their prayer sticks, I appreciate their attention, their focus. That focus is evident in Marwin’s process, especially for the massive wood block prints. Deciding on the story each print will tell, meticulous mapping of the negative and positive areas, and sharpening the knives – this routine requires patience and a plan, one of the hallmarks of Indigenous peoples.

The hyper technological, instant-gratification world we live in demands our attention at every moment, whittling away at our patience and our attention spans. The glowing connections to a global network regularly bring us news and information that has immense impact. In September 2019 my pocket-sized rabbit hole informed me that scientists discovered three billion birds had vanished from North America since the 1970s. Three. Billion. Birds. This news hit me like a punch in the stomach. It has to be a humbling realization for Marwin to know that his images of birds will likely become an entry in the historical record, documenting the birds that used to be part of our lives.

In a media driven world, a message has to be able to compete with all the noise on the web and the noise in our lives. Marwin’s layered homage to birds is subtle, communicated through the calm, gentle manner of speaking typical of our shared territories. These images are a departure from his earlier activist-based work; the birds, the backgrounds and the striking detail are rendered mostly in blacks and whites with dazzling backgrounds that boggle the mind but require intense observation.

To the unschooled eye, one might ask how these prints and paintings are “Native art.” Forget the argument that they are Native art because Marwin is Navajo. If we’re searching for loud and obvious visual indicators but are not paying attention, it would be easy to miss the details that document not only the highly detailed physiological renderings of the birds, but the quiet nods to Marwin’s Navajo heritage and to the original peoples of this continent. There are textile and basket designs incorporated into the backgrounds that reflect Diné sensibilities; the halos on certain birds indicate their status as holy beings connected to the divine in Navajo culture; he also incorporated tribally specific designs that surround the Condor of his grandchildren’s inherited territories of California.

In many ways Marwin is challenging us all with these images. He is quietly asking us to pay more attention to our surroundings. The messages he’s communicating through his pieces encourage us to look beyond the process of how he made the pieces. Artists who create at this level are repeatedly asked, and will continue to be asked, basic questions about process. The constant surface level inquiries about how Native master artists like Marwin create what they create are tinged with a mixture of curiosity and incredulity, as if these creative, hardworking perfectionists could not possibly have created these works. The needling technical questions solely focused on how to create multi-media works, lithographs, monotypes and woodblock prints do nothing to help that type of viewer begin to understand the abundant facets of Marwin’s work. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the deeper meaning is not for them, but for us.

The images in “Feathered Relations” reveal to us that in addition to being a husband, dad, friend, art professor, and master printmaker, Marwin is also an intense ornithologist.

If we take a closer look, if we take the time to see birds through his eyes, I hope we’re all encouraged to settle down, to pay more attention to the birds, to be more observant of the world in chaos around us, to become louder advocates for our feathered kin.

– Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit)

Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is a mother, independent curator and scholar. She has curated exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. One of her research areas focuses on the resilience, strength and vitality provided by Native arts to Native communities. She is an Assistant Professor of Native North American Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Washington’s Information School.

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