Publishing Editor
America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) is an educator, author, artist, and independent curator, whose curatorial practice spans 28 years. She is the associate publisher at Noksi Press, an independent Cherokee-language publishing house. She serves the Cherokee Arts and Humanities Council. Meredith taught early Native American art history at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Cherokee art history at the Cherokee Humanities class, and art history at Santa Fe Community College. She earned her MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and her BFA from the University of Oklahoma. She managed Ahalenia Studios, an alternative art space in Santa Fe from 2009 to 2016.
Literary Editor
Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD, is the curator and head of collections at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery, in Brantford, Ontario. Smith is a prolific writer and previously served as sessional instructor of curatorial studies in the Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga.
Board of Advisors
heather ahtone, PhD (Choctaw/Chickasaw) is senior curator at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. She previously served as the James T. Bialac Assistant Curator of Native American and Non-Western Art for the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Oklahoma, where she also taught for four years. She has published in several scholarly journals including Wíčazo Ša Review.
Jonathan Batkin has served as the executive director of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. He has numerous books, including The Native American Curio Trade in New Mexico (Wheelwright, 2008), Clay People: Pueblo Indian Figurative Traditions (Wheelwright, 1999), and Pottery of the pueblos of New Mexico, 1700–1940 (Taylor Museum, 1987). Batkin is an avid birdwatcher.
James T. Bialac, JD, began seriously collecting in 1964 and amassed one of the largest private collections of Native American art in the world, all of which he donated to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman, Oklahoma. Works from the Bialac Collection are also on permanent loan to the University of Arizona and Arizona State University law schools. The University of Oklahoma bestowed upon him an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2015. He is an attorney living in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Cliff Fragua (Jemez Pueblo) is a celebrated sculptor and musician as well as a farmer based in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico.
Teri Greeves (Kiowa) is a beadwork artist who grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Currently, she lives in Santa Fe with her husband and two sons. Greeves graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a degree in American Studies. Her work‚ which is the British Museum, Museum of Art and Design, and other major collections, combines Kiowa oral history with her personal and family experiences.
Emily Haozous, PhD, RN (Chiricahua Fort Sill Apache), is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico College of Nursing. She received her nursing training and doctoral degree at Yale University. Passionate about American Indian health, she links Indigenous methodologies to intervention research in an effort to improve cancer outcomes in Native people. Dr. Haozous is the granddaughter of Allan Houser, one of the most celebrated American Indian artists of the 20th century and daughter of Bob Haozous, a renowned sculptor.
Nadia Jackinsky, PhD (Alutiiq) | Twitter
Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/Choctaw) is a painter and printmaker who has exhibited and traveled throughout the world, including recent exhibitions in New Zealand, China, Russia, and England. She teaches studio arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She earned her MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Leah Mata Fragua (Northern Chumash) | leahmata.com
Jami Powell, PhD (Osage Nation), is the curator of Native American art at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, where she is a lecturer in Native American studies. She earned her doctoral degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and served as a faculty lecturer at Tufts University.
Mary Jo Watson, PhD (Seminole Nation), is Director Emeritus and Regents’ Professor of Art History at the School of Art and Art History of the University of Oklahoma. She earned her BFA in Art History, MLS in Seminole Aesthetics, and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Oklahoma. Watson’s curatorial practice spans decades. She serves on the Seminole Tribal Arts Council and several Native art committees including at the Oklahoma History Center and American Indian Cultural Center and Museum. Dr. Watson developed the current Native Art History Program at the University of Oklahoma.
India Young, PhD, decided, somewhere between her Alaskan home, her New York college education, and peace riots in La Paz, art best expresses activism. She returned to school to learn the practice of sharing her passions. Today, she is a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of New Mexico and an independent curator. Young researches print media, contemporary Indigenous arts, and activist art. Her curatorial pursuits focus on the spaces of interconnection between Indigenous arts and the larger world.
Marketing Director
- Barbara Harjo, barbara@firstamericanartmagazine.com
Contributing Writers
We are grateful to the talented writers, photographers, designers, and artists making First American Art possible.
- Gloria Bell, PhD (Métis) | blog | LinkedIn
- Roy Boney Jr. (Cherokee Nation) | website | blog
- Kelly Church (Potawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe) | website
- RoseMary Diaz (Santa Clara Tewa)
- Suzanne Newman Fricke, Ph.D. (Ashkenazic-American) | profile
- Staci Golar (Cornish-Welsh-American) | profile
- Melissa Melero-Moose (Northern Paiute/Modoc) | website
- Jean Merz-Edwards (Irish-German-American), MA | LinkedIn
- Denise Neil, PhD (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation) | LinkedIn
- Stephanie Pratt, PhD (Eastern Dakota) | LinkedIn
- Nadia Jackinsky, PhD (Alutiiq) | Twitter
- Kevin Simpson | website
- Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D. | LinkedIn
- Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa) | website
- Thollem | website
- Yvonne N. Tiger (Seminole/Cherokee/Muscogee) | LinkedIn
Social Media
- Michole Eldred (Catawba-Eastern Band Cherokee)
- Staci Golar (Cornish-Welsh-American)
- Michelle Lanteri (Italian-Swedish-American)
- America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
- Stacy Pratt, Ph.D. (Mvskoke)
- Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho)
- Neebinnaukzhik Southall (Rama Chippewa)