TOM FARRIS IS ONE OF OUR FAVORITE PEOPLE. The Oklahoma-based artist has been coming to Santa Fe for years, primarily to show his work at Indian Market, where we interviewed him in Issue 5. He was back this summer, so we sat down for lunch at La Mama’s to check back in.
You’re back in Santa Fe.
I attended the annual trip to Mecca for Native artists, SWAIA, or Indian Market. I was fortunate — every year it just gets more and more competitive and so I don’t know if people are getting over my shtick, but fortunately I was happy to get in for one more year. I think this was my 13th or 14th year. Art had always been a part-time thing for me, but now, this is my full-time thing. It’s not quite as flippant as it once was.
What is the thing you love about Indian Market?
You get to see everybody. It’s family reunion for me. I’ve been in the art side of this much longer than I’ve been on the production side. I’ve had art galleries, ran art shows. I’ve been doing that for 20-plus years now, and I’ve made this wonderful network of friends and connections, people, artists. Coming out to Indian Market, they’re all in one place. I see all the major curators, the major artists, not major, even just smaller institutions. Usually everybody finds each
other out in the nightlife, whether that’s the Matador or wherever you end up, but it’s just such a great gathering, so much camaraderie. You get to see what everyone has worked on all year. Everybody saves their best of the best — it’s like, okay, this is all the B stuff but I’m taking my A stuff to Santa Fe market without question. Afterwards, it’s a downhill slope.
There’s some outlandish stuff out there now. There are Native artists who are finally venturing out. I’m not so fringe anymore. I used to be kind of the oddball. I mean, I still am for sure. But now at least I’m not the only one.
Do you think we’re having a moment for Native artists?
I think there’s a lot of Native culture just in the zeitgeist, period, with Reservation Dogs being such a big hit. We’ve had some movies that are big. Echo was a Marvel property that was set in Oklahoma. Native fashion is exploding. We’re slowly starting to see our own representation in the general popular culture where it’s not just specifically for Native culture. I would say Native culture right now is having a moment, and I hope that it’s being used to help dispel a lot of still-existent stereotypes. Pan-Indianism is still pretty rampant. My whole approach to art is that you bring more people with humor than you do with droning on to them in a history class. If you can get somebody to identify and laugh, then they’ll remember something. That’s always kind of been my approach – make it funny in some way and then, deliver a little bit of information too.
There are things being picked up through that connection in pop culture. There’s some Native slang that’s understood. But I still don’t necessarily think the majority understands that there’s a massive difference between Cherokee people and Diné people and Tlingit people. Those are all very different cultures. Do you remember when you were a kid and you got the little plastic men play sets?
Yeah.
They were the army men, but they were also the cowboys and the Indians. In that set you would get a teepee and a totem pole. This makes absolutely no sense, except that those are just Native stuff. I’ve always tried to find the most obvious comparison to that.
It would be like the Eiffel Tower and a pizza – these don’t go together.
We seem to be in this era where there were all these negative stereotypes and now there’s positive stereotypes, but they are still stereotypes.
I’m fine with stereotypes. Indian Time is funny. There are commonalities and shared experiences with a lot of Native people for sure. But I still think that we can highlight that and maintain the concept that we’re still vastly different too. We Cherokees, we have our Cherokee homecoming, we just had it a couple weeks ago. The Diné people, Pueblos, they have feast days. It’s a similar concept. People get together as a community. You check in with everybody once a year, and then you go back out.
At least people are now more aware that Natives are contemporary people. Education especially has been very bad about contextualizing us only in the past, never really talking about how these people still exist, about how you are in class with one right now. These cultures persist despite every effort to get rid of them.
When I asked Marita Hinds at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture what was the one message she wanted to get across, she said, We’re still here.
Yeah. Resilience. My art has always been about resilience. Despite every effort, we are still here and we’re still thriving and we maintain our cultures and ceremonies despite every attempt to get rid of them.
Santa Fe is a city that makes a great deal of money off the labor and image of Native America. I don’t know that we always pay that back respectfully to the artists themselves. What is it like coming to Santa Fe as a Native artist?
Well, so I can say this, whatever situation you’re in, it could be much worse because that’s what Oklahoma is.
I think New Mexico was at least smart enough in the 1930s to embrace cultural tourism, accept it, and just go whole hog and say it’s going be a part of our DNA as a state. Oklahoma had been ‘Native America’ – It’s the home to 39 tribes. It was all part of their marketing and tourism, and that stopped in the mid-‘90s. It has become adversarial because at the same time tribes developed tribal gaming and became big economic movers in the state. Once the state saw competition, then they’re like, yeah, we don’t like this anymore since if you’re on our level, it’s not cute. It’s not a minstrel show. They don’t like the idea of promoting a successful Native culture – instead they’re being very adversarial to tribal nations. The governor has sued the tribes in the state multiple times and lost every time.
We have tribal license tags for cars here. I think the law has always said the car should be maintained within the jurisdiction of that tribe, but most people don’t do that, and it’s always been kind of like a yeah okay whatever. We’re not gonna mess with that. But they’re enforcing it now.
They’re ticketing Native people who drive outside of the reservation boundaries?
Yeah. It’s just one of those things where, so now you want to get real nitpicky about stuff. Let’s pull over Native people and give them tickets for being Native.
We have a reputation for attracting people here who have love in their hearts for Native art but are still clueless about Native culture. What do you do with these folks?
Those are the people that I make art for, honestly. Those are the people I want to educate because they are… I wouldn’t say sympathetic, but supportive. They have a genuine interest in Native culture, and as long as it remains an interest and not a fetish, then I’m fine with it. I can appreciate somebody that is cautious about whether they can wear something or whether it’s appropriate to buy something. I can appreciate that. I think that concern could be relaxed in a market setting simply because Native artists aren’t really bringing ceremonial items to sell. We probably won’t do that. But I embrace that audience because they sincerely are supportive of Native culture and so I do want to say, this is a better way to interact with us as a group. And this is information you should know about us. If you like our culture that’s great. Did you know this too?
I’m good with that. I’m more concerned with people who embrace that ignorance and are dismissive of Native culture.
Can you make us a piece of art about the things you hear at Indian Market?
Sure!
