The Missoula Art Museum (MAM), in Missoula, Montana, was founded in 1975, and is one of the leading contemporary art museums in the Intermountain West. MAM has one gallery dedicated to Contemporary American Indian Art and recently featured the work of Choctaw artist Marcus Amerman in an exhibit called Indian Country.
According to the Museum:
“Marcus Amerman is a multi-faceted artist who creates personal expressions across diverse mediums and techniques. He is a painter, beadwork artist, sculptor, and performance artist. Though Amerman may be better known for his beadwork portraits and representational landscapes, this exhibition focuses on contemporary blown glass and mixed media interpretations of traditional objects from his Choctaw heritage.”
The Museum also reports:
“Amerman is widely renowned for his beadwork. He credits the Plateau region and its wealth of talented bead artists with introducing him to the “traditional” art form of beadwork. He quickly made this art form his own, however, by creating a new genre of bead artistry in which beads are stitched down, one by one, to create realistic, pictorial images, not just large color fields or patterns.”
In many American Indian cultures, shields provided spiritual protection and are works of art. In the display Indian Country, Amerman’s shields used automobile hubcaps as the center portion of the shield. According to MAM¨
“Shields are meant to protect, defend, and express identity. Amerman’s shields have replaced rawhide with a hub cap as the central component. One of them proclaims Pontiac, embossed in the chrome metal. All are adorned with long strips of shredded flags and feathers and decorated with small objects, meant as protections, that offer viewers places to explore.”
Shown below are details from Hubcap Shields Untitled
Indians 101
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, this series presents American Indian topics. More American Indian art from this series:
Indians 101: California and Great Basin Art (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Southwestern Art (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Plains Indian Art (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Reborn Rez Wrecks (museum tour)
Indians 101: Glass Art by Northwest Native Carvers and Weavers (Art Diary)
Indians 101: Exploring Glass Art by Native Artists (Art Diary)
Indians 101: Three Plateau Women Artists (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Nez Perce Indian Art (Photo Diary)