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FL Talks: Beauty from Ashes with Sandra Starr (Online)

American Indian Art as Witness to American History

There is a certain feeling one has about an object imbued with both beauty and history: a pot used, a moccasin worn, a doll carried.

The art of the American Indian not only expresses the creativity and purpose of the makers, but also contains an aura that transports us to critical periods in North American Indian and American history when native artists chose to continue to create beautiful things that would survive their lives of chaos, displacement, and poverty.

If an object could speak, it might say: “That which did not kill me made me stronger.”

When I approach an object, I know that each component material brings with it a different historical reference—all bound together into another form—by hands that were continually witnessing community manipulation, daily loss, betrayal, and random acts of aggression.

Sandra Starr holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Florida in Museum Studies focusing on American Indian art and culture in the Western Hemisphere. She was part of the original staff developing the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian where she retired as the senior researcher with the scholarship group after 13 years. She has curated exhibitions of American Indian art at the Florida State University Fine Arts Museum, the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Heye Center in NYC and the Orlando Museum of Art. Currently, she is compiling data from her 20-year research into iconography found on PreColumbian art in the Western Hemisphere.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this (publication) (program) (exhibition) (website) do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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