BOOKSHELF

UPCOMING

ART OF THE CHEROKEE: Prehistory to the Present.

ART OF THE CHEROKEE: Prehistory to the Present. (Susan C. Power, University of Georgia Press, 224 pp., hardcover - $49.95 and paperback - $24.95)

This historical overview features some of the finest examples of Cherokee art in private, corporate and museum collections in the country and abroad. As Susan C. Power ranges across the legacy of Cherokee artistic achievement from the 16th century to the present, she discusses such objects as baskets, masks, beaded and embroidered garments, jewelry and paintings. Power draws on archival and scholarly sources and, when possible, the artists' own words as she interprets these objects in terms of their design, craftsmanship, style, and function and meaning in Cherokee history and culture.

In addition to recognizing artistic merit and contributions to the development of Cherokee art, Power reveals the range of geographical locales from which Cherokee art has originated. This includes the Cherokee's tribal homeland in the Southeast, the tribe's areas of removal in the West and places in the U.S. and beyond to which individuals subsequently moved. Cherokee art changed along with Cherokee social, political and economic circumstances. The entry of European explorers into the Southeast, the Trail of Tears, the American Civil War and the signing of treaties with the U.S. government are among the transforming events in Cherokee art history.

In the 20th century, as Cherokee artists joined the mainstream art world, they helped shape the Native American Fine Art Movement. Today, Cherokee artists continue to create in an artistic voice that is uniquely Cherokee - a voice that is both traditional and contemporary. (February)

RECENT

MIGRATIONS: New Directions in Native American Art. (Edited by Marjorie Devon, University of New Mexico Press, 143 pp., 54 color photographs, paperback - $24.95)

The University of New Mexico's Tamarind Institute is a world-renowned center for art lithography dedicated to training master printers and providing a studio for artists. In MIGRATIONS, Tamarind director Marjorie Devon has compiled the work of six Native American artists, each of whom collaborated with professional printers at Tamarind and at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton, Ore., to create prints. These artists were selected because they engage in contemporary art rather than what is traditionally considered "Native American art." Artists Steven Deo (Creek/Euchee), Tom Jones (Ho Chunk), Larry McNeil (Tlingit/Nisgaa), Ryan Lee Smith (Cherokee), Star Wallowing Bull (Chippewa/Arapaho) and Marie Watt (Seneca) represent a wide spectrum of Native American cultures and experiences.

An exhibition of the art contained here, also titled MIGRATIONS, will begin in 2007, venues to be announced. Marjorie Devon has been director of Tamarind Institute since 1985. (2006)

THE FIRST FIRE: Stories of the Cherokee, Kickapoo, Kiowa and Tigua.

THE FIRST FIRE: Stories of the Cherokee, Kickapoo, Kiowa and Tigua. (By Jane Archer, Taylor Trade Publishing, 216 pp., paperback - $18.95)

Step into a colorful pageantry of the people whose cultural legacy continues to influence the great state of Texas. From the Cherokee in the Piney Woods of East Texas, the Kickapoo at Eagle Pass in South Texas, the Kiowa of the Panhandle in the Great Plains, to the Tigua of Isleta del Sur Pueblo at El Paso, four nations come alive through myth and history.

Archer is a best-selling author of more than a dozen historical novels. TIPI STORIES from her critically acclaimed Texas Indian Myths and Legends are featured on audio inside a permanent exhibit at Frontier Texas, a museum in Abilene. She grew up with family tales about Texas and her part-Comanche heritage. (2005)

SEQUOYAH: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing.

SEQUOYAH: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing. (James Rumford with translation by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby, 32 pp., hardcover - $16)

The story of Sequoyah is the tale of an ordinary man with an extraordinary idea - to create a writing system for the Cherokee Indians and turn his people into a nation of readers and writers. The task he set for himself was daunting. Sequoyah knew no English and had no idea how to capture speech on paper. But slowly and painstakingly, ignoring the hoots and jibes of his neighbors and friends, he worked out a system that surprised the Cherokee Nation - and the world of the 1820s - with its beauty and simplicity. James Rumford's SEQUOYAH is a poem to celebrate literacy, a song of a people's struggle to stand tall and proud. (2004)

AMERICAN GYPSY: Six Native American Plays. (Diane Glancy, University of Oklahoma Press, 224 pp., hardcover - $34.95)

Part of the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series, Cherokee author Diane Glancy uses a collection of six plays to invoke the myths and realities of modern Native American life. Glancy mixes poetry and prose to address themes of gender, generational relationships, acculturation, myth and tensions between Christianity and traditional Native American belief systems.

The six plays included, "The Woman Who Was a Red Deer Dressed for the Deer Dance," "The Women Who Loved House Trailers," "American Gypsy," "Jump Kiss," "Lesser Wars" and "The Toad (Another Name for the Moon) Should Have a Bite" run the gamut from monologues to multi-character pieces and vary in length. Glancy concludes the collection with an essay on Native American playwriting. (2002)