Published on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006
Copyright Sierra Vista Herald
By Ted Morris
Herald/Review
DRAGOON — Children playing toka ... women harvesting saguaro cactus fruit ... a friendship dance ...
Those are just a few memories of artists Leonard Chana and Michael Chiago from growing up on the Tohono O’odham reservation years ago.
Those memories have been recorded as precious artwork by the two men, and are on exhibit at the Fulton-Hayden Memorial Art Gallery of The Amerind Foundation until June 4.
“Leonard was a reluctant artist,” said Barbara Chana, widow of Leonard Chana. She spoke at the Jan. 7 opening celebration of the exhibit.
When she was asked to speak, she tried to remember, but her mind froze.
“I went out to the garage, where his painting supplies were all boxed up, and I got them out, and it all came back,” Barbara said. She cried.
Leonard died in January 2004, but he has left behind a rich assortment of artwork — acrylic paintings and pen-and-ink sketches composed by stippling or “pointillism.”
In one stippling, thousands of tiny ink dots form an image of two boys, each with one arm wrapped around the other as they both beam broadly at a floppy-eared dog at their feet.
Leonard created the stippling, “Buddies Forever,” in 1995. It’s a classic image from “himdag,” a Tohono O’odham word that means “the way of the people.”
A bull rider ... a basket dance ... a basket weaver ...
The art images are remarkably similar to contemporary photos in another section of the museum. The paintings and sketches sprang from the minds of the artists, from their impressions of growing up on the reservation.
“Nothing in my paintings is modern. No cars. Wagons yes,” Chiago said .
Chana often created his artwork as a gift for private individuals; therefore, it was challenging to assemble the exhibit, said Amerind Director John Ware.
Chana’s generosity was confirmed by Regina L. Siquieros, senior program coordinator for American Indian Languages Development Institute at the University of Arizona.
“I have a rattle here that he made for me,” Siquieros said, choking up as she spoke to a large crowd assembled for the Jan. 7 ceremony.
Then she shook the rattle in a slow tempo as she sang in her native Tohono O’odham language an ancient song about salvation from a flood at the beginning of time.
Chiago, a full-time artist who served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, was pleased to gain some exposure to his work.
“I never thought I would show my art in this place,” Chiago said.
He has known the Chana family since the 1980s. Leonard was a friend.
“We talked about our art all the time,” Chiago said.
