Where Art, History and Friendship Meet Arizona Roundup Celebrates the Prescott Indian Art Market

There are art shows. There are festivals. There are museum events.

And then there are those rare gatherings that, after nearly three decades, have become something closer to a family reunion.

On this edition of Arizona Roundup, host Stuart Rosebrook welcomes Dr. Paul Fees, Deputy Director of Program at Sharlot Hall Museum, for a lively preview of the 28th annual Prescott Indian Art Market, coming to the museum’s beautiful Prescott campus September 19–20.

But listeners quickly discover that this program—and this market—is about considerably more than buying beautiful things.

It is about art, heritage, relationships, generations, hospitality and the people who keep traditions alive by continuing to practice them.

And yes, there will apparently be fry bread.

Sometimes history tastes pretty good.

A Market That Became a Family

The Prescott Indian Art Market grew from relationships.

Rosebrook and Fees recall the vision of the late Dr. Sandra “Sandy” Lynch, whose friendships with Native artists—including Hopi potters, Navajo weavers and others throughout the region—helped create an intimate venue where accomplished Indigenous artists could present their work and develop lasting relationships with collectors and visitors.

That intimacy remains one of the market’s distinguishing characteristics.

Unlike enormous art markets that can fill city centers with hundreds of vendors, the Sharlot Hall Museum campus naturally keeps the Prescott event smaller. About 80 artists participate, and many have been returning for 25, 26, 27—even all 28—years.

They know one another. They know museum staff and volunteers. Collectors return and renew friendships. New visitors become part of the conversation.

Fees describes an atmosphere of friendliness and hospitality, while Rosebrook reaches back for a wonderfully appropriate word from another era: it is a “happening.”

And perhaps that describes it perfectly.

This Is Not Just Another Arts-and-Crafts Show

There is another important distinction.

The Prescott Indian Art Market is juried.

Artists must meet standards of accomplishment and quality to participate, and an additional competition recognizes exceptional work with awards and ribbons.

Visitors therefore encounter an extraordinary range of accomplished artists and artistic traditions: pottery, weaving, basketry, jewelry, painting, photography, sculpture, carving, beadwork, textiles, sand painting and other forms that sometimes stretch the usual definitions of Native art.

Traditional techniques live alongside contemporary expression.

And that may be one of the most important messages of the weekend: Tradition does not mean standing still. Culture lives because people continue creating.

The Hands Tell the Story

One of the most memorable threads running through the Arizona Roundup conversation is the idea of hands.

Visitors to the museum can now see the magnificent larger-than-life sculpture of museum founder Sharlot Hall by artist Heather Johnson Berry, standing in the Rose Garden.

Fees points particularly to the sculpture’s hands—the hands of a ranch woman, beautifully captured by the artist.

Those hands become almost a metaphor for the entire weekend.

Around the museum grounds will be artists whose own hands carry knowledge learned from parents and grandparents. Alongside longtime masters are teenagers and young adults beginning to display work of their own.

Visitors are not simply seeing finished objects. They can watch demonstrations in multiple artistic disciplines and learn how baskets, pottery, weaving, jewelry and other works move from raw materials and ideas to completed pieces.

That is when a museum becomes more than a place where history is preserved. It becomes a place where history is still happening.

Meet the Artist—Not Just the Art

Rosebrook makes an especially important observation during the program: the market is not just about shopping.

Visitors are encouraged to stop. Ask questions. Watch demonstrations. Learn. Talk with the people who actually make the work.

Representatives from Native communities and organizations also participate, creating opportunities for education and genuine human connection. The Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe serves as a co-host of the event and participates with locally produced crafts and other offerings.

A person might arrive intending to look at jewelry and leave having learned something about pottery. Someone might come searching for a painting and instead discover a carver.

And somebody will undoubtedly claim they came only for the cultural education while quietly heading toward the Indian tacos.

Arizona history can accommodate both.

Honoring a Master—and Watching a New Generation Emerge

This year’s featured artist is Hopi potter Delmar Polacca, whose distinctive work and technical achievement receive special attention during the program.

Even more fittingly, his son Matthew will share a table with him—creating a living picture of artistic tradition passing between generations without simply being copied. The younger artist is inspired by his father while developing work of his own.

The market will also remember longtime council member, featured artist and Hopi kachina carver Jerry Kociwa, who died during the past year.

One especially fitting part of his legacy is that this year's market is expected to include more kachina carvers than it has in years.

That is how traditions survive. One generation teaches. Another generation learns. And then, eventually, the student adds something new.

Prepare to Be Surprised

The variety awaiting visitors is remarkable.

There will be silverwork, goldwork, beadwork, turquoise, pottery, basketry, textiles, paintings, photography, watercolors, acrylics, sand painting, bronze, stone and wood sculpture, cottonwood-root carving, musical instruments and numerous other forms.

Artists come from across Arizona and the greater Southwest and from Native nations and communities beyond the region as well.

Fees offers perhaps the best advice: come prepared to be surprised.

Rosebrook adds another important perspective. Purchasing work directly from these artists is not merely acquiring a souvenir. Many travel significant distances, pay expenses to participate and depend upon their art for their livelihood.

Visitors can become collectors—or simply find one meaningful piece that carries a story home with them.

Make Prescott the Destination

The Prescott Indian Art Market is only part of an unusually rich cultural weekend.

The area will also feature the Museum of Indigenous People’s powwow near Watson Lake, Hope Fest downtown, other Western heritage activities, outdoor recreation and additional community events.

So Rosebrook and Fees offer a simple suggestion: Come to Prescott. Make Sharlot Hall Museum your base. Explore the community. Then come back to the museum again.

The market runs Saturday, September 19, from 9 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday, September 20, from 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Adult admission is $15, and admission is free for Sharlot Hall Museum members.

That last point deserves emphasis. Membership does more than provide admission. Members help sustain the museum, its programs, its collections and its continuing mission of preserving and telling the many stories that have made Arizona what it is.

Things to Remember

Art carries memory. A pot, weaving, carving or piece of jewelry may be beautiful, but behind it are skills, traditions and stories passed from generation to generation.

Small can be special. The intimacy of the Prescott Indian Art Market allows artists, collectors and visitors to actually meet one another.

History is not finished. Museums preserve the past at their best when they also help living people carry that past forward.

Hospitality matters. Artists return year after year partly because they have become part of a community.

Things to Share

Tell someone who loves Arizona that the Prescott Indian Art Market belongs on the calendar.

Share the program with someone interested in Native American art and culture.

Invite a young person. Seeing artists demonstrate their craft can teach something no textbook can duplicate.

Remind friends that supporting working artists helps ensure that these artistic traditions have a future as well as a past.

Things to Think About

What happens when we stop merely looking at art and begin talking with the person who created it?

What traditions were handed to us that deserve to be handed to someone else?

What institutions in our own communities are quietly preserving stories that could disappear if we fail to support them?

Things to Do

Listen to this edition of Arizona Roundup.

Then don’t stop with the radio program.

Visit Sharlot Hall Museum.

Walk the grounds. See the Rose Garden. Meet the artists. Watch the demonstrations. Ask questions. Listen to the music. Learn a story you didn’t know.

And perhaps take home something created by human hands that will remind you of the experience long after the weekend is over.

Become a museum member if you can. Bring a friend. Support the artists. Support the programs. And please remember the businesses, organizations, sponsors and supporters whose generosity helps make programs such as the Prescott Indian Art Market—and Arizona Roundup—possible.

To those members and sponsors: thank you.

History doesn’t preserve itself. Museums don’t sustain themselves. Artists cannot build audiences entirely by themselves. Radio programs don’t magically arrive through the speakers.

All of these things happen because people decide that the stories are worth telling—and worth supporting.

Listen. Visit. Learn. Meet the artists. And become part of the story.

Arizona Roundup with Stuart Rosebrook
From Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona

Celebrating the people, places, art, history and stories that continue to make Arizona Arizona.