Native American Arts & Crafts Holiday Bazaar

Native American artists from around the Upper Midwest will offer authentic, handmade, traditional and contemporary art and craft items at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian’s annual Native American Arts & Crafts Holiday Bazaar on Saturday, December 1, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, December 2, from noon to 4 p.m. The bazaar will take place in the Mitchell Museum’s 3009 Central Street building in Evanston, next door to the museum.

Native exhibitors from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin will be selling work ranging from ink drawings, beadwork, and corn husk dolls to jewelry, pottery, children’s quilts, wood flutes, and more. Exhibitors retain all proceeds from their sales.

Artists and artisans will give presentations and demonstrate their techniques during the two-day event.  

More than a dozen exhibitors are expected, including artists who are Apache, Cherokee, Chippewa, Dakota, Ho-Chunk, Mohawk, Navajo, Omaha, and Seneca-Cayuga, among others.

The preliminary exhibitor line-up includes:

• Juan Cruz (Mixtec/Cherokee):  Native flutes, jewelry, herbal salves and oils

• Patricia Gardner (Mohawk): dichroic glass jewelry, beadwork, corn husk dolls

• Mary Jane Holat (Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa):  clay pottery figurines, ornaments, and plates

• Marcie McIntire (Ojibwa): beadwork and bead embroidery

• Amelia Ortiz (Ho-Chunk): beadwork

• Darlene Ortiz (Navajo): beadwork

• Julia Page (Eastern Band of Cherokee): feather earrings, paintings, painted garden rocks.

• Don and Joanne Perret (Pomo and Penobscot) of Native Visions trading company: Navajo and Santa Domingo jewelry; Hopi kachina dolls; Acoma, Santa Clara, and Hopi  pottery

• Norma Robertson (Dakota): beadwork

• Sharon Skolnick (Fort Sill Apache): dolls, paintings

• Linda Stabile: non-Native author of the book “Storykeeper,” illustrated by artist Robert Wapahi (Dakota), who is also exhibiting at the bazaar. “Storykeeper” is a literary work, “inspired by the storyteller’s role in Native American societies and how that role has helped to preserve the wisdom of the elders,” Stabile says.

• Cyndee Fox-Starr and Josee Starr (Omaha/Odawa/Arikara): beadwork, earrings, star quilt tote bags, hand drum bags, pillows, beaded key holders

• Robert Wapahi (Dakota): drawings

• Phyllis Bearskin Zuffante (Seneca-Cayuga/Chickasaw): beadwork

Admission to the Native American Arts & Crafts Holiday Bazaar is $5 for adults, which includes admission to the independent nonprofit museum at 3001 Central Street. Bazaar admission is free for children ages 12 and younger and for Mitchell Museum members.

The Mitchell Museum’s shop offers authentic Native-made merchandise year-round.

For information, phone (847) 475-1030; email vistor.services@mitchellmuseum.org; website: www.mitchellmuseum.org.