Michael Chiago Speaks at Amerind Museum

Date: Saturday, February 17, 2024

Time: 11 a.m., AZT

Where: Amerind Museum, 2100 N. Amerind Road, Dragoon, AZ

Amerind Museum hosts an artist gallery talk and reception with Michael Chiago. Amerind celebrates its latest exhibit: Tohono O’odham Himdag in Brush and Lens: Paintings of Michael Chiago and Photography of Bernard Siquieros. “Himdag” refers to the Tohono O’odham way of life. Painter Michael Chiago is a prolific artist who has created thousands of original works over a career spanning decades. In color and line, Michael celebrates O’odham himdag. Photographer Bernard Siquieros was a passionate educator of O’odham himdag with a long and diverse career. Through it all–Bernard carried a camera, capturing O’odham himdag in moments of everyday life and in moments of celebration. In brush and lens, these two men chronicle the great strength of the Tohono O’odham community, honoring their rich heritage and working together for brighter tomorrows.

Learn more about himdag in the book: Michael Chiago: O’odham Lifeways Through Art, by Michael Chiago, Sr. and Amadeo M Rea.

About the book:

Michael Chiago: O’odham Lifeways Through Art offers an artistic depiction of O’odham lifeways through the paintings of internationally acclaimed O’odham artist Michael Chiago Sr. Ethnobiologist Amadeo M. Rea collaborated with the artist to describe the paintings in accompanying text, making this unique book a vital resource for cultural understanding and preservation. A joint effort in seeing, this work explores how the artist sees and interprets his culture through his art.

A wide array of Chiago’s paintings are represented in this book, illustrating past and present Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham culture. The paintings show the lives and traditions of O’odham people from both the artist’s parents’ and grandparents’ generations and today. The paintings demonstrate the colonial Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American influences on O’odham culture throughout the decades, and the text explains how wells and windmills, schools, border walls, and nonnative crops have brought about significant change in O’odham life.