From moccasins to Louboutins: an evolution of indigenous art

Patsy Phillips still occasionally gets visitors looking for “beads and feathers and baskets” at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

But, increasingly, she finds herself welcoming art lovers who don’t settle for cliche. They embrace work in paint, clay, textiles, and video that draws from personal, cultural, and historical roots. This new Native American art expresses individualism in the face of racism, poverty, and a sense that other voices have too long told the world what living American Indian art should be.