Two Visions – Naatsi’ Aakii’ Celebrating Native Beauty
(August 1 - September 30, 2009)

“Two Visions – Naatsi’ Aakii’ Celebrating Native Beauty” was the new art show in the Lamont Gallery. Two artists, both focusing on Native American themes, created the pieces in this show. Carol Jean Diaz, from Aberdeen, and Heidi Snyder, from Denver, presented the two-woman show which was on display until September 30, 2009.

Carol Diaz was born and raised in South Dakota and is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe centered in Montana. She is the great- granddaughter of Sure Chief and Double Gun Woman, and the granddaughter of Buckskin and Rosie Rutherford. She is descendant of a line of Indian Medicine people.

Carol graduated from Roncalli High School in Aberdeen and the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico with a degree in two-dimensional art in 1984. The mediums in which Carol works are beading, charcoal, pastels, pottery, jewelry making, and constructing leather shields. The mediums that Diaz has focused on for this exhibit include beading, leather shields, feather fans, leather bags, and beaded arrows. Carol has had several one-woman shows and is represented by “Prairie Star Gallery” in Sioux Falls.

Heidi Snyder was born and raised in Germany and moved to the United States at age 21. She was a geography teacher, hobby artist and intended to study the law when she underwent a career change. While raising her four daughters, she began to research subjects that interested her and to develop her style of drawing. Soon Heidi began working with the State organizations as a botanical illustrator of native plant species of Colorado. Snyder’s work has been juried into the International Colored Pencil Society Show for several years. Her work will also be featured in the book “The Flourish Project”, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Denver Botanic Gardens.

The “Two Visions – Naatsi’ Aakii” exhibit included remarkably life-like colored pencil drawings of Native American portraits, wildlife features, landscapes, plants and flowers.Ornate leather bags and shields,beaded arrows, smallcompletely beaded images and a dance costume sewn and decorated,which Carol Diaz wears to dance at pow-wows, complimentthese. The natural appeal of these artworks and thedetailed character of their execution made this exhibit at the Museum a “must see.”

For information on past exhibits in the Lamont Gallery, please click here.