Marcus Amerman is a Choctaw

bead A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under ...

artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist, living in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

. He is known for his highly realistic beadwork portraits.

Background

Marcus Amerman was born in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...

in 1959 but grew up in the Pacific Northwest.Bates, 96 At the age of 10, his aunt taught him the techniques for Native American beadwork. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from

Whitman College Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacific ...

in Walla Walla, Washington. He also studied the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...

and the Anthropology Film Center.

Artwork

His exploration of so many different genres of art overlap each other. For instance, Amerman's beadwork is integrated into clothing design. His outfits are featured in his performance art. His paintings and glasswork use a vivid palette that is found in his beadwork. He has even create giant beads out of glass. Amerman's first foray into realism in beadwork was his 1993 ''Iron Horse Jacket'', a studded leather jacket featuring a highly detailed and modeled image of Brooke Shields in beadwork. Later, he added portrait bracelets to his repertoire. He has portrayed many historical heroes in his beadwork, such as

Lloyd Kiva New Lloyd Henri Kiva New (Cherokee, February 18, 1916 – February 8, 2002) was a pioneer of modern Native American fashion design and a cofounder and president emeritus of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Earl ...

; as well a pop icons, such as Janet Jackson, and imagery inspired by comic superheroes is a current running throughout his work. His paintings are expressive and often reflect his Choctaw roots, with Mississippian imagery. His work in glass also includes Mississippian ceramic designs, but more often reflects contemporary designs, such as globes of the earth.

Honors

Amerman's work is in such public collections as the

George Gustav Heye Center The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...

, the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

, the American Museum of Natural History, the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

, the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum beca ...

, the Sequoyah National Research Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the

Museum of Arts and Design The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...

. He is the only artist to have his beadwork featured in

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

magazine. In 2008, Amerman was a Hauberg Fellow at the

Pilchuck Glass School Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The school was founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg (1917-2016), and John H Hauberg (1916-2002). The campus is located on a former tree farm in Stanwood, W ...

and artist-of-residence there in 2008. In 2014 he was awarded a USA Fellow, an award supported by the Rasmuson Foundation. He and

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

artist Preston Singletary both taught at the school in 2006 as part of ''Iconoglass''.

Personal

Amerman's brother, Roger Amerman, is also an award-winning beadworker, inspired by Southeastern Woodland designs. Their first cousin,

Linda Lomahaftewa Linda Lomahaftewa (born 1947) is a Hopi and Choctaw printmaker, painter, and educator living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Background Linda J. Lomahaftewa was born July 3, 1947 in Phoenix, Arizona. Her late father was Hopi; her mother is Choctaw fro ...

is renowned for her printmaking and painting, as was her brother and Amerman's cousin, the late Dan Lomahaftewa. Amerman lives on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Kooshia, Idaho with his elderly parents.

Quote

Traditionally, Indians embraced new materials with which to create and new ideas to express.McFadden and Taubman, 16

External links

Marcus Amerman, official site

Marcus Amerman
Vision Project
"The Universe of Marcus Amerman,"
''The Magazine'' via ''Santa Fe.com''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amerman, Marcus 1959 births Living people Artists from Phoenix, Arizona Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma people Native American bead artists Native American sculptors Native American painters Native American performance artists Whitman College alumni American glass artists Institute of American Indian Arts alumni Indigenous fashion designers of the Americas Sculptors from Arizona Sculptors from Mississippi 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native Americans Native American people from Arizona