Drop-in to visit IAIA Artist-in-Residence artists Wayne Nez Gaussoin, Meghann O’Brien, and Orlando Dugi in their studios. Learn about their processes, techniques, tools, ideas, and cultural influences.

Free and open to the public.

Orlando Dugi

January 8–March 8, 2018

Orlando Dugi

Orlando Dugi (pronounced dew-guy) is currently living and working in Santa Fe, NM. Originally from Grey Mountain, Arizona, Diné Nation, Dugi learned to bead at the age of six and learned how to sew in a home economics class in seventh grade. In 2009, Dugi began designing hand-beaded evening clutches and designed his first gown in 2010. The following year Dugi designed his first capsule collection of only three garments each hand-beaded and hand-sewn. Within the last four years, Dugi has designed three collections and includes a New York City showing at NY Style Fashion Week in 2016 Spring and Summer. Dugi’s designs are feminine, sculptural, and highly embellished with many hours of hand-sewing and hand-beading and therefore they are only made-to-order.

Orlando Dugi is currently working on his 2018 Fall and Winter collection. You can see the making of the collection during his IAIA Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) residency. After the A-i-R residency, Dugi will begin working on his 2019 Spring and Summer collection which will be shown at Style NY Fashion Week in September 2018.

Wayne Nez Gaussoin

February 19–April 18, 2018

Wayne Nez Gaussoin

Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Navajo/Picuris Pueblo), the youngest of three sons, of renown Jeweler Connie Tsosie Gaussoin. Following a family tradition, his mother and older brother David, have taught him basics of silversmithing. He has since taken courses at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, finished his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and has currently completed a Master of Fine Arts with a Minor in Museum Studies from The University of New Mexico.

Gaussoin’s interest in art not only focuses on jewelry, but also includes media such as sculpture and installation art. His style merges his own design from modern influences and incorporates traditional ideas and techniques. Gaussoin similarly sustains the integrity of the past while building a new future in his work. Each work is thoughtfully rendered, representing artistic purity while creating a new global arena of Native creativity and expression. His artistic works are likewise experiential and expressive. Such ideas are displayed in his traditional techniques in tufa casts to his multimedia installations.

He continues to sell his work through selected juried art shows, such as the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, and galleries nationally and internationally. He also has participated in lectures and artist-in-residencies for both his jewelry and sculpture work. Gaussoin also has an extensive background in teaching jewelry and art theory, where he was last teaching foundations as a TA at the University of New Mexico. Also, his recent experience of being accepted into the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico has highly influenced his current direction of work where he plans to explore the ideas and relationships between pop culture and his own tribal traditional mythologies.

Meghann O’Brien

Meghann O’Brien

March 7–May 1, 2018

Meghann O’Brien (Cape Mudge/ Kiusta/Haida Gwaii/Irish) is a Northwest Coast weaver working in the traditions of basketry, Yeil Koowu (Raven’s Tail) and Naaxiin (Chilkat) textiles. She is descended from the Kwakwaka’wakw village of Weḵaʼyi Tʼsakwaʼlutan (Cape Mudge), the village of Kiusta, Haida Gwaii, and Dublin, Ireland. Her name in the Kwakwala language is Kwaxhi’laga—“Smoke Coming Out of the Top of the Big House, Welcoming People to Feast and Potlatch.” In the Haida language she carries the name of her maternal great grandmother Ruby Simeon, Jaad Kuujus—“Dear Woman.” O’Brien has apprenticed under master weavers and traditional teachers Kerri Dick, Sherri Dick, and William White. Her artistic process is one of devotion to the highest expression of the art form, preferring to allow the weaving to find its own place in the world once completed. Her work is distributed between public and private galleries, museums, collectors, family, chiefs, dancers, and ceremonial people. She travels globally to lecture and demonstrate.