Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) on Thursday, January 30, for the 2025 Spring President’s Convocation and Campus Blessing. The event will begin at 11:30 am (MST) in the Dance Circle with a four-directions campus blessing.

Following the campus blessing, the convocation will take place in the Gym at 12 pm with a welcome address from IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation) and a keynote address by Shane Hendren (Navajo) ’23.

• 11:30–12 pm: Campus Blessing, Dance Circle
• 12 pm–1 pm: President’s Convocation and luncheon, Gym (Livestreamed)

The President’s Convocation will be livestreamed for our off-campus community members on the IAIA website.

About Shane R. Hendren (Diné)

Shane R. Hendren (Diné) ’91 and ’23 was born into a ranching family in New Mexico. Hendren’s grandfather was a horseman who owned world champion quarter horses. As a child, Hendren was exposed to his grandfather’s fancy bits made by hand by craftsmen in the USA and Mexico.

“This was my first awareness that there were people who dedicated their lives to producing what I saw as works of art. This affinity never left me. When I went to college at the Institute of American Indian Arts where I earned a degree in Museum Management, I embraced the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of metal smithing and silver-smithing. The metals classes there provided me with a solid foundation in these skills and opened my eyes to the unlimited possibilities the noble metals possessed,” Hendren says.

“I grew up drawing, painting and expressing my creativity by any means I had at hand. Frequently my subject matter was the livestock and people who cared for them that I was exposed to. From an early age I was aware of the equipment that the cowboys around me used and I was enamored by it. I learned that the quality of a person’s equipment reflected their dedication to their vocation and respect for their equine partners.”

Hendren continued his education at the University of New Mexico earning a BFA in all disciplines in 1993. It was at UNM that he built his first spurs from scratch for a metal sculpture class. Hendren viewed spurs the way he sees jewelry, as sculpture with a context. The popular belief among the art community at the time was that if something was functional it was not art. Hendren was successful in defending his spurs as art, because he did copious amounts of research about the cowboy arts and their long and varied tradition. This research only deepened his admiration of the work and the people who dedicated their lives to producing it. In May 2023, Hendren graduated from IAIA’s Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts program.

“Frequently my subject matter was the livestock and people who cared for them that I was exposed to,” he says. “From an early age I was aware of the equipment that the cowboys around me used, and I was enamored by it. I learned that the quality of a person’s equipment reflected their dedication to their vocation and respect for their equine partners.”

In January 2025, Hendren was named a Mellon Foundation Fellow in the Nits’ą́ą́dóó Ídahwiil’aah (We are learning from you) Fellowship at Diné College.

Hendren’s career spans over three decades, during which he has received numerous accolades, including the Maxwell Hanrahan Award in Craft in 2023. His jewelry, recognized for its artistry and craftsmanship, is part of global collections such as those at the British Museum, the Heard Museum, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. He remains the only artist to earn “Artist of the Year” four times from the Indian Arts and Crafts Association. Shane Hendren is a member of GALACTIC, a collaborative project between Navajo Technical University, Indiana University, Ohio State University, and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.