Colors of Arizona - 3

Wendy and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix.  The Heard is a beautiful, modern, interactive museum dedicated to the preservation of the native American culture and artifacts.  It also celebrates the accomplishments of the native people. 

The feature display right now celebrates the contribution of the native people in the first and second world wars, namely the famous Code Talkers, who through the use of a code based on their native languages were able to pass information throughout the allied forces that couldn't be decoded by anyone else.  This beautiful display of artifacts, and video is normally housed at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC but was loaned to the Heard Museum.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the Code Talkers display.  But I do have a couple of paintings by Dan Namingha, a Hopi artist.  This first one is called Cardinal Colors, depicting the four colors of corn that sustained the Hopi people.  The yellow represents north, white is east, brown is south, and blue is west. 

 

I'm afraid I didn't read what the meaning of this picture by Mr. Namingha is.  I'll leave it for the reader to interpret.

 

This beautiful wall of natural poles adorned with molten glass colors represents the evolution of day into night (I think) or it could be the evolution of the natural world. Either way, it's beautiful and very tactile.  It's hard not to touch each large glass piece.

 



At one of the interactive displays, Wendy made a type of small doll the native children used to have, made from scraps of fabric and fibre.

At another interactive station, I put together a beautiful native puzzle.

Then, after a light lunch in the outdoor courtyard of the museum, we hopped back into our very uncolorful car and drove home.

 

 

 

 

Last night we turned the heater on in the pool so it would be the perfect temperature for swimming today and wouldn't you know, when we woke up this morning it was raining and cool, and it's supposed to stay that way for three or four days.  Oh well, it's better than the snow and -30C temperatures they're 'enjoying' back home where the only color of consequence is white

.