Ruth B. Phillips

Each chapter is a broad overview of these five regions of North American Native Art: The Southwest, The East, The West, The North and The Northwest Coast, followed by a chapter on Modern Native Art. The authors explore the differences of intention between native art and European/Western art. I am always fascinated to see primitive's art and the way that they made everything they used with design and beauty, with intention and praise. Somewhere along the way, we modern peoples have lost that. We are content to mass produce ugly items and we have lost our ability to find beauty in everyday tasks. That's my takeaway from this book, not the authors'.

I picked this up from the library intending only to look at the photographs and read their captions, but then I would dip in and out of the text, and every time I dipped in I ended up reading quite a bit. I focused on the bits which explained how the various tribes used/made/perceived art and learned quite a lot. Had I more time and concentration, I would have enjoyed reading this more carefully.… (mer)