As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of Idyllwild Arts, the Native American Arts Center is holding a series of Thursday evening engagements from January to April where we will meet in person to learn more about the history of Native American Arts at Idyllwild Arts and explore goals for the future! We are thrilled to host these in-person engagements in the newly renovated Birchard Building, which is now the official home of the Native American Arts Center. Be sure to mark your calendars and join us for evenings full of inspiring stories, light appetizers and beverages. The Michael Kabotie Lecture series is named after Native Arts summer faculty program collaborator, Michael Kabotie, 1942-2009, (Hopi). Michael’s inquisitive and trickster spirit lives on in these compelling conversations that Michael advocated for greatly during his time at Idyllwild Arts.

In our 80th year at Idyllwild Arts, we are honored to facilitate a discussion about one of the most impactful founders in the early days of Idyllwild Arts and the Native American Arts Program. Ataloa, born Mary Stone McLendon, was a Chickasaw woman who recognized the central role the arts could play in helping Native people express themselves in changing times. She founded the first Native American art museum and the Indian art program at Bacone College. She taught at the then Idyllwild School of Music and Arts from 1950 to 1963, encouraging a generation of young artists to this day.

Leading this conversation is America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), who is the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine and an art writer, critic, visual artist, and independent curator whose community-based curatorial practice spans more than three decades. She earned her MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and taught Native American art history at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe Community College, and Cherokee Humanities Course. Based in Norman, Oklahoma, Meredith serves on the advisory board of Native South journal and the acquisitions/collections committees of the Cherokee National Historical Society and First Americans Museum. In 2025, she won the Rabkin Award, and her work has appeared in Art in America, Crafts UK, American Indian Culture and Resource Journal, Santa Fe New Mexican, New Mexico Magazine, Native Foodways, MOMUS, Hyperallergic, and numerous catalogues.

Related Events

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  80 Years of Native American Arts – A Program Dedicated to Indigenous Artistic Excellence | Spring Michael Kabotie Lecture Series

  January 22 @ 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm PST
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  The Confluence of Beauty – Cultural Intersectionality and Individualism in Art and Beadwork with Mikailah Thompson | Spring Michael Kabotie Lecture Series 

  February 19 @ 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm PST
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  Land, Language, Family – Cahuilla Continuance, Cultural and Land Stewardship | Spring Michael Kabotie Lecture Series 

  April 16 @ 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm PDT