200514-16 HA HAI-I WUHTI - Hopi Kachina / Katsina by Hopi artist Gerry Quotskuyva 4"
HA HAI-I WUHTI - Hopi Kachina / Katsina by Hopi artist Gerry Quotskuyva
4"
Hand carved and painted cottonwood root.
The Ha Hai-i Wuhti is a favorite of the Hopi. She plays many roles and is perhaps the most vocal of all the Katsinam. She appears in many of the important ceremonies like the Powamu, Shalako and Water Serpent ceremonies. She is also called the Grandmother Katsina and is considered to be the mother of the monster Katsinam.
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About the Artist
Gerry’s remarkable style has been nationally recognized on a public television series titled “Living in Balance on Shatki-Hill” which featured entertainers, healers and artists in the Sedona area. His work has also been featured in the books “Art of the Hopi” by Jerry and Lois Jacka, “Katsina” edited by Zena Pearlstone, and “Ancestral Echoes” a 10 year retrospective published in conjunction with his solo exhibit also titled “Ancestral Echoes”. Some of his pieces have been selected to adorn art show posters including the Hopi Tu-Tsootsvolla show in Sedona and the West Valley Invitational Native American Arts Festival in Litchfield Park.
Gerry has garnered numerous awards for his carvings and paintings from museum shows including the Heard Museum, Arizona State Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, Sharlot Hall Museum, Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis and Santa Fe Indian Market. His work was also showcased at the group exhibits “From the Earth” at the American Indian Contemporary
Arts Gallery in San Francisco, “Art of the Mesas” at Tubac Center Of the Arts, and “Contemporary Katsinam”, a nine-month exhibit at UCLA’s Fowler Museum in Los Angeles.
Tohono Chul Park in Tucson hosted Gerry’s first, and highly successful, one-man exhibit titled “Contemporary Fragments” in the Spring of 2002. His second solo exhibit, "Ancestral Echoes”, ran from Sept. thru Oct. 2004 at Nichols Gallery on the Pitzer College campus in Claremont, CA.
Gerry is currently working on a permanent collection for Xavier University in Cincinnati that consists of over fifty pieces including a 48” double Shalako carving titled “Sacred Rites”.