Among the many things I collect, Native American fetishes are among my favorites. I have a lot of them and many are tiny and intricate. Which makes them difficult to photograph and that is why you haven’t really seen them thus far.
Today I tackled my largest fetishes, my Corn Maidens. I have four, each carved from a different material and by a different carver. And I added the bear because he seemed to want to be a part of the festivities.
Each piece is a work of art. The maidens are my favorites, but I also love my bears, eagles, bobcats, mountain lions and wolves. I would have even more, but I know I suffer from collection addiction. I had to go “cold turkey.”
All the pictures were taken with my 60 mm f2.8 Olympus macro lens in natural light.
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Categories: #gallery, #Photography, Arts, Cameras, Macro
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
They are absolutely beautiful!
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They are genuinely art, just very small. Sacred, under the right circumstances, but not for someone like me who just collects them. Still, there is something about them …
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They all look lovely, but (naturally) I especially like the bears! So simple looking, and yet, you know it’s a bear!
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Bears are healers in most Native mythology, at least as far as I know. Bears and wolves are my favorite animal fetishes. But I also kind of like the buffalo, badger, and mountain lion. The bears and the wolves were the first ones I got. Actually, it was a double wolf lashed to an arrowhead. I still have it. Hard to photograph 🙂
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They are beautiful pieces of art – so tactile
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Man, if I’da known you collected those when I lived in New Mexico, I could have gotten some for you.
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Oh I love those fetishes. I have a few, but far short of anything like a collection. Wonderful photos. Japanese netsuke are another “want”.
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Those are gorgeous. Nice going.
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One of my closest friend is Native American. She has some interesting pieces at home and I always love to hear her stories. Some of them she makes up (I am sure of it) but I love them nevertheless.
Beautiful pieces Marilyn~!
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I love the stories and I love the jewelry, the fetishes, the culture.
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Beautiful!
Leslie
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They really are. Each one is a unique piece of art.
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I’m sure each one has a story behind it too.
Leslie
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That’s good stuff. Where did you find those?
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Mostly online. A couple of them in Arizona. I used to have some dependable sources for Native American stuff in Arizona and New Mexico, but I stopped buying a few years ago, so I don’t know if they are still in business. A couple of them were pretty old, so they may have retired.
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Some very precious pieces with very inticrate details. After your chinese pottery this is yet another amazing collection of art & culture. Thanks for bringing it straight from Turkey.
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No, it isn’t from Turkey. It is made in the U.S., in Arizona and New Mexico. I’m sorry … American slang can be so misleading. To go “Cold Turkey” means to immediately stop taking a drug or doing something to which you are addicted (like shopping, or smoking). I have no idea what it’s called that … it’s an idiom, so of course it didn’t make sense to you. Sometimes I forget how weird slang can be when it’s translated.
When I lived in Israel, we sometimes — for fun — used to literally translate English “sayings” into Hebrew and they made no sense at all, but were occasionally very funny.
All of these fetishes are carved by Native Americans — mostly Hopi, Pueblo, or Navajo, though other tribes also carve. I’m sorry. I did not mean to mislead you!
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My apologies. I probably didn’t read the first line attentively. Good to learn about a new idiom. I misunderstood it with Turkish art. I m enriched. Thanks for correcting me. Keep teaching.
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What an incredible collection and I can understand their appeal. Keep collecting and supporting Indigenous culture. That would be my argument. xx Rowena
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I like to think the artists are the beneficiaries of my purchases. I hope so. The work is remarkable.
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I have Aboringal family and I guess that’s why I had that take on your collection. I collect books, tea cups and more but your collection should be helping an artist make a living and a culture stay alive.
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