Hodinöhsö:ni’ Juried Art Show • April 8-11, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
by George Cassidy Payne
For the first time in its history, the Ganondagan State Historic Site’s annual Haudenosaunee Art Show carries a unifying theme: “What is a Haudenosaunee Peace?” Kristin Asche, lead curator of the 8th annual exhibition, sees it as both a lens for reflection and a challenge for artists.
Asche, Onödowa’ga:’ (Seneca), Wolf Clan, grew up in Buffalo, New York, with roots in the Cattaraugus Territory of the Seneca Nation. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and a minor in Museum Studies from Rochester Institute of Technology and previously assisted with the Wampum / Otgoäexhibition. Beyond curatorial work, Asche leads cultural workshops, including cornhusk doll making, and gives presentations on Haudenosaunee governance.
“This is the first time we have had a theme,” Asche explains. “In 2026, we mark the 250-year anniversary of the Revolutionary War. There are 250 commissions across the country. This is a big moment to reflect, and we wanted to think about this marker through the lens of Haudenosaunee experiences.”
Ganondagan is more than a historic site. It is a living repository of memory and presence. For artist Kristin Witbeck Lee, showing work there is both a personal pilgrimage and a cultural dialogue.
“My Haudenosaunee name, given to me by my great-grandmother, is Ganä:gah:is — One Who Splashes Water,” Lee shares. “I still live with what this could mean. To be playfully disruptive? Cleansing? Water always moves, and all living things move and change constantly, adapting to the environment, flowing to an ocean where all merges again. I try to work with this.”
Ganondagan has long been central to Lee’s personal and artistic life. “It is a sort of Mother Country for me,” she explains. “I grew up with a Seneca father, Luis R. Lee, of the Beaver Clan, visiting family in the Seneca Territories of Allegany and Cattaraugus. I learned so much there. But there is also pain — from the Kinzua Dam tragedy, which affected so many, including my family. I often thought about all that had been burned and buried under the tomb of a lake.”
Lee’s connection deepened over years of visits when her father worked as an artisan during the summer festival. “I fell in love with it,” she says. “I had dreams of Jigonsaseh, New Face, in my early thirties. I grew up with stories of No Face — the girl whose pride lost her face and wandered anonymously doing service. But I realized the figure in my dream was New Face, the Mother of Peace, the first to hear and accept the message of the Great Peacemaker. That listening, that clarity, that conscious attention — that is the human practice, living by the tenets of the good Mind, making Creation more beautiful and livable. She is a wonderful role model.”
Exhibiting at Ganondagan is both an honor and a homecoming. “Visiting that land felt like visiting a grandmother,” Lee recalls. “I’ve been in two juried shows there, but bringing the portrait of my great-grandmother, Nora Rocking Boat — Seneca Clan mother and representative of the Mother of Peace — to this sacred place open to all is deeply meaningful.”
Lee’s practice draws on personal history, cultural continuity, and contemporary expression. She seeks to encounter the essence in all beings and express this through color, form, and material so it can be a living experience repeatedly. Portrait commissions are a focus. “Everyone needs to feel seen,” she explains. “A from-life portrait not only memorializes but can heal and continue to inspire. I also offer energy portraits from intuition; these are often striking and treasured by my patrons.”
Currently, Lee is developing a new series of large abstracted watercolor landscapes inspired by spiritual beings and ancestors experienced through the life of the land. She grew up on two worlds — on the territories and in the suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut. Her ancestor Cornplanter was a ‘half-breed’ and a great leader. Though she often felt she didn’t fully fit in either world, she sensed an opportunity to bridge them and foster understanding.
“The culture is ours, but its beauty and principles can belong to everyone,” she says. Her work combines historical and contemporary methods from around the world while remaining rooted in the traditional craft arts of her family.
For Seneca artist Penelope Minner, every work begins with a question of responsibility. An enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Turtle Clan, she lives on the Allegany Territory in Salamanca, New York. A black ash basketmaker, corn husk doll maker, and bead worker trained also as a graphic designer, Minner blends ancestral craft with contemporary visual expression.
“Most people do not see us, the Original People,” she says. “The Haudenosaunee live our culture every day alongside our neighbors through language, arts, and traditions.” Before starting a piece, she considers how it connects to that living responsibility. “I think about our culture, doing things with care and respect while allowing myself freedom to express my art,” she says.
Minner’s artistic path began in childhood, shaped by her parents, traditional craftspeople whose work is held by the Smithsonian Institution. She also learned basketmaking from her cousin, Midge Dean Stock. “Through my talents I am able to share their spirit with others, to pass it on to the next generation,” she says.
Today Minner works across traditional forms, including beadwork, black ash baskets, and corn husk dolls. Her dolls often honor Haudenosaunee women, reflecting the matriarchal society. Showing her work at Ganondagan is a homecoming. “It’s like a place where we all gather to meet again,” she says.
Her art rests on material, vision, and execution. Corn husk, black ash, and beads connect to historical life. The vision communicates contemporary Indigenous concerns and joys, while execution reflects decades of skill and teaching. Her work appears in collections at the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, the Iroquois Indian Museum, the Fenimore Art Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.
“I use my corn husk dolls to tell our stories to children and others,” she says. “I will continue to promote the message of strength and women’s rights, the matriarchal society from which they arose.”
Art sometimes begins not with an idea but with responsibility. For Billy Haduweñtha’ Logan, an Onondaga Turtle Clan artist, each piece begins at the intersection of memory and the quiet voice of the material.
An Indian Arts and Crafts Act-compliant woodcarver, Logan has spent more than three decades working in wood, blending tradition with contemporary expression. Urban life introduced him to modern art and music, while the legacy of his parents’ experience in residential schools demanded rediscovery of traditional methods through experimentation.
His work draws from Eastern Woodlands visual traditions, particularly Haudenosaunee raised beadwork, translated into wood with pyrography. Logan lets the material guide the sculpture, embracing flaws in the grain and allowing them to shape the piece. In Haudenosaunee thought, Orenda, the spiritual energy in all things, connects him to creative currents worldwide, resonating with the Apeiron described by the Greek philosopher Anaximander. His sculptures are links in a kinetic chain of inherited and passed-forward ideas.
Peter B. Jones, an Onondaga potter, sees clay as a memory carrier. Residing on the Allegany Territory, he studied under Hopi artist Otellie Loloma and works in stoneware and white earthenware clay, conducting classes and running a studio on the Cattaraugus Territory.
“Clay remembers everything,” he says. “Every touch, every hesitation. It is organic. It goes through you. It comes from the earth.” In Western New York, clay carries the memory of glacial lakebeds and centuries of Iroquois practice. Jones experiments with tempering, blending, and firing to honor traditional methods while making contemporary pottery.
Although not participating in the show this year, Jones reflects on the fragility of peace. Inspired by the Great Law of Peace, or Gayanashagowa, and the Two Row Wampum, which represent coexistence without domination, he reminds us that clay remembers — the question is whether we do.
On a quiet Sunday morning, Arihhonni David was playing bingo with his grandparents when I called. Warm, grounded, and easy to talk to, he carried a quiet intensity — the kind of focus that comes from knowing exactly why he creates.
Honni, as he goes by, is an Indigenous artist, storyteller, and published children’s book author from Akwesasne. His work moves between worlds, blending Haudenosaunee teachings with contemporary imagination, from children’s literature to fan art inspired by Star Wars.
David grew up in a community spanning the U.S.-Canada border, where language and tradition remain deeply rooted. “I don’t have ADHD,” he clarifies with a laugh. “I was just a hyperactive kid.” His father found a way to meet that energy — by putting on Star Wars.
“He knew I’d sit there for two hours,” David says. “I’d be completely locked in.” By fourteen, he wasn’t just watching stories — he was telling them, first through drawing, then through oration.
One of David’s most striking works is the Kanien’kehá:ka Mandalorian, a character that brings together the warrior traditions of his culture with the mythos of a galaxy far, far away. “I grew up with the old Mandalorian legends continuity,” he explains. “Boba Fett came from a warrior culture, a people defined by battle. They were a dying breed in some of those stories, shaped by their own history of conflict.”
At the center of his design is birch bark armor, used during early contact periods. Constructed from layered strips of bark, sometimes reinforced with wood or hide, it was designed to protect against arrows while allowing movement. David translates that logic into the Mandalorian form, blending ancestral technology with futuristic imagination.
Ronni Goeman’s relationship with black ash and sweetgrass began at her grandmother’s trading post in Onondaga. Basketry starts in the forest, where men cut the tree and women process the splints. Sweetgrass, braided and dried, preserves color and fragrance, adding ceremonial and symbolic power.
Goeman’s baskets record Haudenosaunee history and cosmology. Many pieces reflect alliances, confinement, the Doctrine of Discovery, residential schools, and epidemics. Collaborative work with her husband, sculptor Stonehorse Goeman, expands storytelling through carving and weaving.
Passing knowledge forward is central to her practice. “My daughter can make a basket now,” she says. Teaching younger generations ensures that tradition continues while each basket adds a new voice to a centuries-old conversation.
For Barry Powless, painting is a conversation with memory and unseen presences. An Eel Clan Onondaga raised on the Nation, Powless grew up surrounded by ceremony and the sacred medicine game, Deyhontsigwa’ehs. Primarily a portrait artist, he captures the individuality of Indigenous people while blending cultural symbolism and contemporary expression.
Even as he accepts commissions and exhibits at Ganondagan, his art begins in the same place: memory of his mother, teachings of community, and the quiet possibility that the next painting may be the one the spirit world has been waiting for.
Across mediums, the Ganondagan Art Show demonstrates that Haudenosaunee peace is not merely a concept but a lived, evolving practice. From portraiture to basketry, woodcarving to clay, each artist confronts memory and presence. Together, their work shows that peace is fragile, nurtured by attention, cultural continuity, and the dedication to carrying tradition forward.
In April, as visitors encounter these pieces, they witness more than art. They witness a dialogue between generations — a reminder that Haudenosaunee peace is made through practice, care, and the living presence of culture.
From Wednesday – Saturday | April 8 – 11, the juried Hodinöhsö:ni’ Art Show will be held at the Seneca Art & Culture Center.
