Michael Kabotie

Michael Kabotie, also known as Lomawywesa (September 3, 1942 – October 23, 2009) was a Hopi silversmith, painter, sculptor, and poet. He is known for his petroglyph and geometric imagery.

Background Michael Kabotie was born September 3, 1942, in Shongopovi, Arizona to Alice Talayaonema, a traditional Hopi basket weaver, and the Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. He grew up in the village of Shongopavi and when the high school on the Hopi reservation closed, he moved and graduated from Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas in 1961. While in his junior year in high school, he was invited to spend the summer at the Southwest Indian Art Project at the University of Arizona, other participants included Fritz Scholder, Helen Hardin, Charles Loloma, and Joe Hererra (Hererra became a lifelong friend and a primary artistic mentor).

Kabotie inherited his mothers membership in the Snow Clan and he was initiated into the Hopi Wuwutsim Society in 1967.

His father Fred Kabotie helped develop many of the overlay techniques that have come to typify quality Hopi silverwork, and he learned these techniques as a teenager. He began to paint soon after high school and had a one-man show at the Heard Museum, soon after dropping out of University of Arizona engineering in 1966. After that, Lomawywesa painted, made jewelry, wrote poetry and essays, and lectured around the country. His paintings and silverwork have an organic graffiti-like quality with dynamic motion and symbolism, with a rich color palette on canvas and an added dimension when rendered in silver.

In his paintings, Lomawywesa combined traditional kiva murals, figures from Hopi oral history, motifs present in Pueblo Native basketry and embroidery, and contemporary elements of design. Compared to his father, who depicted ceremonies in his traditional work, Lomawywesa sought to illustrate the feeling, motion, and spirituality embedded within these ceremonies. Particularly interested in the Tricksters and Clowns of Hopi history, Lomawywesa thought it important to express their purpose of bringing about harmony through the exposure of human folly and imperfection.

Lomawywesa taught Hopi silversmithing for twenty-six years at Idyllwild Arts in California. Utilizing the techniques he practiced in his jewelry work, he designed the front gate for the Heard's Berlin Gallery and the Museum of Northern Arizona. and a musician.