Nice Southwest Artwork Framed Lithograph numbered 16/25, entitled "Dinetah" (meaning homeland of the Navajo tribe)--purchased in Albuquerque, NM from renowned anthropologist Trudy Griffin, 1980) many years ago and professionally framed. $60. (original cost $120 +$40 for frame)
Dimensions: 25" x 29" (height)
Trudy Griffin-Pierce was born December 27, 1949 in South Carolina to Ben and Trudy Griffin. Due to Ben Griffin’s career as an Air Force officer, she spent her childhood travelling including living in Florida, Hawaii, England and California. When she was 16 her mother died suddenly of an aneurysm which became a pivotal experience in her life. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida State University in printmaking and fine arts. While she was a student there she wrote to the Navajo Tribal Chairman asking if she could join a traditional Navajo family as a daughter. After spending time in Many Farms, Arizona with her Navajo family who she maintained a relationship with for the rest of her life, she returned to Florida to finish her degree. She returned to Arizona and enrolled at the University of Arizona as a graduate student in fine arts but switched to anthropology and earned a Master of Arts in museum studies in 1970. She worked as a curator at the Indian Pueblo Culture Center as well as at the Kitt Peak National Observatory museum. There she met Keith Pierce who she married in 1979. She returned to the University of Arizona and earned a doctorate in anthropology in 1987.
Dr. Griffin-Pierce specialized in medical anthropology and native cultures with projects. She was an adjunct lecturer at the University from 1988 to 2003, assistant professor of anthropology from 2003 to 2008 and gained tenure as an associate professor in 2008. She authored six books including Earth is my Mother, Sky is my Father: Space, Time and Astronomy in Navajo Sandpainting (1992), Native Americans: Enduring Culture and Traditions (1996), The Encyclopedia of Native America (1995), Native Peoples of the Southwest (2000) which won the Alice Logan Writing Award in 2000, Chiricahua Apache Enduring Power: Naiche’s Puberty Ceremony Paintings (2007) which won the Southern Anthropological Society’s James Mooney Award in 2008 and The Colombia Guide to American Indians of the Southwest (2010). Dr. Griffin-Pierce was also an artist and did much of the art work for her books herself. She died January 6, 2009.