“My mom is like, ’You need to clean up your mess! I’m stepping on beads all the time!’” This is what Jontay Kahm says life is like for his mother, when her adult son — who happens to be a futuristic fashion designer — visits during the summer from New York and uses her Albuquerque home as his personal studio. Kahm (Plains Cree) is a 28-year-old creative phenomenon originally from Saskatchewan. The Institute of American Indian Arts BFA graduate and current MFA candidate at Parsons School of Design in New York is the son of late abstract painter and IAIA professor Jeff Kahm, who died two years ago.
He is also the son of a very patient mother. Kahm returns Sunday, August 18, to the SWAIA fashion events at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center to present his second collection, Ethereal Realms . He will also take part in a two-artist panel with Kent Monkman (Cree), a legendary artist from Canada.
Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation), SWAIA’s Fashion Coordinator and faculty member in the Art History Department at IAIA who introduced Kahm and her other students to Monkman’s work — will moderate the conversation. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 1 and Vol.
2 — A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island by Kent Monkman and Gisèle Gordon; Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart); November 2023; 264 pages. Monkman is a painter and performance artist best known for his gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, whom Monkman inserts into paintings of historical scenes, bringing a different spin to North American and Western European art history. His paintings — often executed in a modern take on the Neoclassic style favored in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries — feature Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in the middle, prompting viewers to ponder what gets written as history and what falls into oblivion.
Monkman’s works are part of public collections on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Met in New York to the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the National Gallery of Canada. Surprisingly, the Toronto- and New York-based artist isn’t well known in the U.S.
outside of elite art circles. No wonder, Bear Robe says. “Indigenous representation in the United States is at least 20 years behind Canada,” she says.
“There’s this view here that there’s a vast, open, uninhabited landscape across North America. Here, Native Americans are not even seen as a demographic on forms. Back in Canada, Kent is inserting the Indigenous dialogue that’s been missing.
He’s inserting that intervention into a history that’s been intentionally voided and ignored.” Kahm is still pinching himself. “Kent’s the one who wanted to do this,” he says.
“All my art friends were like, ‘You’re talking with Kent Monkman?’ And all my fashion friends, they don’t know who he is. But it’s such a wonderful symbiosis of art and fashion together.” Critics and fashionistas are eager to see where this weekend’s two events — his conversation with Monkman and his second fashion collection — will take Kahm next.
This might be a turning point for the rising designer, and Pasatiempo grasped this fleeting moment to ask Kahm about his experiences and plans for the future. That’s the music video that changed my life, that opened up a world for me that I had no idea existed as I was growing up in Saskatchewan. The internet became more accessible then, too, and music videos were accessible, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” .
.. It really opened up a whole new world: to Lady Gaga and her team, and to her music videos, her style, her message, and her collaborations with designers like Alexander McQueen.
And to Lady Gaga wearing the most extravagant stuff. SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market 2024 fashion events Sunday, August 18 Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 W. Marcy Street Art and Fashion Talk: 11 a.
m.; $25 VIP Fashion Show Pre-Party: 1:30 p.m.
; Admission available only for first- and second-row guests Santa Fe Indian Market Indigenous Fashion Show: 3 p.m.; $25 to $500 swaia.
org I always knew that I was going to be an artist, because my dad, Jeff Kahm, was an artist. But when fashion came into the picture, that’s when I knew what I really wanted to do. I could visualize these McQueen pieces in my head so clearly, and I knew how they were constructed without even having taken a lesson.
Without those instructions on how to make a garment, I just knew how it was made. He was a professional artist, and he guided me. He wanted me to have my own path, but he also wanted me to be like an artist-artist.
But I said, “No, this is not really my thing. I can’t really draw. I can’t really paint.
” So he was excited for me when I told him I wanted to be a fashion designer. He said, “Oh, this is amazing. Let’s look up schools.
” So we started looking up schools, like Parsons. He said, “This is a really good one. We’ll get back to that.
” And 10 years later, we toured Parsons together, and now I’m taking my master’s at Parsons. It’s a full circle moment. He also told me that education was important.
He instilled in me that getting a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree would open doors for you. And I’m experiencing that right now. I’m in the middle of my master’s program, and it’s already opening up so many doors.
That’s another thing that dad would say: that your gift will make room for you. ..
. Once I found that passion, that career choice, my trade, my practice — fashion design — life became easier, because my creativity was there and everything was there for me inside me to make dresses, pieces. And Parsons is any fashion kid’s dream school.
To be asked to apply to their MFA program while you’re still getting your BFA, that’s something that only God can do. And that path opened up for me, to go to Parsons and with a full ride. Another open door.
Like, this stuff just happens on its own. Heck, yeah. That “glue and prayer” was art school talking.
When I went to IAIA, they didn’t have a full fashion program, but they still let me do a whole fashion collection for my senior thesis. And it all took off from there for me. But now I’ve got to take fashion technique more seriously.
This new collection, Ethereal Realms , that I’ll be presenting on Sunday, it has a lot of separates, meaning skirts, tops, coats, jackets, but also solid dress pieces. Last year, I had mainly only solid dress pieces. Oh, gosh.
The aesthetic that I came out with from my BFA was a lot of feathers, ribbons, and color. So I have an identifiable aesthetic, which is valuable for a fashion designer. But I need to also not pigeonhole myself, or hold myself to this one aesthetic.
Christian Allaire from Vogue gave me really valuable advice and said that I should use different materials, to branch out into different materials. So that’s where the pony beads come in this season, and faux fur, and gosh, what else am I using? Lots of beading. My poor mom.
It’s very heavily beaded. These dresses are very extravagant and very beautiful, I might add. But I don’t want to talk too much about it, if it doesn’t live up to expectations.
I’d rather have people see it..
