There’s a historic collection with sentimental value on display at Yoga Art Music.
Native American paintings and artifacts. Photo by Austin Wood.
The Lakeridge Village-based small business typically hosts new artistic exhibitions on a revolving basis every two months. Since Thanksgiving, the arrowheads, clubs and paintings on display have held a little more significance than most for owner and instructor Jade Johnson.
Her father, Monty Moore, spent much of his early life on a cattle ranch not far from Pecos in West Texas and her grandmother, Doris, was an avid painter of the surrounding landscape. That same landscape provided her son with a wealth of finds and, eventually, a budding passion.
“He bided his time finding (arrowheads) and things. Then he just discovered how much he loved, like, Native American things and the intrigue,” Johnson says. “So he collected all of these other things just throughout his travels. He didn’t dig them up.”
In addition to Native American artifacts, Moore also amassed artwork from Native and Southwestern-style artists over the years, winding up with a home collection of about 19 pieces all and all. Those pieces, including his childhood arrowhead collection, will be on display at YAM’s studio until mid-January.
Moore died in 2021 and Johnson was unable to hold a funeral at the time due to COVID-19 restrictions. The exhibition, she says, has offered her a chance for catharsis.
“So this was really important and maybe healing for me to showcase some stuff he loved, and the people listen like they’re genuinely interested.”
When it debuted on Thanksgiving, Johnson says she was worried about how it would be received.
“I loved the juxtaposition of in your face, here are artifacts from the natives on this day that we celebrate that,” But the students were really intrigued. I was a little hesitant, but they were really intrigued.”
The majority of the paintings and artifacts are for sale, with items like a Quanah Parker portrait and the arrowheads held back by Johnson. All proceeds will be donated in Moore’s name to two of his favorite charities: the First Nations Development Institute and Dallas Street Dog Associates.
For Johnson, while parting with the pieces might be hard, finding them new homes allows her father’s legacy to live on.
“It’s been really special. This is my community, this place,” Johnson says. “These are people that I can be vulnerable with, that they actually have been on my journey. I was a student, and then a teacher, and now an owner of the studio, all kind of in the process of when my dad died suddenly, to now, I want it to live on. I don’t want it to end up in a garage sale, and I don’t have room in my house.”
