Holidays at the Heard

A cooking demonstration with a book at its center

The Blue Corn Kitchen Experience is more than a tasting: the 11 a.m. session on Monday, December 28, combines a cooking demonstration with a read-aloud and book signing. The museum lists blue-corn cookie samples, but says they are available only while supplies last.

Yazzie’s children’s cookbook, The Blue Corn Kitchen: A Navajo Story of Food, Family, and Tradition, was released in fall 2026. Originally from Northwest New Mexico and now based in Phoenix, she has developed recipes using Indigenous and Southwestern ingredients and led cooking demonstrations since 2020. The book follows her 2024 cookbook, The Modern Navajo Kitchen.

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Start with art on the grounds

Daily family art activities run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The museum also describes opportunities to make keepsakes and watch artists demonstrate their process, though it does not assign those activities additional times or name other demonstrators.

At 10:30 a.m. each day, Marcus Monenerkit, the Heard’s director of community engagement, leads an outdoor walk among sculptures and other artworks across the campus. It offers a way to explore the grounds before settling in for the changing courtyard program.

Further reading: Holidays at the Heard - Heard Museum - December 26, 2026Artboard ↗

Hoop dance, Apache instruments and Piipaash song

Saturday, December 26, pairs courtyard music by Navajo singer-songwriter Sydney Marian with the Yellowhouse Dancers, whose listed dances include hoop dance and fancy shawl dance. The museum says Marian’s influences include soul, jazz and R&B. Its biography identifies performer Lane Jensen with Navajo and Maricopa communities and describes his commitment to carrying forward his grandfather’s teachings.

Sunday, December 27, brings Randy Kemp’s acoustic guitar, flute responses and spoken-word poetry alongside two Yellow Bird Productions presentations. The museum identifies Kemp with the Choctaw, Euchee and Muscogee-Creek Nations. Yellow Bird Productions, directed by San Carlos Apache Tribe member Ken Duncan, is a Phoenix-based family dance company; the listed Apache instruments are river cane flute, violin and water drum, with Warrior Dance, Rainbow Dance, and Bow and Arrow Dance.

Pee-Posh Bird Singers & Dancers, from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, are also scheduled Sunday. The museum describes the group’s song and dance as sharing Piipaash community traditions.

Further reading: Holidays at the Heard - Heard Museum - December 26, 2026Artboard ↗

Slack-key guitar and hula close the run

Monday’s courtyard music comes from Moon Kahele, a Hawaiian solo artist who performs with ukulele or Ki Ho’alu slack-key guitar. His museum biography describes a repertoire of older hits and original songs. The set shares the day with Yazzie’s cooking and book program.

Navajo musician Tony Redhouse is scheduled for Tuesday, December 29. The day’s hula presentation is by Nā Maoli o Nā Moku, which describes its Arizona work as sharing Hawaiian culture and hula traditions and protocols.

Further reading: Holidays at the Heard - Heard Museum - December 26, 2026Artboard ↗

A gallery visit adds the trading-post story

The Heard’s exhibition Twilight: Trading Posts and Creative Legacies, on view through August 1, 2027, offers a deeper look at the relationship between trading posts and Native artists. In the early 20th century, that connection helped foster distinctive textile production, but individual weavers’ names and achievements were often eclipsed by the trading post identities associated with their work.

The exhibition traces how that relationship shifted as trading posts became less central to daily life on the Navajo and Hopi reservations and weavers increasingly presented their own artistic visions to wider markets. Navajo textiles are its primary focus, alongside pottery, jewelry and photography. The Heard identifies textiles by Diné artists Calvin Toney and Florence Riggs among the works on view.

Further reading: Twilight: Trading Posts and Creative Legacies - Heard MuseumArtboard ↗