Bold designs in reds, browns, whites and blacks expertly woven into textiles and carefully painted on pottery greet visitors to the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the campus of Kansas State University.  Earth and Loom: A Century of Native American Art from the Collection of Dennis and Carola Deschner highlights a Phillipsburg, Kansas couple’s collection that will eventually become part of the Beach Museum’s permanent holdings. On display through December 21, the exhibition contains over 45 objects dating from the late 19th to early 21st centuries.

The spectrum from traditional to relatively-contemporary types of Native American pottery is represented in the show, which includes polychromed, carved and burnished vessels. Among the 24 pots exhibited in the show are pieces made by famous pueblo potters Maria and Julian Martinez and Fannie Nampeyo. One of the most eye-catching pieces is a red-and-buff vase made by Vangie Tafoya in 2000.  Carved and burnished before it was fired, its surface features red smooth, glossy raised figures on a rougher white undersurface.

A more traditional-looking polychrome jar by Sofia Medina was made in the early 1960s. This large, painted piece has a bird and flowers on its light yellow surface.

A geometric piece made by Corrine Chino in the 20th century also resembles traditional pieces. A maze of lines, white at the bottom and red at the middle of the pot, decorates the majority of the surface while white feather-like objects adorn the top of the vessel.

Flanking the exhibition’s display cases are a variety of woven textiles. Originally used as clothing, such weavings were by the 20th century made solely as art forms. Among the earliest of the textiles on display is a Navajo woman’s half dress dating to 1870. A symmetrical, red-and-black piece, the garment is simple in design in keeping with its utilitarian purpose.

In contrast, a 1955 pictorial weaving of a landscape by Betty Begay appears more colorful and elaborate. The weaving depicts a contemporary Native American home, landscape, and animals.

Interestingly, a geometric weaving made by Nez Ettsety in 1950, which consists of a repeated image of a cube, reflects the influence of a non-Native American quilt pattern known as the “falling block.” The profound simplicity and symmetry of the weaving hypnotizes its viewers.

Leaving Earth and Loom, one feels as if he or she has visited the Southwestern United States. The warm, earthy reds and browns as well as geometric patterns and ornately-carved vessels remain fixed in visitors’ minds. If the point of an art exhibition is to create an atmosphere around the viewer, then Earth and Loom succeeds.