DELBRIDGE HONANIE (COOCHSIWUKIOMA)

– DELBRIDGE HONANIE (COOCHSIWUKIOMA) –

Hopi, 1946—

Delbridge Honanie was born in January 1946 in Winslow, Arizona.  He received his early education on the Hopi Reservation and in 1968 graduated from the Phoenix Indian School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school.  While in Phoenix, Honanie studied painting under Winton Coles and upon graduation entered the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.  At the Institute Delbridge studied with Otellie Loloma, a well-known Hopi artist and teacher.  In 1970, after receiving his diploma from the Institute of American Indian, Honanie returned to Phoenix, where he worked as an arts and crafts instructor at the Phoenix Indian School.

Delbridge Honanie exhibited his work in museums and galleries throughout the United States and entered and won many Indian art competitions.  In 1968, while studying in Phoenix, he won a student award at the Scottsdale National Indian Art Show.  In 1969 he won the “Discover America” poster contest and his winning entry, Two Shalakos, was reproduced as a poster.  In 1970 Honanie won several awards at the Heard Museum National Art Show, and in 1975 he won the Swazo Memorial Award at the Heard Museum.

In 1972 Honanie returned to the Hopi villages to be initiated into the Men’s Society.  At this time, he received his manhood name, Coochsiwukioma, which means “falling snow.”  Honanie was a member of the Bear Clan, the spiritual leaders of the Hopi people.

In 1973 Honanie joined the Artist Hopid.  In addition to his work on the Hopi Ceremonial Calendar mural, he painted a mural in the Academic Building on the Institute of American Indian Art campus and a mural in a building on the Arizona State University campus.”  Hopi Painting The World of the Hopis by Patricia Broder (1978)