Heard Museum hosts fashion show, new exhibit inspired by beloved Blue Bird Flour brand

This weekend, the Heard Museum is hosting a fashion show on Saturday — drawing inspiration from a bleached flour brand that has been used by tribes in the Southwest for nearly a century.

It’s also the subject of a new exhibit.

From kneading frybread and making tortillas atop the kitchen table to baking biscochitos in the oven, Indigenous cooks have relied on Blue Bird Flour in its iconic cotton bag since the 1930s. The Southwest staple brand from Cortez, Colorado, has now found space inside the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

“And I got to be able to expand and explore what that means to us — not only with cooking,” said Olivia Barney, who is Diné and the Heard collections coordinator. She’s also the curator behind this exhibit, where more than a dozen artists used flour sacks to make shirts, vests, totes and backpacks.

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Shirts and vests drawing inspiration from flour sacks shown inside the “Blue Bird” exhibit at the Heard Museum.

Gabriel Pietrorazio/KJZZ

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Tote bags made from flour sacks on display at the Heard Museum’s “Blue Bird” exhibit.

Gabriel Pietrorazio/KJZZ

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A hallway within the “Blue Bird” exhibit at the Heard Museum.

Gabriel Pietrorazio/KJZZ

She said resourcefulness is another takeaway. For Barney, this idea of not wasting anything is the common thread tying this entire exhibit together. “These are the rations, and this is what our ancestors used,” she explained.

When at least 10,000 Navajos were forced onto the Long Walk during the 1860s, they made the first frybread with flour from the U.S. Army. What helped some stave off starvation is now celebrated as a comfort food.

“You go to a powwow. You go to a cultural center. You go to any event. I mean, even your grandma’s kitchen,” added Barney, “and I even write that in the exhibit, you just know the flour will be there.”