photo by: Contributed

Marilyn Russell, a former library director at Haskell Indian Nations University, holds the Distinguished Service Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America. Russell was honored with the award last month in Mexico City.

Marilyn Russell is just the 32nd recipient of the highest honor bestowed by the Art Libraries Society of North America, but she can count herself among even more elite company in that already top-notch group.

Though Russell, a former library director at Haskell Indian Nations University, had been retired for about a decade, she received the society’s Distinguished Service Award last month in Mexico City. The award recognizes an individual whose exemplary service in art librarianship, visual resources curatorship or a related field has made an outstanding contribution to art information. The society is composed of nearly 1,000 individuals across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Russell’s career spanned 45 years and included positions as an artist, teacher, art librarian and library director at various universities and other institutions throughout the Kansas City area, plus Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Duluth, Minnesota. She told the Journal-World that typically, the award goes to someone who is active in the field, not a retiree. But perhaps the highest honor, she said, is that she is the first Indigenous honoree in the award’s history.

“To be quite truthful, it came as a big surprise because I’ve been retired from the library world since 2013,” Russell said. “… I was quite surprised and humbled and honored to get the award.”

Russell, who turns 87 in July, holds her heritage as a member of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe close to her heart. She’s spent most of her life living in Kansas City and Lawrence, though, so a return to Minnesota to work as the fine arts and humanities librarian at the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 1991 was “meaningful.”

“I really enjoyed the opportunity, because that’s when I first became involved with Indigenous students and people that were from my tribe,” Russell said. “… It opened many, many doors.”

photo by: Contributed

Marilyn Russell, a former library director at Haskell Indian Nations University, holds the Distinguished Service Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America. Russell was honored with the award last month in Mexico City.

She said one of those doors, eventually, was coming to Haskell. Russell worked at Haskell from 2007 until she retired in 2016 at 80 years old. An old colleague, longtime Haskell professor Daniel Wildcat, was even instrumental in Russell’s receipt of the Distinguished Service Award; he wrote a letter of support for her nomination.

Russell spent the last few years of her career at Haskell teaching. She taught courses throughout the entirety of her career, in fact, in areas like Native American studies and Native art history.

That, along with her previous job as director of library programs at Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts, was an especially great opportunity to connect with Indigenous students, she said. That wasn’t as easy at the university in Minnesota or at a previous job at Johnson County Community College, where there weren’t many Indigenous students or staff members.

“The last two library jobs I had working at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence were tremendous jobs,” Russell said. “They were hard jobs because I was a director and I supervised staff, which is different than just being an art librarian, but I really enjoyed the opportunity to work with (Native students).”

On top of it all, Russell has also been an artist since her teens. She’s a painter, and painting is another subject she taught college students over the years.

photo by: Contributed

Marilyn Russell has been an artist since her teens. Most of the works she creates are watercolor paintings.

photo by: Contributed

Marilyn Russell has been an artist since her teens. Most of the works she creates are watercolor paintings.

She’s still making art, in fact. Russell is preparing for an art show in Santa Fe in August, when her watercolor paintings will be on display. Retirement means there’s been more time to paint.

And there’s also been time to reflect on a fruitful career. Looking back, Russell said she’s happy with the work she did over the years and has a lot of gratitude for the opportunities she has had.

“I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to work at the places I’ve worked and been able to also collaborate and teach Indigenous and Native kids from all over,” Russell said. “It’s been a real treat for me, and I’ve remained friends with many of them throughout the years, which is nice.”