This Thanksgiving, how about we Americans show gratitude for the Native Americans who originally presided over our country. November is National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month, so this may be the time to make a pilgrimage to art museums showcasing Indian work.

John Grimes, former director of the Institute of American Indian Arts, one of the finest institutions in the US, sought to infuse the art world with a new vocabulary “based on global experience rather than Western ideals and history.”

The Smithsonian opened a new building on the Mall in Washington in 2004 to house the National Museum of the American Indian. In its first year in that location, the museum, which has branches in Manhattan and Maryland, was visited by more than three million people. Its collection of 800,000 artworks and artifacts from the Americas is an astonishing presentation of Native cultures.

As W. Richard West Jr., director of the museum and a man of Cheyenne and Arapaho lineage, said, “We are an institution of living cultures, not a museum of dying cultures.”

Here are his choices for the five museums with the best Native collections in the U.S.

The Heard Museum
Phoenix, Arizona

This center for contemporary Native American fine art boasts more than 35,000 pieces. Exhibits at the Heard have included the Celebration of Basket Weaving and Native Food Festivals, where top chefs demonstrate contemporary and traditional recipes. The online museum store offers Indian rugs, art, pottery, etc.

National Museum of the American Indian
Washington D.C.

I’ve been a Sixties girl all my life. I started out as an artsy teen- about-town at Parsons School of Design during the actual era, and quickly adopted the bangs and straight hair look I’ve had ever since. Nothing makes me happier than tights and flats, eyeliner and beige lipstick, and of course minis (the skirts and Coopers) and bangs.

As an adult woman, my long eye-grazing fringe has evolved from being my security blanket to my signature; but what I love most now are the camouflage benefits. So do a long list of my girlfriends aged 40+ who also vow never to let their bangs grow out. The group consensus is if we never do Botox again, no one will ever know.

Bangs accent your eyes and do make you look younger. They dress up your face when the rest of your hair is back in a ponytail and hide bad skimpy eyebrows too (so cross that off your worry list too!).

Bangs with a slightly layered bob are actually a very classic Coco Chanel kind of look. They happen to be the hottest hair trend at every age with fans ranging from Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to Katie Holmes. Bangs look equally great on mothers and daughters like Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson.

Some men (including all of my exes) do this ‘brushing-the-hair-out-of-your-eyes’ gesture that is so annoying to women with a fringe. My husband Robert, on the other hand, panics if I pull my bangs back with a hairband during humid frizzy weather.

“Where are your bangs? I love those bangs! I married you for those bangs!” is his opening line on those mornings.

In the early days of our relationship I found beach holidays and showering together a little inhibiting because of this, but now I just laugh.