statement
The most significant question that has been asked of Native American-identified artists working today has been, “Is there ‘art’ in indigenous aesthetics?” A part of the answer to that question lies in the inverse notion. As a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara), I am familiar with the presence of settler technologies in “the everyday” where a constant flow of non-Native cultural ideas, including ideas about art, have endeavored to assimilate me. Fifty years ago (or the start of my parents’ generation,) the everyday included language barriers (inadequate translations of objects and ideas from English) and a profound disengagement with the outside world (accepting Christianity in public while continuing to observe traditional beliefs and practice them at home.) The key to understanding indigenous art forms is to realize that the source for all work stems from a range of collectively held traditions that often acknowledge the land (Leuthold, 1998).
In paraphrasing Leuthold (1998), I am trying to steer the conversation about Native American contemporary art away from the parallel discussion that other artists of color have when they talk about art. We are separate culturally and politically from all other groups and individuals because of the specific relationship that the tribes have had over time with the Federal government. The land where my parents grew up shaped their experiences as people and as a People. I realize that the art they produce on the reservation constitutes “handcrafts”; they use animal hair, quills, buckskin. As a thinker, my work negotiates the distinctions between the shared/common culture and the specific culture of cultural survival which is all that remains of us in the present day. I was taught by my parents that Native art production must uphold and acknowledge the sacred; in the common, shared culture, we are losing our relevance and presence. I am aware that in claiming Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara or Eastern Shoshone, I am making a political statement, but it is not “identity politics.” Indigenous identity in the United States is inherently political (see: “Indian Arts and Crafts Enforcement Act of 2000” and “Federally Recognized Tribes.”)
about untitled
My selection of imagery for these works acknowledges that as Native people, we have always been the subject of curiosity and “the gaze.” In most cases I try to deal with this displacement of desire by conflating the experience of growing up on the Reservation with the more common experience of being female (when the body itself is a visually pleasing object); a lingerie catalog is a source for the leg silhouettes. The origami paper I use is a compact, pseudo-cultural artifact inasmuch as my work becomes a cultural artifact (because it’s “Indian made.") It is not unusual for me to continue to add or take away from a work on paper over a span of weeks; whenever I make a move in ink, graphite or collage, I must counterbalance it or leave it to hang on its own. Negative space carries as much weight a solid, concrete object. A work is complete to me when it communicates enough silence and heaviness or lightness.