Art/Design relationship continued…

 

 

Just like this trip to D.C., the new camera has been amazing.  Being able to study these incredible cultural objects and archival materials, and knowing that I have ethnic ties to the communities that produced them, has been… well… transformative.  That isn’t a word I use lightly and the last time I applied it to myself in the same way was when I attended a course at Pilchuck Glass School in the summer of 2008.  All of my arguments about the public roles of art and design aside, if I look at the evidence, I personally feel a much stronger pull towards being an artist than pursuing a traditional design career.  What does this mean?  It’s too early to say.  But it does give me something to focus on after graduation besides looking at grad school immediately. 

 

Yesterday I was roaming around on the Mall with all of the tourists and found it amusing that while they were so focused on photographing the various monuments, I was more fascinated by the textures on the ground.  What I love so much about the many Karuk artifacts is how much they are products of their environment, even when the materials used aren’t as traditional (i.e. thimbles and buttons on a skirt instead of shells and acorns).  Having had to give these presentations that were more focused on my art, I’ve realized that the common thread passing through much of my design and artwork is related to landscapes and the natural world.  Because of the time and culture I’ve been raised in, I interpret things differently than the people who made the objects I’ve been working with.  But, I do feel a certain kinship in that I like paying attention to the details of my environment.  And even here, in the nation’s capitol, I’m able to find these amazing landscapes just by being willing to look down at the ground beneath my feet.

NMAI Visit – Day Four

 

 

 

Another day of research!  I could easily spend the rest of the year (or the rest of my life?) investigating the collections and archives here at the Cultural Resource Center (CRC) and Museum Support Center (MSC).  I’ve also been really fascinated by the architecture of the museum (NMAI), and also of the CRC.  Above is the main entry rotunda at the CRC which is centered around four different quarters.  The center has a skylight above and also a small glass block section in the floor below which allows light to filter down into the library below. 

 

    

It was interesting that the CRC, which is an extension of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, had been built (in the 1990s) with such attention to detail in comparison with the adjacent MSC, which supports the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.  Not that the MSC is poorly built, but it had a much more “storage-like” feeling to it.  Is it a sense of national guilt that allowed the CRC to have a more “sensitive” structure?  The whole building is pretty cool and the roof structure incorporates a spiral based upon the golden ratio.  Compare all of these with a view of the interior of the MSC below, and you’ll see what I mean.  Well-built, but in more of a no-nonsense 1980s style.

 

NMAI Visit – Day Three

 

 

Today Jim Yellowhawk (Lakota—pictured above), a participant in the Artist Leadership Program, and I had to give two presentations, one to NMAI staff and another that was open to the public.  Luckily, since I hate public speaking, the public session was sparsely attended and most of the attendees were museum staff who didn’t make it to the earlier one.  The first presentation was in a really cool board room (pictured below) up on the top floor with a view of the Capitol building.  Also, before that session I got to have a conference call training session with a professional practices instructor at Columbia University that was really great.  The whole experience here has been invaluable and I’ve also made a lot of great connections!  Tomorrow, I’m going to be doing research in the collections at the Museum Support Center for the National Museum of Natural History in the morning and then I’ll be in the National Anthropological Archives in the afternoon.  Oh, and we’ll have to give another staff presentation at lunch.   

 

NMAI Visit – Day Two

 

 

This is an image of the collections room at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland.  I was working here all day yesterday and then again this morning.  (In the afternoon I got to work in the photo archives.)  There were tons of things to look at and I’ve got all sorts of photographs and notes so far.  Tomorrow I’ll be at the main museum building near the Capitol on the mall to do a training session in the morning and give a couple of presentations in the afternoon, one to museum staff and another that is open to the public. 

 

Some of my favorite Karuk objects I got to study were the strands of dentalium shells that were used as money.  When I first saw them I was really amazed because dentalium shells are usually white and these had all sorts of brilliant colors.  It turned out that some of them, especially the ones used as money, were adorned with snakeskin.  Some also have feathers and carving on them.  You can see in the image below what I’m talking about.  Also, they are about 2 inches long to give you a sense of scale.  For now, I’m off to bed to try and catch up on some sleep!

 

How I can tell I’m on the right track…

 
Today, out of nowhere, I decided I needed to e-mail artist/architect Alex Schweder, who I had been told by the SAM Native Arts Curator worked as part of a team on the recent Coast Salish show.  I figured since that memories of that show had been really pivotal for me in finding a direction for my thesis proposal, I ought to at least try to talk to someone who had worked on it!  Well… I got a reply along with a link to their website and an offer to speak by phone sometime in the future.  That right there was more than I’d been expecting and made me really happy!

 

But what truly sent me over the top was the publications section on their website with PDF articles on exactly the topics I’m wanting to work with!  It made me feel like an absolute nerd that I was so completely excited to find these academic readings, but also made me really glad I’d finally zoomed in on a topic that I’m really passionate about.  This is also especially helpful because I’ll have a focus while I’m in D.C. next week!  Can’t wait!

“Bringing artifacts to life!”

 

Last year, I assumed I already would have had my proposal for this spring’s thesis project worked out by now.  Things never seem to go as planned!  I’ve known for over a year that I wanted to work with some sort of Native American topic, but I just haven’t been able to narrow it down much further than that.  Today though, I had a breakthrough thanks to a conversation with one of my fellow interior design students.  (Thanks Jasmine!)

 

I’d initially thought that I was interested in looking at ways that cultural content are infused into buildings, but for some reason that topic hasn’t captured my attentions as fully as I’d expected.  I kept circling around ideas of working with art and museums without being able to land on anything that felt right.  Talking to Jasmine I was struck by inspiration to focus less on museum buildings and more on exhibits.  Although I love museums, there is always a part of me that feels slightly disturbed by how mausoleum-like they can feel.  One of the things that I really loved about the recent Coast Salish show at Seattle Art Museum was two parts that combined projected videos/images with larger objects.  It really made the objects come alive and gave them more context. 

 

So that’s where I’m at.  I’ve got a mission now, and it is all starting with a note I scribbled to myself this afternoon saying, “Bringing artifacts to life!”  

Self-Determination

 

One of my facebook contacts recently posted a link to a piece from RezNet about an article titled “Aboriginal Sin” by Jay Adler which appeared in the Jewish-based magazine, Tikkun.  I found myself pausing over the following sentence:

“Having grown up around African Americans in New York, he [Adler] had always appreciated their plight. But he also began to wonder why indigenous issues in America were never discussed on a national level the way black issues were.”

This came up again today when I was doing some reading for my online “Federal Indian Law & Policy” course.  This week we’re studying the time period from about 1945 (Termination) up to the present (Self-Determination).  I’m not sure how prevalent they were, but there was a brief period of time when the American Indian Movement caught the national spotlight, especially with the nineteen-month occupation of Alcaztraz Island from 1969-1971.  (As one of my readings stated: “The Alcatraz occupation drew wide public attention, and resulting support lasted several years.  Then in 1971, when federal officials found that public interest in Indian causes had waned, they quietly removed the demonstrators from the island.”)

Why is it that indigenous issues have been ignored on a national level for so long?  Was it due to a general fatigue about civil-rights issues in general?  Not that there isn’t the occasional bit of native news, however, many of (the few) native-related articles from the national media that I can recall have had negative connotations.  There have been articles about Indian casinos, an illegal Makah whale hunt, and a six-month old baby being taken from his adoptive parents and returned to the Ojibwe Tribe.  From the Alcatraz example, it seems apparent that public interest is closely tied to federal policy and actions, so I can’t see that the lack of national awareness about American Indians is a good thing.  As a potential solution, I’ll offer up another quote from one of my class readings called “Destination: Determination”…

“For the last 100 years of Indian policy in the United States, assimilation has crept into the actions of legislators.  It has become apparent that to achieve the type of society required for self-determination, the Indians of the United States will have to unite within tribal affiliations for a sense of identity to continue the society.  Along with the civil rights reform and education acts of the 1960’s and 1970’s, questions of economics and land holdings add to the list of concerns for American Indians in their quest for an identity as a nation.”     

‘By ceasing to live as their ancestors had done, they did not cease to be Indians’

 

The title quote above comes from William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, and was written in regard to the changing Native American (not sure which tribes specifically) relationship with the New England landscape.  I found it in a group of articles I was reading about actor Robert Beltran that discussed his switching from identifying as Mexican to Native after portraying Chakotay on the Star Trek: Voyager series, as well as the fictional South American tribe that was created which his character belonged to.  The quote has been rolling around in my head and I really believe that it has a lot of validity in terms of how the dominant culture likes to stereotype Native Americans and relegate them to a place in history (versus members of the present day). 

 

  

 

Now, you may be wondering what a picture of Rue McClanahan (as Blanch Devereaux on The Golden Girls) dressed up as a cowgirl is doing here.  Lately, I’ve been watching DVDs of The Golden Girls, which was a show I used to watch regularly when I was much younger and stayed over with a grandmother figure who passed away recently.  As a child I always thought Blanche looked somehow “different” physically, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was.  I knew it had to do with her facial structure, but last week I finally discovered what it was: according to her autobiography, Rue McClanahan’s great-grandfather was Choctaw.  (A quote from the book says: “We used to say chi-hullo-li, which means "I love you" in Choctaw.”) It all suddenly clicked!  Growing up adopted by white parents, I was aware of my mixed ethnicity but also could “pass” as white enough that I never really thought about it until I got older and people would occasionally comment on my “flat” face.  The physical characteristics that sparked my curiosity about McClanahan as a child was actually something that we shared.

 

How does the quote tie into this?  Well, Rue is biologically part Indian, and was raised with at least some awareness of Choctaw language and culture.  Even if she ended up moving from Oklahoma to New York and pursuing an acting career, that doesn’t make (at least some of) her any less Indian, does it?  Or what about Sherman Alexie?  He’s a full-blooded Spokane Indian who grew up on the reservation.  Just because he now is a well-known author and lives in an urban city, does it make him “cease to be” Indian?  It is common (and easy) for non-natives to describe what it means to be an Indian, but it doesn’t allow the people they are describing to be active participants in the dialogue.  There is no one right way to “be” an Indian considering the large number of distinct tribes in the U.S. (530 +), the combination of ethnicities as cultures and genetics mix, and the many ways that native people choose to self-identify.  There is no going back to the ways of life before European settlement of this continent, so why are Native Americans so frequently told—by whites and other natives alike—that this is what they must do in order to be “authentic?’           

Quileute Tribe vs. Twilight Franchise

 

I did get a chance to meet with the Native Arts curator at Seattle Art Museum and one of the topics that came up was the Quileute Tribe and the impact that the Twilight series is having, especially the many stereotypes that are being trotted out for the movies.  I was looking online to find out some more about the issues surrounding this and much of it has to do with the casting of non-native actors in native roles.  The most notable, of course, is Taylor Lautner, who according to Wikipedia actually does have some native ancestry on this mother’s side (although there is no confirmation of this fact anywhere else that I’ve found).  As a work of fiction, it certainly is acceptable for an author to combine whatever elements they choose, but I do believe that it is best to be respectful when using important legends from other cultures unless the goal is satire.  Although I haven’t read the books or seen the first movie, the materials I have been exposed to don’t impress me very much.   Weaving Quileute traditions of having been descended from wolves into a contemporary vampire novel doesn’t really sound respectful, it sounds like the typical romanticism and objectification towards American Indians that has been taking place for decades, if not centuries.  For instance, look at the following images:

 

 

I’m not sure if the first image is actual advertising or a fan-made image, but the second one showed up quite a bit and seems to be an official image for the latest movie coming out this fall.  The first image has all of the guys together as an apparent “wolf pack” along with a token beautiful Indian maiden (you can tell by her choker) up in the corner.  The words “Tribe. Pack. Family.” of course only furthers the notion of Indians as primitives or animals.  In the second image, it seems to me that they are capitalizing on the exotic qualities of the stereotypical “Native American warrior” with all of the shirtlessness.  (Although to be fair, Hollywood seems to treat most of its young and attractive people this way, no matter their supposed race.)  I also question the “native” marketing since I highly doubt that the Quileute Tribe will see any benefits from the appropriation and modification of their traditional legends.

 

A page at The Deadbolt contained a narrative titled “Native American Twilight Lore and New Moon Quileute Legends” that starts out with the following sentence:  “Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga has introduced a deep historical layer of Native American history into her popular series of Twilight novels by delicately mixing fact and fiction.”  It goes on to talk about the saga and the actors in the films, and in the closing paragraph it says, “Since Stephenie Meyer has created a new awareness concerning Native American culture, Twilight and New Moon have turned a bright spotlight on the many rich and deeply intriguing legends that have existed long before European vampires first settled on the shores of North America.”  I question whether the Twilight books actually explore any sort of “deep historical layer” in regards to the Quileute Tribe or whether the “bright spotlight” currently on native legends is actually welcome.  The piece itself isn’t particularly well-thought or argued, but what strikes me is that this may well be the prevalent American attitude towards the Twilight series. 

 

It is easy to dismiss the stereotypes in fictional novels and movies as harmless, but considering the broad audience that these stories have been able to reach, won’t they have a lasting and far-reaching effect?      

Musings on the art/design relationship…

 

As a design student at an art school, I’ve been thinking about \my experiences as an artist and a designer, and I find it a little strange that artists are often encouraged to design things while designers are rarely given the opportunity to create art.  Why is this? 

 

The word “design”–coming from the Italian “designo”–has roots that are much more complex than most people are aware of.   A website for a program through West Virginia University says, “Late in the sixteenth century, the Italian artist and writer Frederico Zuccaro, promoting the idea that the artist was divinely inspired, asserted that the etymology of the word disegno was segno di dio in noi (“the sign of God in us”).”  The 12th edition of Gardner’s Art Through the Ages states that, “The term disegno also referred to design, an integral component of good art.”  Given all of this, I wonder how a general divide between artists and designers has come to exist?  I suspect that money, being the “root of all evil,” is likely to blame. 

 

As an example from my own experience, there has been little, if any, collaboration between the art and design departments at Cornish in the past three years I’ve been there.  Is it a case of one department feeling threatened by the other?  When I was attending a summer session at Pilchuck Glass School in 2008, there were a couple of students in my class from Europe and I specifically recall them saying two things:  firstly, that art was much more important in Europe than in America from what they could tell; and secondly, that artists were held in higher esteem than designers.  I agree that there were some differences in our training that became quite evident at Pilchuck.  Everyone there was so used to making things while my portfolio was more focused on conceptual projects.  But, the common thread between really great art and really great design seems not to be so much about how it is made or who makes it, but the idea that the piece ultimately represents.      

 

Trying to tie this in with my Native American research, I ended up thinking about the many indigenous artifacts that are on display in museums.  I believe that many of these objects have more in common with design than to our modern notions of art since they often had specific functional uses.  Yet, since most of us are unable to understand the context in which they were used and the objects become “exotic” or “historical” when placed in a contemporary setting, they are suddenly viewed as art.  In fact, these types of objects have had a huge impact on the Western art tradition!  Consider an iconic work like Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (image below) that was directly inspired from his visits to exhibits of African masks.  It was the “otherness” of those masks that inspired Picasso and that made this painting so daring in Paris in 1907 that (according to Gardners) for years he would only show it to other painters.  He explained it by saying:  “I paint forms as I think them, not as I see them."  Perhaps this is what is occurring within many indigenous patterns and motifs?  They are not so much a representation of something as they are a way of thinking–an alternate way to view the world.