Numbers and code. Something I always felt I struggles with because I was never good at math in all my years of schooling. It wasn’t until I was failing art that I leaned on and grasped the power of geometry and algebra with a teacher most of my peers saw as a difficult teacher.
Something about the idea of formulas and writing letters and high raised squares intrigued me. I learned the DOS program language when I was in 4th grade in a summer program that my grandmother signed me up for and the teacher of it gave me a coloring book about Northwest Coast Native art.
Her name, Jene Navarro. The book was mostly Alaska Native art as that was predominant for years and defined the Seattle and Tacoma region in the Pacific Northwest.
Years later I would find myself in the field of doing this as a profession but along the way I was always following technology and computers. My first of podcasts was Ken Ray and then Nosillacast and then the network that Leo Leporte built up of TWIT. In there I met heroes of a different field that people would assume that by my being Native American I wouldn’t glom onto. Whatever the reason it was meant to be that I was moved by these people and their devotion to tech and following it. They got me through dark times as a community of tech geeks.
I identified very much with Allison’s frustration of the common phrase “so easy your mother could do it” relating to understanding computers. Something about that stood out to me because I thought of that with the Geico ads of “so easy a caveman can do it”. My tie in is the perception that one size fits all. Judging a book by the cover. I realize I have a different life than most Natives but regardless I’ve tried to make the most of technology and math understanding worlds that are usually at odds.
As a Native I’m often told that “you’re not doing that right” or “that’s not the way your ancestors did this from what I read in books from school” and my all time favorite “your ancestors didn’t have steel”.
I think of the skit Dave Chappelle did about what he calls the three daves at different times in his life and his reactions in each. Not to give away his bit but I can say my interpretation.
When I was called out when I started out for using steel as tech I was diplomatic and apologetic. Years later I responded with a question “would you tell someone from Japan they have to dress in Kimono and be who you read about in books”? As the current state of things I share a response of why I regard my work as traditional innovation with this.
“Tradition has innovation built into itself to be adaptable. No different than a rising tide. Our ancestors lived with abundant resource and now we have to make the most of what we have, are you doing that for yourself”?”
I felt vindication when I watched the documentary Press, Play Pause when artist Bill Drummond talked about technology in music.
““(the) artist comes after the technology. The artist didn’t invent oil paint, the artist didn’t invent the moving camera (points at camera filming interview)… in that sense technology is great”.
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I’ve studies tool making under my mentors and methods standing on the shoulders of giants. I didn’t write the code or invent the shapes but I’ve taken the time to put them together to tell a story in some way I can make sense of. I don’t get it right out of the gate by any means but in my profession I treasure the old growth cedars that we make into art. The fur, feathers, shells all come together to move us to make song and dance a reality.
The combination of materials I use that are perceived as unconventional stem from a value of our traditions. Our values drive the traditions from the time we live in now only if we pay attention to them.
It wasn’t long ago that it was a common phrase “the only good Indian is a dead one”. It always puzzled me that with abundant resource we can’t find a way to exist with all there is.
The way I feel about things as of the current state is we are in a hard reboot that was needed.
I can say that I’m just as moved by the hard work of my ancestors as much as I am moved by the work of Allison Sheridan and Brianna Wu as much as I can love and be moved by Gregg Deal and Ryan Redcorn.
I may not have invented the steel I carve with or the code I write to make UV maps for my renders. It takes many arms reached out to tell a story and remix these things into something bigger than ourselves. I just want to take time to acknowledge the pieces atop my family that is a community that is global and far reaching because Chielf Seal although it be debatable said ‘all things are connected’ and it’s no coincidence that tech is based in the Pacific Northwest.
Today I use CAD as much as I can with Rhino, C4D, and sketchup to make the most of dwindling resources all the while working with engineers and architects to preserve story and the promise of a story where we aren’t just written into history as a side note but one that can see us people living alongside in the modern day protecting values of limited resources. Using the tools we have at the time we live in to be better.