There is a recent podcast I did with Allison Sheridan about my experience and challenges as a Native American making art under the pressure of ideals that require in many instances, tradition.
I should say here that it’s no secret that I am a tech nerd and have been for years. Even so I did grow up on a reservation that is somewhat unique where we as Puyallup people did stand our ground and were able to retain a large part of our lands during ‘expansion’.
It was my nieces brithday party when I was thinking about this idea that had been running through my mind for years and to share with you what an artist mind is like here it goes.
I don’t know what it’s like to think outside my own head and so I think of myself as ‘normal’ and it’s only by my interaction with everyone to realize “I’m not”.
I guess it’s why I gravitated towards Temple Grandin when I saw a movie trailer about her and patterns. At the same time I love music and I feel the importance of it to communicate what we can’t say in words always or in combination of it with resonance.
You might ask why I’d open with an image of canoes with lines taking Temple as a figure of interest. It’s stemmed from thinking different. Different in that I’m not pretending to write things from a way I think people want but from a perspective I should just say inspired from sources like Allison who once, in my poor translation said it was her time to share a message with tech people what would make friends at parties bore to death. This in itself is a beauty to know a world exists where people can share ideas and passion for things in like mind. At the same time I hope a world exists for dialogue of differences.
In my small world I learned about formline art as an expression of making art as an Indigenous person. In time I learned a vast language (visually) about the power of image. In that I look back now as a sculptor the power of my first lesson of making a simple spoon.
In that spoon it was modeled after ones my ancestors made.
This is where art and form vs function have odds at each-other.
I was thinking about how form and function again are a thing and that idea that something someone uses in the modern day is perceived in America as their property but there are so many legal battles of them whether tech or intellectual properties.
In the meantime as the 1 percent of a population we get to see this all play out and be vilified but get push back.
What I can say is I’m inspired by artists of my region like Alison Bremner and Sonny Assu who venture uncharted waters with the power of a visual language that forges a path for the bleeding edge or our small side of the art world to be heard and seen.
Few people have inspired me as much as my relation in art and her powerful paintings. A capture of our traditions and values and emotions all in visuals.
Malynn Foster is as much an inspiration to me as was George David (Nuu-chah-nulth) . A sister who stood with me in the shadows when our art and culture were looked down on for it’s value of message. This life is not monetary. There is nothing would trade in the world for making my first spoon I carved gifted to my aunt when she smiled knowing I did the work.
You can’t manufacture this craft but you can send a message that resonates beyond that.
I didn’t choose this life, this life chose me and I am rewarded by these crossed paths everyday because life is fleeting.
Karen Reed woven coffee cup cover
In words of “Lock Shot” we Natives were always modern. Roots underground grow up and tie together.