Sentimental Values

Today I’m posting with heavy news that my studio had been broken into a couple weeks back. It lead to not only important items needed for the day to day operations but included sentimental items. I’ve been playing catch up to keep projects with crucial deadlines in priority and some have suffered along the way. Mainly printing as so much was taken from the office that I am working to replace still.

All that aside, I’m still working as I do with optimism and hope. I believe that the items taken were for survival of one kind or another in desperation in the times we’re living in. Far from being happy about it, this will take time to recover from but I believe in the people who support my work and those who have reached out during this time as snow covers the ground here on this Valentine’s day in the Pacific Northwest and across much of the country.

Earlier in the week the installation I had been commissioned for was installed and I managed to get video of it to share here. It accompanies work I had done for what seems like forever ago when we all went into lock down and riots took place in Downtown Seattle. The piece that went up depicts a wolf figure holding on to a clock that has the moon in place of the standard hands and numbers. A face looks down on the wolf that is holding the structure symbolic of both protector and watched over. Facing a light that comes directional from the waterline bouncing light onto the right side of his figure with the mountain as the backdrop tucked behind the trees.

As with anything of value, art takes time. I learned quickly with public art anything you see of significance went through a lot just to be in its place. For me with almost any project I’ve taken on it required new tools of some kind or at the very least the replacement of others whether it be brushes or even an outdated hard drive. With the items I’ve made by hand or even the skill I may have taken for granted they required time over money itself and are irreplaceable and valuable lessons within them are treasured experiences.

At the end of the day we’re all caught up at times in our day to day. In isolation which many of my fellow artists can relate is a part of our reality we make peace with early on. On one hand I get to meet a lot of new teams and learn their dynamics but few are long lasting but for clients, galleries and museum relationship or colleagues like anything those are crucial to keeping grounded.

When I started making Valentine’s prints with James Bender and Bruce Cook III years ago it was spontaneous and out of the love for making art and challenging one another to what we could make just to make something. My work with sculpture is informing my graphics and my graphics informed by the idea of light composition and in turn bouncing back and forth.

I’ve been asked many times over the years where ideas for my work come from and I honestly couldn’t point to one source. It’s a mixture of so many things whether it’s a movie or a song or remembering a walk I took when I was stuck from years prior that drifts back into my consciousness while I’m sitting at a table or driving on the freeway stuck in traffic.

In the case of my print I am releasing this year for Valentine’s day which will have to be delayed, it is ambiguous in character. I don’t know of any old story of Wolf and Hummingbird in particular. Regardless, I didn’t question the idea as it came across the paper. I included a sketch in the time lapse video where I thought I would make something dark and try to have empathy for a serpent figure and it wasn’t working and it ended up in an entirely different composition. The beauty of these projects that are outside of commissions holds the freedom to let something happen that I am not approaching with a set depiction or premise. What did stand out looking on it was the need to break the fourth wall of sorts and explore the depth and dimensional exploration that could still read overall and be true to the style of work that I’m finding myself work in now at this moment.

Happy Valentine’s day to you all.

Out of the Red into the Black

It took years for me to understand the term “black Friday”. Growing up Black was always ominous. Red equally so. Black as darkness, red as urgent and dangerous.

It was only years later when my father shared his explanation of a bigger picture about accounting that it made sense and for anyone who doesn’t know I’ll make it brief. Business in loss not making money are ‘in the red’ and those profiting are ‘in the black’.

I’m opening this post this way on premise of a crossroads of sorts.

On this day I want to share one of my early memories of witnessing a billboard sign that read "Letting an Indian Fish is like letting a fox in the Chicken Coup". Somewhere someone has got to have a photo of that. I remind my son that this time of year while we are a focus of inclusiveness we have been deemed villains for many years by no means of our own making. I feel if the phrase holds true 'survival of the fittest' , we are here because the land and values are a part of who we are. There was a time Uncle Reub shrugged off some of our people wearing gear from the army surplus although it he was proud. Our fisherman were warriors on the water for years while people cut up our nets and damaged boats. History doesn't lie and this day I ask my friends who follow my work it would not be possible without the efforts of my people where bullets flew overhead and rocks were thrown at men who were all within their right to provide for their families for survival.

I truly believe in alliance and the need for it in time where the word ‘tribal’ has become a negative phrase. It builds a narrative of negative response now and has for some time. Yet here we are advanced with technology like no other with means of communication separated from the very ground we stand on regardless of where we are. To quote the fictional character, Tyler Durden “the things you own, start to own you”. I think that’s how it goes.

I’m not big on politics because I feel it’s bigger than me but as an artist like a comedian I can have commentary so this is just that.

I’ve always admired the works of Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. With Rock, on his first album, when that was a thing noted in his bit about a comparison of fighters. That ‘the lower you are on the social latter, the better fighter you’ll be”. As they say ‘it’s funny because it’s true’.

When I was on a consulting job a pitch was made where a man got up to with his opening slide of his powerpoint in bold words stating “we are all immigrants here'“. To which I was shifting in my chair, this was in Tacoma the land of my people and this guy was from Philidelphia and non-Indigenous. Little did I know a fellow consultant chimed in to point out she was Indigenous. Much to my surprise she grilled this guy for saying what he did and outlined why to the table. I felt a relief because all eyes were on me because I was labelled coming in as the Native artist and she didn’t carry the label herself. I backed her up of course and I made an ally, not because we had gone into something with a plan but the very fact that our histories and identity would be overwritten as a script that fit a narrative.

There are people and there will always be people who want things to be as they were in the ‘good ole days’ when ‘fill in the blank’. The idea we are free of racism is a long way away and as Chappelle once stated, America has to have an honest discourse with itself. This is to me what I hear people talk about so often in the mainstream of pop culture when they hate Thanksgiving having to deal with relatives they don’t see. On the flip side of that Native people in our confined spaces have learned to make room for different personalities and deal with our differences. This isn’t to say it’s perfect because as a result of disconnection with our language and our practices have adapted.

Alcohol and drug use is a part as it is in any colonized people. It’s an escape and impoverished people all over know this.

I’m asked so often annually as I expect when Thanksgiving rolls around what I feel about it and I’ve grown from it not unlike Chappelle’s skit he talks about as the person he was at stages in his life.

When someone asked me about Thanksgiving in my teens I’d shrug it off because I didn’t think anyone would listen honestly.

When asked about it as a man in my twenties I was ranting and angry for what I couldn’t explain because I didn’t have the way in to explain how backwards the notion was.

As a father of a teen now I am writing this with hopes that my son won’t have to deal with the question in anguish.

The world is not black and white alone, it’s many things and America as we know it is a work in progress. There are so many things one could lose themselves in diving into rabbit holes. If this experiment is to work it means shying away from sweeping ‘dark’ history under the rug and having a willingness to acknowledge atrocity in order to move forward.

As I’ve said time and time again ‘consider what the phrase “land of opportunity” means from an Indigenous perspective’ I say this because I’m grateful that at a young age when I didn’t feel right not standing for the pledge of allegiance in elementary school because I was beat up and called ‘an Injun’ in my homeland that I had support of my grandmother along with a small group of friends who were from different ethnic backgrounds. It gave me hope in my small town as a possibility of what we are seeing unfold today as we acknowledge injustice and solidarity.

work in progress…

There will always be differences and one cannot out match the other on the side of who was slighted more because that’s equally unproductive.

What matters is communication and to acknowledge the land you stand on because it’s a foundation that grants you a place to be.

Returning to the lessons of my father if we are indeed looking to get out the red into the black there remains a lot to be accounted for.

Happy International Women's Day

So it's been quite some time and after a few people asking it's never a better time to start a blog than to get behind something dear to my heart. I love the women who have shaped my life in ways I can't even begin to understand but I will try in a brief post for this fine day.

Let's make no qualms with this posting, this is not a countdown in any particular order per say but more of a personal acknowledgment of women I have known and admire for their iniquities unto their own powerful senses that have captured my fascination and  admiration.

Barbara Earl Thomas

Barbara Earl Thomas is a visual artist, a writer, and a community activist with a longstanding record as an arts administrator. She has overseen programs for Seattle’s Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Bumbershoot a Seattle Arts Festival, and the Northwest African American Museum where she served as executive director from 2008-2013.

I met Barbara when she was a consulting artist to a small group of artists seeking know how of how to survive the business of art. She opened with a story as a child making art that made her grandmother smile which in turn made her feel good about herself and I was hooked. She was the first woman I met in the art world to mentor with absolute honesty about the day to day reality of being an artist for a profession and all it would entail. She and her work are both powerful as they are captivating.

Clarissa Rizal

Clarissa Rizal was an amazing artist who left us too soon. She was a member of the Tlingit weaving community apprentice of Jennie Thlunaut. Her work in woven material both customary in the way of Robes and regalia were and remain exceptional. Her fearlessness to explore her artistic creative appetite lead to great break throughs and I was ever so fortunate to learn from her openness about that creative process.

Her work is significant to the weaving community and her absence is very much felt in her recent passing but she serves undoubtedly as an inspiration in the legacy she left for us to learn from.

Ramona Bennett 

Ramona Bennett is a member of the Puyallup Tribe. She is one of many tribal members who collectively helped to ensure the rights that so many sacrificed their lives for. Ramona has been an activist for much of her life and a major spearhead in securing fishing rights for the Puget Sound tribes. She continues to be an instrumental figure including the recent need for awareness when it has come to #IdleNoMore and #NoDAPL. I had the pleasure to visit with her at an event hosted in Muckleshoot that acknowledged the warriors who fought to defend the territory and rights of our Native people in which she was acknowledged as a true bearer of the torch in keeping that alive.

Matika Wilbur

photo by Kevin Gradey

Matika, a Native American woman of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes (Washington), is unique as an artist and social documentarian in Indian Country- The insight, depth, and passion with which she explores the contemporary Native identity and experience are communicated through the impeccable artistry of each of her silver gelatin photographs.

I had the honor and privilege to create the logo for her 562 project that has gained world status acclaim. Her project has a goal to document all Native Nations of the United States in a collective that will give voice that Native people are very much a part of the modern world and will share their stories with a fellow Native citizen that will acknowledge them in a way that perhaps others could not and share that with the world.

susan point

For anyone who ventures or takes interest in Coast Salish art, it's understood it would not be where it is without her high driving ambition to create works of art that carry that heritage. Susan proved that carving is not strictly a mans arena but that she could really dig in and make waves.

arianna lauren

Founder of Quwutsun made Arianna has shown change starts by start up. Although it's only been a short time since she's launched her line of products she's made an impression in her community and has a promising future where the sky is the limit. She's modeled for various designers and continues to explore the creative fields of opportunity as a force of nature and ambition.

Mother, Aunties, sisters, cousins and grandmother

photo by Steven Miller

If there were a secret to my success in life and this career I have come into, it wasn't just hard work alone although that was a large part. I learned to work hard from the women who raised me. They have taught me all I know about love, life and forgiveness and understanding. I was blessed in this life to be born into a family and even more so a tribe of strong women leadership that goes back many generations. There are so many women in my family they all know who they are and I've grown up to see them become amazing mothers and at times still have the strength of our grandmother to call me out when I need to be brought in line with our teachings.

It's impossible to capture all the women who have changed the world and continue to so I can only share a snapshot before I lose your attention with what came to mind on this day in March 2017.