ANCESTRAL
VISIONS: CONTEMPORARY VOICES
Responses
by students in Art/Ethnic Studies 362: Native American Art, Spring 2013
KYLE BELL
The artist that stood out to me the most in the gallery was Jason
Garcia. Mr. Garcia is Tewa, from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. He creates
his art from the clay of his local town. Buckingham U. Badger-Bucky Badger
is a hand processed clay tile, with mineral pigments used for color, created in
2013. The approximate size is 9” L x 6 3/4” W. Mr. Garcia is currently living
in Madison, Wisconsin and is a graduate student in the Art Department at the
University of Wisconsin. I chose to write about this piece of art because it
directly ties to the Madison area and many themes that have been discussed in this
art class.
I was lucky
enough to meet Mr. Garcia when he visited our class to talk about his art. It
was during this time when I learned that the badger is a sacred animal in Tewa
culture. Mr. Garcia feels a special connection between himself and these
animals. It was also very interesting that the school he is attending (the
University of Wisconsin) uses the badger as their mascot. Mr. Garcia is
relating the Madison culture with his own personal experiences as a Tewa person
in his art work. In Mr. Garcia’s work of art you can clearly see the badger
mascot standing in front of a typical University of Wisconsin building in the
background. What makes this work stand out is the attention to detail presented
in the Native symbols. Bucky is holding a bow and sporting other Native
American clothing items such as a green arm band, head feather, and a sash. The
clothing Bucky is dressed in comes from Tewa culture. Another very important
symbol that is depicted in the art is the Tewa rain cloud at the top of the tile.
Mr. Garcia explained the significance of the rain cloud to the Tewa people
because of the dry climate they live in. He also considers the rain cloud as
his signature on his art work.
It is my opinion
that Mr. Garcia’s art fits the theme of Ancestral
Visions: Contemporary Voices perfectly. By using the U.W. mascot of a
badger, Mr. Garcia is taking a very common symbol for people in Wisconsin and
adding the important influences of his own culture. The addition of these
important personal and tribal items into the art allow for the “ancestral
voices” to be heard through the contemporary imagery that we associate with the
University of Wisconsin.
CRAIG CLEMENS
When I visited
the exhibit Ancestral Visions: Contemporary Voices I found one piece
which intrigued me more than the others. The piece was Tee Joopeja
maawowagax, a mixed-media installation made in 2013 by Henry Payer of the
Winnebago tribe, from Nebraska. I found this piece to be the most engaging of
the pieces which were present at the exhibition.
Henry Prayer,
being Winnebago, has roots in the Madison area. The Winnebago tribe is native
to this area but was displaced to Nebraska. Even being displaced, Henry Payer
still feels a connection to the Madison area and its land features. He shows
this in his piece by displaying the topography of the area. Also included in
the piece is the Madison lake chain, shown in relief. The relief brings the
visitor’s view towards the lakes which are an important part of Native life.
Even the choice
of the map show a connection with ancestors as it is dated almost a hundred
years ago. This also shows how the landscape has changed since the time it was
produced. On the map, many of the land plots are partitioned off to various
land owners in sections of over 100 acres. Today these portions of the land are
much more divided among landowners as the property values have risen.
The choice of
using Madison phone books is another intriguing aspect of the piece. The phone
books are very contemporary, in contrast to the ancestral meaning of the piece.
The names which are contained in the phone books are the names of the people
who are current residents of Madison. This also leads the visitor to draw
comparisons to those who have lived in the area before.
Overall, this is
a thoughtful and engaging piece which leads the visitor to new thoughts of what
the Madison area has meant to its inhabitants over time. It also brings forth
the question of what the Madison area will mean to its future inhabitants.
ALLISON CROOK
After viewing Ancestral Visions: Contemporary
Voices, I chose to write about Jennifer Stevens and her work. I was
inspired by her pieces and her Iroquois style of pottery-making. One of my
favorite things that I have learned in this class is the different types of
Native American pottery. What I liked best about Stevens’s work is that the
pieces were different from most of the pottery we have viewed so far. The
majority of the ceramic pots we have seen, mostly from the Southwest, have
geometric shapes and lines and certain patterns painted on them. Each of
Stevens’s pots has one or two figures carved into the clay: turtles, on Mother’s
Honor, made in 2002, and Turtle Island, made in 2012. Another image
she used was corn stalks, as in Harvest Bowl and Renew, both made
in 2012.
Jennifer Stevens’ background story is what interested
me the most. Stevens is from Green Bay, and she trained to be an opera singer.
Her Oneida name is Wakohsiyo, meaning “Peacock.” She learned from a master
Iroquois potter and learned the traditions that had been lost. Stevens hand
builds her pots with coils and uses a paddle. I thought that this was quite
interesting because when I was in my high school ceramics class we had to use a
paddle to shape one of the pieces we created. It was quite hard to get the
pieces even. I never would have guessed that her pieces were shaped using a
paddle and since I know how hard this was for me, this gives me a new respect
for her and how well-made her pieces are.
Overall, I was very inspired by Jennifer Stevens’
value of tradition used in pottery, the pottery itself, and Stevens’ background
story. I think she is an inspiring, creative woman who creates beautiful
artwork in the traditional ways of the Iroquois.
MARGO EDGE
As
a psychology student I am lacking in professional knowledge of artistic mediums
and modes that are used, yet I have learned so much about this Native
culture. The exhibition Ancestral
Visions: Contemporary Voices incorporates both Native and non-Native art
that pushed me to contemplate the meaning beyond the mediums used by these
artists. In particular, John Hitchcock’s
Passages Transformed caught my eye.
Hitchcock’s installation was one of two pieces in this exhibition that I
saw as unconventional. This piece
incorporated numerous folded paper boats that are hung from the ceiling. The weight of the paper varies and so does
the design, which has led me to contemplate a few possible meanings in this
installation.
First
and foremost I was wondering about the design printed on the boats. Some of the boats appear to be a heavier
weight and have a black ink design on them.
The others seem to have a lighter weight and have grid lines on
them. They also have an ink design but
the ink is not as dark. I asked Sarah
Stolte, the exhibition curator, if the difference in paper weights and design
had anything do with a parallel between Native water transportation and the
colonizers’ ways of water transportation during the early contact era. Sarah told me that she was not aware if the
artist had made that same parallel between the differences in paper and modes
of transport.
The
other parallel that I made with this piece was the use of something as
non-Native as grid paper. It was common
post-contact for ledger drawings to be created by Native artists. The design on the boats made of grid paper
turned my attention to the history of the contact era and its impact on the art
and culture of the Native people. Some
of the greatest representations of ritual and other aspects of life for these
Tribes and Nations have been done on ledger paper.
Although
these parallels may not have been in the mind of this artist, the wonderful
thing about this piece is that it is open to new exploratory dialogue to expand
on Native and non-Native art. This
exhibition brings together artists, scholars, and students to continue the
discussion of Native American art. I am
so grateful that I was able to see such an exhibition before I graduate from
Edgewood. It has expanded my understanding
of Native cultures and encouraged me to continue to ask questions.
KEELY ELGIN
Jason Garcia, or
Okuu Pin (meaning Turtle Mountain), is a contemporary artist from the Santa
Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. A sample of his work is currently being exhibited
in the Ancestral Visions: Contemporary Voices show at Edgewood College
Gallery. His art demonstrates a knowledge and respect for the traditional
practices of his heritage as well as keen insight into the nuances of a how
those traditional practices contrast with modern American life.
Jason Garcia
engages the tradition of pottery and ceramics among Pueblo peoples by painting
his images on clay tiles. He collects, forms, and fires the clay using
techniques traditional to Pueblo people.
There are much faster, more convenient ways of procuring and firing
clay, but Garcia prefers to know where his materials come from, and to be
involved in every step of the process. The paints and pigments he uses are also
of organic material.
A number of his
pieces, such as those from the Tewa Tales of Suspense series, depict
important scenes from the history of the Santa Clara Pueblo. Others include
ancestral clothing and symbols, or cultural icons like the Corn Maiden. The simplified backdrops and flattened
figures are reminiscent of the Santa Fe studio style art. Garcia is drawing
from a wealth of personal and cultural inspiration when he creates his work.
Garcia also
brings a contemporary voice to these traditional techniques and images in the
subject matter of his work. He
incorporates pop culture imagery into his work to express the way in which
Pueblo culture and contemporary American pop-culture have collided. His Corn Maidens are seen with modern
technology and corporation logos. The aforementioned Tewa Tales of Suspense
series is painted in the style of a comic book cover. The piece Buckingham U.
Badger-Bucky Badger ‘K’e ah’ portrays the familiar Madison mascot in Tewa
clothing. Garcia is exploring the manner in which the cultural traditions of
Native American people and the invasive qualities of the mainstream life style
combine and create a complicated experience for the modern Native American.
JASON ERSPAMER
The
work of art I chose to reflect on is Buckingham V. Badger- Bucky Badger ‘K`e
ah’, which is a hand processed clay tile, painted with mineral pigments,
made in 2013. The artist, Jason Garcia, engages indigenous forms of visual
expression and aspects of Native American culture in many ways. For example,
the badger is a very important animal to the Tewa people. Garcia also
incorporates many aspects of Tewa culture into what Bucky Badger is wearing,
including traditional Native American clothing and a hunting bow.
Garcia
also uses a cloud symbol from his Tewa culture in the piece. According to Garcia,
this is how he signs a lot of his pieces and this is an important symbol for
the Tewa people. He stated that the symbol is a rain cloud and the arrows
coming out of the cloud represent lightning. He also explained the significance
of the number of clouds; the six clouds represent the six directions of Tewa
people, north, south, east, west, up, and down. He also engages indigenous
forms of visual expression through the use of clay. Ceramics was an important
art for his Tewa ancestors. This connects his art and himself to his ancestors.
Garcia
brings a contemporary voice to his engagement with these ancestral visions in a
very unique way in his piece. The badger is an important animal to the Tewa
people and he depicted the UW-Madison’s mascot, which is a very contemporary
and modern rendition of a badger, because he attends the UW-Madison. He thus
connects Bucky Badger to himself, as well as marking the importance of the
badger to his ancestors. The UW campus and the sweater Bucky is wearing are
also very contemporary and are blended here with Garcia’s Tewa heritage. Garcia
does an excellent job in combining the past with the present in this very
unique and original piece that also reflects traditional Native American art.
BECKY GLOVER
Jason Garcia has always seen himself as an artist.
Born to a long lineage of artists of the Santa Clara pueblo, Garcia find
importance in creating art and expressing his own message. Jason Garcia, also
known as Turtle Mountain (Okuu Pin), is a Tewa from Santa Clara, New Mexico.
Garcia’s work is Native art that expresses Native life in the modern world
through the popular form of graphic novels. Taking the traditional form of
southwest pottery and creating graphic novel tiles is just the beginning of the
ground breaking combination of traditional and contemporary that is the basis
of Garcia’s work. Though Garcia has been in Madison, Wisconsin and travelling
for the last couple of years, his work is tied to his home, the Santa Clara
Pueblo. Most of Garcia’s work has been in clay, yet he is also known for his
printmaking. The main message of Garcia’s art is the modern style of the Native
scene while holding onto culture and tradition – not losing the message of the
past while moving forward.
Representation of his home is central to his art and
expression. The scenery of many of his pieces is the Santa Clara Pueblo or
similar to the landscape of Garcia’s home. Having begun his potterymaking
approximately twenty years ago, Garcia has mastered the traditional art of
Santa Clara clay making and forming. He works exclusively with the clay from
his home and traditionally fires the pieces outdoors. Garcia uses traditional
means to create and prepare his clay for each piece he creates. He gathers
materials from his home area and works only by hand, purposely leaving his
fingerprints in each clay work he does. He is deeply involved and connected to
his creations, thus creating his art the same way his family and Nation has for
many years.
Garcia likes to use a mix of traditional and
contemporary symbols within his work. This represents the mix between tradition
and contemporary life in Native cultures. Garcia includes the traditional
symbol of a rain cloud in the background because of how significant water and
rain are to the survival and cultures of people in the Southwest United
States. Another of Garcia’s traditional
symbols is featured in a series of work. The Corn Maiden (featured in the
Edgewood Gallery) is a Hopi legend of springtime and harvest. However, while
the Maiden wears her traditional ceremonial clothing, she is frequently acting
in a nontraditional setting. The Corn Maiden often is portrayed on a cellular
phone or in a very expensive sports car. She can be seen with friends or
observing the Santa Clara landscape while thinking about fast food and
contemporary icons. The contemporary symbol of the phone is particularly
important, as Garcia explains, as it represents lost connection and
communication. In nearly all the backgrounds of the Corn Maiden series, there
are small hints as to modern impacts on the traditional, beautiful landscape,
such as the satellite dish.
Garcia’s impeccable talent and enjoyable social
commentary through his art work is a great contemporary form of expression for
the Santa Clara Pueblo. Especially through his clay pottery and tiles, Garcia
converts a traditional art medium into a new, modern twist for Native art.
Garcia’s message through his clay is important and reflects life as he and
other Native people experience it. His art represents more than a comic book
series and it is important for viewers to learn and understand the symbolism of
Garcia’s art – and that of other Native artists.
ANNE HERZBERG
Ho-Chunk photographer Tom Jones uses a modern medium
to capture photographs of mounds, petroglyphs, and “marker trees.” He emphasizes the importance of these
traditional art forms through his breathtaking photography. Unlike many past
photographers of traditional Native art and nature, he is not taking the
photographs to record a vanishing people, but rather to preserve and emphasize
the importance of these natural art forms.
Mounds,
petroglyphs, and marker trees are all Indigenous forms of visual expression.
Instead of recreating one of these ancestral art forms, Jones uses modern photographs
to draw attention to the already existing pieces found in nature. His
photographs show the close relationship between Native art and nature, and the
importance of nature in Native art forms like these. The marker tree
photographs show the theme of survival woven into many forms on Native art.
Trees like these were necessary for the survival of those who relied on them.
They signaled sources of fresh water and other important locations.
Tom Jones now
teaches Photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He photographs
mounds, rocks, and trees around Wisconsin and the Midwest, along with other
subjects. His photographs quite literally use a contemporary voice, through the
medium of photography, in order to capture the ancestral vision of creating art
within nature to serve a purpose for the Native peoples using them.
MELISSA KOCH
Jennifer Stevens is Oneida, and comes from Green Bay,
Wisconsin. Not only does she study her own heritage, she also sings opera.
Stevens’s work represents the revival of Iroquois-style pottery. She completed
these works after learning of the revitalization of this art form by Rose
Kerstetter, Peter B. Jones, and Elda Smith.
One particular pot by Jennifer Stevens that interests
me is Turtle Island, from 2012. This pot has aspects of contemporary and
Indigenous forms of expression. This pot is made of local clay and built by
hand with coils, the same method used by Iroquois potters. She incorporated
designs used by her ancestors by observing sherds and pots in archeological
museums to build on the revitalization of these historical pots and her
culture. A turtle was placed on the pot, along with engraved patterns on the
rim, imagery similar to that seen on earlier Iroquois pottery. The turtle has a
four-point image on its back, also similar to the motifs and designs of
historical Iroquois pottery.
Stevens brings a contemporary voice to this piece as
she thinks about the meaning of symbols that she places on her pots, though she
is unaware of what the symbols mean. She uses symbols incorporated on earlier
pottery, along with her own personality and style, as she engages the past to
mimic the pots of her heritage.
ROSE LANGE
An
installation called Passages Transformed made in 2013 by John Hitchcock
is the last piece in the Gallery. With these printed and folded paper boats, I
believe the artist is trying to convey a sense of motion and unease. Assuming
the shadows are intentional, the shapes floating on the wall are very
unnerving.
When we studied pottery, the use of only two or
three colors (but with great variety in thickness of line and shape) was
pointed out as a distinguishing feature of the potters’ aesthetics. Hitchcock
uses only black on white and silver on white to decorate the paper boats.
I enjoyed the contrast between the natural curves
and spirals of the black design and the geometric rays and spheres of the
silver design. This could be reflective of the contrast between European and
Native American ways.
The use of paper is only possible in this modern
age and only because of the time period can this piece be a distant reflection
of past cultural trauma. For a descendant to reflect on the arrival of a people
that trampled over his ancestors is a unique perspective.
ERICA REMONDINI
Henry Payer is from Sioux
City, Iowa. He is a member of the Winnebago tribe of Nebraska. Payer is a
graduate student in Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently
lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Payer’s installation, Tee Joopeja mąąwowagax (Map of the Four Lakes), of 2013, is a mixed-media
piece constructed of phone books and an old 1920s survey map of the DeJope, or
Four Lakes.
Payer uses two very unique and
simple materials for his installation. The map shows the four lakes, Lake
Mendota, Lake Monona, Lake Waubesa, and Lake Kegonsa. The map also indicates
Native American village sites, old pathways, cemeteries, and effigy mounds.
Payer's installation is not like some of the other artwork in the gallery. His
work does not scream Native American art work; rather he asks the viewer to
look deeper into the piece. By using the map that he did, Payer is able to
connect his piece to the Native Americans and to the place where the Winnebago
lived before being relocated to Nebraska. His piece shows the places that
Native Americans used to live, travel, and bury important people and meaningful
objects. Payer shows us a visual representation of the actual places where
these Native Americans used to live. He touches on the idea of place and how
Native Americans inhabited the land that still exists today. He also invokes
the importance of effigy mounds to Native Americans. These were important
burial grounds and meeting places that were greatly cherished. The map he has
chosen for this artwork allows the viewer to see the importance of the effigy
mounds and how they are still important to the Native people today. Payer
obviously thought about these different places that still exist and still have
a lot of meaning in today's world.
The installation that Payer
has created connects the old with the new. Payer uses an old map on a new item,
the phone book. He has carved out the four lakes in different layers, exposing
the content of the phone book. Viewers not only see the map on top, but are
exposed to the content on the inside which brings a contemporary view to this
piece. The map on top gives the viewer a look into the past while the phone
book underneath shows the present use of the land. Payer wants the viewer to
see that the land that they are walking on today had another purpose in the
past. Back when this map was made, the locations of Native villages, pathways,
and effigy mounds were still evident. Today we walk across the same land that
Native Americans walked across, built on, and made sacred. Payer ties together
the old and the contemporary meaning of what it means to use the earth. By
doing this he creates a more contemporary concept that still ties into the
past.
MARY SCHOENOFF
Jennifer Stevens is Oneida, one of the Nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy, and lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Stevens’s pottery
pieces were amazing to see right in front of my eyes. Stevens met Rose
Kerstetter, and began to teach herself how to make pottery. The smoothness of
each piece made me realize how much time and patience goes into the making of
each piece. Stevens’s pieces show the Native ways of pottery making. Her
potterymaking technique includes the uses of paddles, used by earlier Iroquois
potters. She does not always know the meaning of the symbols she uses, as this
knowledge was lost before the recent revival of Iroquois potterymaking.
Recreating these pieces offers her a connection with her ancestors.
Stevens’s pottery definitely reminded me of the
pottery that we saw in class, in its delicateness and the meaning of each
piece. Stevens makes beautiful and well thought out pieces that contain a story
within them.
PETER SHACKELFORD
Jason Garcia, the artist who made the Corn Maiden
#24 tile, is Tewa, from the Santa Clara Pueblo. The tile, made of hand pressed clay with
mineral pigments, is dated 2013, and its dimensions are 5 inches by 4.5 inches.
The clay that Garcia used for this tile is mixed with volcanic ash that is
found near the Pueblo. The ash is
culturally significant because it is sacred; by doing this there is always an
element of the ancestral past in every piece of his work.
Art is in
Garcia’s blood. Both of his parents were
artists, so it is only natural that he would go into the family business. He takes pride in his work because it depicts
the constantly shifting landscape of the Tewa people and Pueblo life. That is what is shown in this tile. The woman is obviously the Corn Maiden of the
title, standing in the midst of the desert.
Behind her is some sort of structure that I am guessing is a farm. At the top of the three turrets are white
corn stalks, grown and in full bloom, ready for harvest. Beneath that is a flower surrounded by some
sort of plant I cannot identify but nevertheless it still signifies
growth. But plants need rain to grow,
and in the desert rain can be scarce. In
the upper left corner is a tri-colored rain cloud with rain falling to indicate
the plants are receiving rain.
As for the young
woman herself, she looks as if she is wearing traditional clothes. But the white object in her hand which she is
holding up to her ear is a mobile phone that could symbolize a connection
between the old farm life and new technology that signifies becoming a part of
the modern world, kind of like a coexistence type of idea.
TARA TERSKI
The work of art I looked at is called Passages Transformed, a
folded-paper print installation made in 2013. John Hitchcock made the paper
boats hanging at different levels in the art gallery. This installation stood out to me because the
boats were moving due to the ventilation in the room, and I was interested in
the designs and the way the boats were made.
John Hitchcock, who is Comanche, grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma. He is now living in Madison, Wisconsin, where
he is a professor at UW-Madison.
At first when I
looked at thos work of art, I thought it was origami. But then when I got closer it became evident
that these are boats that were carefully made by hand. The designs on them were interesting but I
couldn’t really put my finger on what they exactly were. The artist said that the boats represented traveling,
going on a journey, and most importantly colonial ships. He also said that he wanted them to hang from
the ceiling to represent the boats “floating in the water”. The way they hang in the air gives a sense of
how the boats would sail through the water.
I liked the way
Hitchcock said that the boats on the water represented traveling and adventure.
This shows that Native Americans used boats in the past to travel and find food
and shelter.
KYLEE VANDERMOSS
The art work that really caught my eye was Henry
Payer’s Map of the Four Lakes, Tee Joopeja mqqwowagax. Payer is Winnebago, and he grew up in
Nebraska. This mixed-media artwork is a layout of the four Madison lakes and
the city, made of Madison-area phone books.
What I liked most was how he used a map that shows
effigy mounds to represent what they mean to him as a member of the Winnebago
Tribe that was originally from this area.
The phone books in his work represent landmarks and the contemporary landscape,
and show his feeling about the land and Madison. Cutting some of the phonebooks
to show the depth of the lakes shows he really cares about his work as an
artist.
Payer brings his contemporary voice to this work by
using phone books to show the landscape’s geographic features and the history
of the land as well, with the landmarks he included. He used a very different
medium in this work and that’s what I liked most about it. With this piece, Payer makes connections to
his life and shows his connections to this landscape in a way that I find
really unique.
ZIA WALKER –CHINOY
Jason
Garcia, or, Okuu Pin’from Turtle Mountain, of Santa Clara Pueblo is the son of
Ronald and Susan Dubin who were both familiar with clay. Garcia, who has been
working in clay for the past fifteen years, and primarily on tiles since 2001,
comes from a long line of traditional and contemporary Pueblo potters. He uses
traditional materials, including hand-dug clay and mineral pigments collected
at Santa Clara Pueblo and other locations. Garcia collects and prepares these
materials in order to create witty, intuitive, interesting, and most of all
inspiring works of art.
In our
Native American Art class, we often discussed the ways that different cultures
would use different materials to help them better survive and live their lives.
The people of Santa Clara Pueblo used the material of clay to help them better
their way of life. They would create objects like bowls, pots, and jugs to
store water, eat food, or cook meals. These objects were created using the clay
found in the area. They were then decorated, most typically through a process
called sgraffito and also by painting the surface of the ceramic vessels. The
design, which was often a feathered serpent or a pattern of shapes and designs,
was carved into or painted onto the pot and the pot was then fired.
Garcia uses
a lot of the same traditions in collecting his materials and the same
techniques in creating his pieces today. He still goes to the same areas today
to collect his clay. He travels to the lands of the Pueblo to dig his own clay.
He must then refine the clay to create a material that he can work with to make
his works of art.
Garcia will
create around six small tiles a day from a large slab. He will cut out the
tiles, then scratch a picture into the tile. The outcome is an indented outline
that forms a picture. He might then paint colored slips inside of the outline,
coloring in the picture. He will often use minerals also found in the area of
the village. He then pit-fires tiles, the same technique his traditional Santa
Clara ancestors would use.
Some of the
messages that one can interpret from Garcia’s work are the impacts that
technology and changes in ways of life are having on the traditional people of
Santa Clara. His work often includes a typical Pueblo person in traditional
dress holding something like a cell phone or thinking of Pizza Hut. Garcia told
our class that, recently, during a trip to the traditional ceremonies that take
place annually in the Santa Clara village, some of the younger, more urbanized
members were craving Starbucks and Red Bull because it was something they had
become used to.
Quite a few
of Garcia’s pieces a comic book feel. They display graphic, comic book style
characters. Garcia says that he was largely influenced by the comic book era he
grew up in, and he incorporates these images to tell a story. He uses an event,
such as a war or specific battle from the history of the Santa Clara Pueblo
tribe, to create an image of a hero defeating the terrible Europeans.
One of the
most interesting pieces he showed our class a large, muscular, powerful Pueblo
man wearing a cape and conquering three European soldiers and a monk. The
characters on the tile have a very comic book feel to them, with the cape and
the limited amount of colors. This tile is part of his group of work titled Tewa
Tales of Suspense. For this series, Garcia creates a tile for each historic
event that happened in the past to the Santa Clara people. Something that is
very clever about this series is that Garcia pust the date and month the event
happened in the corner of the tile. It is an accurate fact that is cleverly
placed to make the tile look even more like a comic book.
Garcia
recently moved to Wisconsin to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics.
He discussed his experiences here: the difference in the ways the clay can be
worked with, how it must be dried before being fired, and the huge difference
in the ways the pottery is fired. He stated that the biggest change he
experienced with his work here was way the climate affects the process of
working with his clay. He said the drying process is very particular, and if it
isn’t done right it will result in cracks in the work. The other big change he
experienced was the disconnect he felt when firing his work in an electric
kiln.
At Santa
Clara, pottery is fired in an outdoor pit fire. In Wisconsin, the firing
process is to put one’s pieces in a kiln, push a button, and come back in
twelve hours when the firing is finished. There is no way to see if something
isn’t working or if there is going to be a disaster from an air bubble
exploding when pottery is fired in a kiln. The traditional way Garcia is used
to for firing his work gives him a huge sense of control. There is a constant
watch and ear on the work; if anything starts to go awry, the work can be
removed before any other pieces are hit with exploding pieces.
The clever
and witty ways that Garcia uses traditional techniques and designs, yet puts
his own spin and flare into these to create his own story, is very interesting.
It is enjoyable to think about the way people’s typical, traditional ways of
life are changing and altering. There is an easy sense of adaption, yet there
is still a strong grip on the traditional ways of the past. Garcia is doing a
wonderful job recording and expressing that to many important audience members.
KIRSTEN WEBSTER
Henry Payer’s installation, Map of the Four Lakes,
is made from a map of Dane County in 1924 laid over today’s phone books. On the
map Native sites are labeled: village sites, old pathways, cemeteries and
effigy mounds. This is one way Payer is connecting to the past. Payer carved
into the phone books the four lakes of the region: Lake Mendota, Lake Monona,
Lake Waubesa, and Lake Kegonsa. He uses the phone books to represent the
contemporary landscape and all the information they contain about the current
occupants of this land. This carving represents the peeling away of layers of
history to uncover what was there before.
While looking at Payer’s work one can see the layers
of information he reveals. One really needs to look at the piece from various
viewpoints or else some piece of information will be lost to the viewer. Just
like Payer’s carving back the layers in his work, we are asked to think about
how his ancestors used this land and how the landscape has evolved as settlers
moved in. We need to ask ourselves about how the landscape has changed with
these two cultures colliding. The map shows us where village pathways,
cemeteries, and effigy mounds were located. This gives us clues to what was
once here and allows us to ask ourselves about the landscape of the past being
different from today’s modern city. We can see that this place was an important
cultural meeting point and that the land had a different purpose compared to
today. What stereotypes are we thinking about when we think of this land before
and during the settlers?
