Envisioning Transformation in Art Education Practices

Envisioning Transformation in Art Education Practices with Indigenous Arts    

  Kevin Slivka, Ph.D. Director, Art Education  SUNY New Paltz 

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One of the aims is to provide viewers, citizens, and consumers with the tools to gain a better understanding of how visual media help us make sense of our society.      Representation: Use of languages to create meaning about the world around us; the widest sense of the word – visual, oral, written, embodied, & material.      1. Use theories to study images and their meanings as text primarily through the lens of looking. Engages in understanding the stories that are told in particular cultures. [Archival Research & Pop Culture Media Examples]    2. Relationships between spectators [those who are doing the looking] and their psychological and social patterns of looking [i.e. meaning making processes].  [Traditional Ecological Knowledge & Contemporary Artists’ Works]    3. The circulation of culture from one context to another through institutional and global networks. [Museum Research & Contemporary Artists’ Works] 

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Cultural Studies in Art Education: Issues of Representation, Indigenous Arts, and Stories Why is this relevant?

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  Consider the economic growth of the Industrial Era – what technological advances throughout the 1800’s have impacted the field of art?    Positivism – holds scientific knowledge as authentic knowledge and is concerned with truths – pursuit of objectivist stances      Barthes’ studium & punctum – truth function, distanced appreciation & affective elements [e.g. pre-emotional]      Denotative & Connotative meanings – literal & embedded cultural/ historical qualities      The functioning of myth – naturalizes the connotative meanings and is to be explored overtime 

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Visual representations often reinforce dominant hegemonic ideologies.

1904 World’s Fair

1906 New Complete Geography

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Visual representations often reinforce dominant hegemonic sign systems.

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Visual representations often reinforce dominant hegemonic sign systems.

Sedimented ideologies can show up in the form of reified representations divorced from their historical contexts. ?

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Art work created through research of socio-cultural relationships and planning often call into question dominant hegemonic sign systems.

Gregg Deal 2016 “Defiant to your Gods” 8

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School:  Assimilation Processes of the Art and Craft Curriculum 

Reel (1901). Native students saluting the American flag. p. 110

Pratt further stated the oppressive conditions of reservation life also sought to “segregate and weld the tribes into separate and petty nations…(and) schools can be made…to breakup tribal slavery…(to) bring about the freedom and American citizenship of the individual Indian” (Pratt, 1890, p. 8).

Volume 1 no. 1 February 1909 p. 22

FMPI 1-3-1 CCHS – Henry Kendall (Pueblo) “After fighting going after his enemy”

Volume 2 no. 8 April 1910 p. 23

Pratt employed J. N. Choate’s skill to create the appearance of acculturation by using “front lighting and white powder”

(Fear-Segal, 2008, p. 163).

Tom Torlino (Navaho) upon arrival to Carlisle 1882 and three years later in 1885

CCHS

PI 1-3-7 CCHS – Fruit still life on table – 1883 – Joshua H. Given (Kiowa)

FMPI 1-3-22 CCHS – Detail of soldiers firing at a Native on horseback shooting back

FMPI 1-3-32 CCHS – Anglo-American & Native Warrior, Frank Engler (Cheyenne)

FMPI 1-3-3 CCHS – Anglo-American Soldier & Native Warrior – Percy Kable (Cheyenne)

FMPI 1-3-15 CCHS – Anglo-Americans with rings & domesticated animals - Odellah (Apache)

Volume 2 no. 5 January 1910 p. 41

Estelle Reel

Reel concludes the agriculture section

with strong advocacy for independence, by used “working the soil” thereby “making of Indian boys into industrious, practical farmers and self-supporting citizens” (Reel, 1901, p. 40).

Reel states baskets “symbolize the history and used the traditions of their tribe…becoming a lost art and must be revived by the children…(To) supply the demands of the markets” (Reel, 1901, p. 54).

Volume 1 no. 1 February 1909

Volume 1 no. 2 March 1909


Reel (1901) also advocates for Native tribe-based instruction as a means to perpetuate traditional craft wares specific to each tribe, for the purpose “to put (the wares) on the market as useful, durable, and beautiful articles” (p. 56)

Reel stresses the need to train the younger generation validated by stating, “the French peasants supply our markets with braids for making hats. Why should not our Indians do this and make other greatly needed articles in straw?” (Reel, 1901, p. 57).

Volume 1 no. 2 March 1909 p. 39

“…the intelligent white teacher, will become a factor for great good, inspiring the children with a love for the work of their forefathers…by showing them that their work is appreciated and needed, and by sympathetic suggestions as the occasion arises” (Reel, 1901, p. 57).


Top: Native Students Weaving Rugs

Bottom: Native Students Weaving Baskets


Volume 2 no. 5 January 1910 p. 21

Industrial Arts: Painting is associated with labor vs. an academic approach.


Volume 2 no. 10 June 1910 p. 24

Volume 1 no. 3 April 1909

Dietz-”Lone Star”

Volume 1 no. 5 June 1909

Volume 1 no. 5 May 1909 p. 37

Reel (1901) purports in the section devoted to history, to “distinguish between those arts of the old Indians that are useful and those that are not, and encourage them to preserve and carry on the latter. For example, urge the girls to learn basket making, bead working, pottery, etc., from their elders, showing them how they may make nice sums of money in this way” (p. 144).

Interchange: Intersections of Traditional and Contemporary Arts Smudge Interruption Discussion

Eryka Charley Director of Native American Student Services University of Northern Colorado

Dewey Goodwin Stone carver and Art Instructor [Retired] Leech Lake Tribal College, Minnesota

Joni Acuff (2015) writes, “Investing requires the devotion of time, the desire to nurture, and it implies that there is a commitment to build. Illustrations of investing in critical multiculturalism include engaging in conversations about institutional power and the relationship between race and varying inequities, specifically educational inequity; inviting students to analyze their learning experience, as well as the information disseminated through textbooks and curriculum; and also helping students understand personal accountability and opportunities for action” (p. 34). (2015). Methodological considerations for intercultural arts research: Phenomenology, ethnography, collage narrative, and ethics. Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education, 1, 1-18.

“the study of everyday life and popular culture needed to be incorporated strategically and performatively as part of the struggle for power and leadership” (Giroux, 2011, p. 64). (2016). Places of transmotion: Indigenous knowledge, stories, and the arts. Art Education, 69(5), 40-48.

Field Research: Ojibwe Art Relationships

Losh, Goodwin, Kruse, Jones Jr.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge Tewa scholar, Gregory Cajete (2000) explains that a natural democracy is based upon “perceptions of the cycles of nature, behavior of animals, growth of plants, and interdependence of all things in nature [which] determined [Indigenous] culture…ethics, morals, religious expression, politics, and economics” (p. 52)


Melvin Losh, quill artist, working on a birch bark lid intended for a quilled box. [Right] A bandolier bag by Losh in the exhibition entitled, “Mni Sota: Reflections of Time and Place.”

Losh: Quill & Beadwork



Losh’s beadwork on a buckskin pipe bag and bandolier bag with quillwork.



Losh’s quill work on birch bark in the exhibition entitled, “Mni Sota.”


Losh: Quillwork

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Left: Sorting even-sized quills from leader hair, brittle quills, and quills that are too thick.

Above: My apprenticed quill box with the inside exposed before trimming and the additional second layer of bark.

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  Field Research: Ojibwe Art Relationships

Kruse: Birch Bark Pictorial Work

Above:Pat Kruse (2011). All Races Bouquet #5. Birch bark, red willow and deer sinew.

40 Right: Detail of Kruse’s birch bark composition.


Jones: Harvesting Processes for Canoes

Above: Splitting spruce roots for lashing a birch bark canoe.

Left: Jones harvesting birch bark intended for a birch bark canoe. 41


Jones: Birch Bark Canoe Work

Left: Bent cedar ribs over cedar planking over a birch bark shell.

Right: Spruce roots used as lashing for sections of bark bound together and the gunwales. 42


Goodwin: Stonework

Dewey Goodwin circling the 2-ton dolomite eagle sculpture intended for the Ojibwe immersion school named after Chief Bug-o-ne-ge-shig.

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Goodwin: Stonework

“...over the destinies and affairs of humankind, [and] none was more revered for its potency and preeminence than was the thunderbird” (Johnston, 1996, p. 120). Johnston continues: Many manitous were once men and women, but the thunderbirds had always been manitous, from the beginning of time, dwelling in the mountains and serving Mother Earth behind the clouds that they themselves generated...The Anishinaubae people believed that the thunderbirds looked like and were kin to eagles, and that eagles might be thunderbirds in disguise, passing from the heights and ascending into the sky until they are seen no more. (p. 120-121) 44


Goodwin: Stonework

Goodwin’s eagle sculpture for the Ojibwe school named after Chief Bug-o-ne-ge-shig, “Hole-inthe-day.”


Goodwin: Stonework

Sacred Dish, emplaced at Indian Burial Mounds Park, St. Paul, MN.

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Goodwin: Stonework The First Peoples Fund website explains: The same spirit that guides artists' work also drives artists to do service in their communities. Artists convey the sacred meanings behind the materials they use…When artists show the meaning of the beautiful things they make, it helps heal the Peoples spirits and shows how others can also give back. (2013, Community Spirit Awards section, para. 3-4)


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Goodwin: Stonework

Sacred Dish is accessed ceremonially for personal cleansing and reverence for those who have passed.


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Goodwin: Stonework Tewa scholar, Gregory Cajete (2000) explains “Traditional art forms reflect the attempt to understand the human place within the natural community” (p. 113).

Goodwin’s Sacred Dish attests to the intentional reflexive turn from experiencing Indigenous art in-the-field-of-relations.

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Museum Research: Critical Institutional Representation with American Indian Art “How can we begin to decolonize a very Western institution that has been so intimately linked to the colonization process?” (Lonetree, 2012, p. 5). Some Indigenous communities do not want to address legacies of colonialism in exhibits, instead, prefer to tell the story of survival. Yet, Lonetree suggests to acknowledge painful aspects of history AND include stories of survivance. ● Address and assist communities to confront legacies of historical unresolved grief ● Challenge historical stereotypical representations ● Shifting museums from “temple” to “forum” ● Focus on healing, well-being, and self-determinization. ● Museums should create “critical consciousness” (p. 8).

Critical Institutional Representation with American Indian Art

[LTM]


[DAM]


James Luna Performance artist

Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith “Trade Canoe for Don Quixote” 2004. [DAM]


[DAM]


Gregg Deal “Ethnographic Zoo” Promotional [left] Edward Curtis photograph with exhibition discourse [right]

[DAM]


Gregg Deal Artist Residency Studio

[DAM]


Gregg Deal “Defiant to your Gods” [in progress]

[DAM]


Red Grooms “Shoot-Out” 1982.

[DAM]

Gregg Deal “Ethnographic Zoo” Performance 2015.


[DAM]


Gregg Deal, “Ethnographic Zoo” Performance 2015

[DAM]

Rose Simpson. 2013. Explorer, Warrior (2012), Nuturer. Clay and mixed media. The Denver Art Museum. 61

Re-Appropriation and critique of power/knowledge systems, both commodity fetishism and institutional value.

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Socioacupuncture: application of semantic pressure on the absurd places of racialized discourses that rupture and deflate. Anishinaabe literary theorist Gerald Vizenor

Brian Jungen. 2005. Prototype for New Understanding #23. Nike Air Jordans. 18½ x 20½ x 57/8 in. Accessed from: http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/jungen/works.html 63

Socioacupuncture "When a product breaks, it's kind of liberated in my eyes.” (Gambino, 2009, website)

Brian Jungen. 2005. The Prince. 2006. Baseball gloves and dress form. 82 x 24 x 19½ 8 in. Accessed from: http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/jungen/works.html 64

Art work created through research of socio-cultural relationships and planning often call into question dominant hegemonic sign systems.

Gregg Deal 2016 “Defiant to your Gods” 65

Shoshana Felman states, “Ignorance is nothing other than a desire to ignore: its nature is less cognitive than performative…it is not a simple lack of information but the incapacity - or the refusal - to acknowledge one’s own implication in the information” (cited in Giroux, 2011, p. 82).

“It is critical that a fear of inadequacy does not cripple or overwhelm teachers’ desires to be multicultural educators. In order to fail and to learn from those failures, there must first be an attempt, a risk taken, and an overwhelming desire to be an effective educator. Embracing failure is imperative in order to build and identify new goals. This type of refocusing may result in more fruitful attempts at multiculturalism” (Acuff, 2015, p. 35)

Home: Contemporary Indigenous Artists Responding (2016) 1. Norman Akers 2. Maile Andrade 3. Corwin Clairmont 4. Joe Feddersen 5. Alexander McCarty 6. Tony Ortega 7. Sue Pearson 8. Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith 9. Neal Ambrose Smith 10. C. Maxx Stevens 11. Glory Tacheenie-Campoy 12. Melanie Yazzie, (Organizer) 13. Kevin Slivka, (Invited Project Writer) 67

You hear a Native person speak of ‘home’ but it doesn’t mean where they presently reside… rather it refers to that place of birth or that community of relations where their ancestors came from. - Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

The signage serves as a reminder of a history rooted in a nineteenth century attitude of Manifest Destiny and the series of government treaties that have reshaped and diminished our original homelands. These signs are a testament to the complex history surrounding removal and a place we now call home. - Norman Akers

Home is affected by the natural world around us and by individuals and organization that may have influence and power. Raven: attracted to bright shiny things, is much like the bigger than life image of Donald Trump, as many are attracted to the flash and flare. The gummy bear is being questioned by the raven who thinks that the red flashy tie might not be in the bear’s best interest. - Corwin Claremont

Drawing from my surroundings I choose Spotted Lake as an inhabited space articulated by a passing Elk, showcasing the pure beauty of the Okanagan, a place I think of as home. - Joe Feddersen

In this design you can see that the caught whale is towing the canoe. During this critical time the the hunters in the canoe would sing a song asking the whale to kindly tow them home to their village and not out to the ocean. - Alexander Swiftwater McCarty

I spent many of my childhood summers in Pecos with my maternal grandmother. I got to meet, live, play, and work with extended family members during those summers. - Tony Ortega

Home is a constellation of memories, of loved ones, of my heritage, of practices, of happenings in special places, of smells, sounds and tastes, of salt and earth and ocean, of light, of the past and plantings for the future. Its where I breathe most easily, where I hope to return to live there at some time and its where my bones will one day lie. Sue Pearson

Home for me is everywhere on the Navajo Nation…I saw the horns as our sacred mountains on my mind with clouds around them as I always am thinking and praying for rain for home. That was always the request from my grandparents when I grew up. - Melanie Yazzie

Rhiz[home]: explores my relationships with Anishinaabeg artists living in Minnesota and my connections to my relocation from Colorado to New York and my childhood home in Pennsylvania.

Selected References Bourriaud, N., Pleasance, S., Woods, F., & Copeland, M. (2002). Relational aesthetics. Dijon: Les presses du reel. Büken, G. (2002). Construction of the mythic Indian in mainstream media and the demystification of the stereotype by American Indian artists. American Studies International, 40(3), 46-56. Gradle, S. (2007). Ecology of place: Art education in a relational world. Studies in Art Education, 48(4), 392-411. Lonetree, A. (2012). Decolonizing museums: Representing Native America in national and tribal museums. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd Ed.). London: UK. Zed Books. Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood Publishing.