CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY NATIVE ART SARA SIESTREEM

Transcription

1 CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY NATIVE ART SARA SIESTREEM

2 Gallery Use Only available on Museum s exhibition webpage DAYS AND DAYS Sara Siestreem DAYS AND DAYS is a reference to the unbroken continuum of Indigenous living culture on this continent. This work is an endeavor of our inner tribal relationships, education strategies, and traditional presence as contemporary and sophisticated people. I display this work to celebrate and show our sovereignty, evident in the continued practice of our traditional relationship with the natural world and cultural lifeways that we have enjoyed since time immemorial. The first piece of this installation is a monolithic print, comprised of multiple square cells, arranged in the plaiting pattern used in Red Cedar bark weaving. Our new collective canoe journeys culture that springs from the revival of Indigenous cultural lifeways and unites the tribes along the edge of this continent and beyond has adopted this Northern style weaving for the regalia items that accompany it. The plaiting technique was the first lesson my teacher Archuleta gave me and I have included it as a reference to our Indigenous nations, united in resistance and revival and through the traditions we share today. The cells alternate between black and white and color images. They are of my in process weaving, materials, and research. The black and white images are abstracted

3 into metaphoric reference though combination and manipulation inside the machines I used to make them. The color images work to create a rhythm in the voice of the piece, persistent and insistent. They are the heartbeat and the drum. Through this coupling and order a contemporary narrative unfolds. In scale and through the organization of imagery I am making a geologic reference. In geology, we read the striations or layers of the earth to gain an idea of the chronological events that have occurred. In this way, you can read DAYS and DAYS; each horizontal layer is a part of the story. In geology we then observe what is happening on the surface and surrounding areas. We combine these insights to generate an overall interpretation of the environment that we inhabit. When DAYS AND DAYS is read vertically or as a whole, the layers lock and the viewer is confronted by the unification of the parts, bigger than themselves, in all directions. Each cell is roughly larger than a human chest and when combined, the entire piece becomes a monolith. I have chosen to use scale in this way because of the sensation that we experience when we encounter something bigger than ourselves. I am referring to the feeling of standing on a cliff, walking on a glacier, or facing the ocean. What I am talking about in this work is so huge and important I want my vehicle to demand your physical respect. Most of the color images are photographs of Spruce root bundles called CACHE I: WEALTH ITEM. It is one of four CACHE pieces I have displayed this year, the third is also in this exhibition. I gathered these roots with my assistant Camas Logue (Klamath- Modoc), to start a weaving program for my tribe. In the 1850 s during the most violent phase of colonization and the shift of power from our tribes to the US government, our weaving practice was severely disrupted. In our section of the country the genocide of our tribes was almost complete. Most of our people were murdered and our homes, cultural objects, languages, and baskets were destroyed. We were then displaced from our region and lifeways and with that offense, the weaving tradition for my people went into a deep hibernation. We have spent the last hundred and sixty five years fighting to survive and now work to reclaim our cultural practices. As an artist and educator it is my responsibility to contribute to the revitalization of our weaving culture to secure it in perpetuity. These bundles are the property of my tribal weaving community and represent our link in the continuum of our culture. A cold part of genocide is to seize and destroy the cultural and historic vessels of the people who are under attack, and then to re-contextualize any existing materials to support the oppressors agenda. This is done to disrupt and undermine the cultural

4 identity of the survivors and unhinge any esteem they might garner from the individuals who make up the conquering group as well as on looking nations. One of the ways that happens is through the phenomenon of institutionalized racism. Within the fine arts discourse and museum system this is accomplished by marginalizing artists and misinterpreting the surviving culture institutionally. One of the ways this is evident is in the record keeping around Indigenous fine art objects. Generally there are no names, tribes, materials, or dates recorded with our objects because they were not defined as fine art and collectors were not interested in knowing the people who made them. Much of the loss of that information is permanent; which is devastating to our culture and our collective education across the board. In the top layer of the DAYS AND DAYS piece, I am identifying our original occupation of this region with reference to my teachers and my own tribal group; Archuleta comes from Clackamas Chinook, Santiam Kalapuya, and Shasta, and is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Robinson is a member of the Chinook Indian Nation, and lastly, my people, the Hanis Coos, are banded with the Lower Umpqua, Siuslaw, and Miluk Coos people from the South Coast of Oregon. Here, I am casting us along with the sky and the earth and the ancient tradition of combining all the elements through weaving with a reference to the place of beginning in baskets, the Coos word for this is winqas, which is also our homonym for spider. The second striation recognizes the plants through the representation of the Red Cedar for power and status. The center striation refers to our endangered heart and the ongoing threats enacted against Indigenous people by the United States government. This band begins with an image of a white and purple hooded sweatshirt with an exploding cedar heart basket in the center of the chest. It is shown in living color to bring the viewer out of the romantic of the black and white images for an instant. I am turning on the lights to the brutality we face in our interaction with the United States on every level; the government, the institutions, the judicial system, law enforcement, economic fallout, and the microaggressions of daily life. Statistically speaking, Indigenous people in America suffer the highest incidence of police brutality and murder of any other group. We also experience an alarming rate of incarceration, rape and violent crime. This contemporary horror is coupled with a legacy of genocidal trauma experienced by each generation since contact. We carry that in our bodies, embedded in our DNA. These factors combined produce extreme psychological challenges and burden.

5 In this cell, which I situate as a stand in for the Indigenous body, I cast us in high status using the symbolic languages of both cultures. I represent our heart in the image with Red Cedar bark, again, the Indigenous symbolic show of status. I am appropriating color symbolism from the dominant culture in the colors of the sweatshirt, white which represents power, purity, and virtue and purple, the color of royalty. The hooded sweatshirt is also symbolic. The term hoodlum is a word used to describe criminal types who are identified by wearing hooded clothing to obscure their identity. Conversely, a hooded sweatshirt or hoody is a contemporary garment designed to keep your head warm that is worn by all cultures. In America this clothing has been used as a scapegoat for profiling minority people as criminal to excuse violence and harassment. Through combining these symbolic elements I am pointing to the physical violence enacted against us in the contemporary world while exerting our importance and strength. To reiterate this so violent and so prevalent contemporary reality, I repeat the image in black and white for this entire layer. I hear the rapid staccato of the vacuous gun as the spiraling cry of the entire culture, our loss is daily and the hole left is unfillable. When a person is confronted with violence, they are instinctively required to react. In the remainder of this work I am referring to both the violent and nonviolent combat strategies I have witnessed in the Indigenous resistance movement. I do this to bear witness and show love and gratitude for every resistant act and the sacrifice they each demand. When we fight back, be it through violence or passivity, we get hurt, even if we win. I am saying that because we have fought back in both directions we have survived. In these two passages I am showing how we combine, overcome, and move out of the battle. In the fourth striation, I am pointing to violent strategies of resistance and survival. Indigenous people on this continent have been in a constant state of engaged warfare with the United States Government since contact. Within our contemporary history this occurs across the board to the militant organized resistance groups of the sixties and seventies and the tone that set, in daily life as individuals fight back physically in isolated attacks, or in the underground and prison complex of contemporary gangs, we still battle, hand to hand. I am referring to this state of being with the visual representation of my hands. My splayed and arranged fingers in these pieces are a reference to hand signs, invented gang alliances. In some of the images, I am holding a hidden weapon. In one of the cells my hands are up and open, holding the "don't shoot" sign. In each of

6 the cells my hands are wrapped with the cord of my huckleberry basket to indicate the bondage we encounter when we engage the violent end of warfare. Out of context to this discussion, Gabe Flores, my friend and contemporary said to me, "bondage is only real when you want out". I think this is the core of my sorrow here; the obligation of this violence and the price. We are forced to fight this fight we did not want and where not asking for and it costs us everything, our bodies, our families, our freedom, our pride, our sanity... The fifth and base striation refers to non-violent strategies of resistance, revitalization, and reclamation. I postulate our weaving culture as a non-violent militant act that combats genocide through economic, educational, institutional, technological, intellectual, spiritual, natural, feminine and masculine empowerment. In this final striation I have stretched the wall of my huckleberry basket until it transformed into an image of the river and the canoe. Here, I am referencing my teacher, Greg Robinson and the Chinookan metaphor contained in his work. He points to Indigenous culture moving into the future through the representation of the river as the continuum of time and the canoe as the vessel of transport. I visually represent the persistence of our culture and traditions with the inclusion of our elder women in the final color image, a portrait of a historic basket. This basket has no positive identification of the artist, tribal group, or the date it was made. It is attributed to the South Coast and so gathered in with our cultural items in the Portland Art Museum collection. As with any object of fine art from any culture, you can tell a master artist s work through a resonant style embedded in the object. I see this Weaver again and again in the collections I investigate and am always moved by her work. We look to the baskets themselves as important vessels of our cultural weaving knowledge and history as we strive to strengthen our identity and practice. The other place this knowledge is stored intact is in our DNA. By being in physical and visual contact with the historic baskets and the weaving practice I am able to access this part of my DNA which is referred to as ancestral memory. I have included this piece in the work to indicate that link. We refer to these baskets as living beings, we consider them our elders, and we think of them as female. This grandmother is the mooring to which I anchor myself and this work to find our tradition of accomplishment.

7 The last image is of my hand trailing in the water with the cedar strands as if over the side of the canoe. This is my way of cleansing grief and letting go of pain, healing through the soothing beauty of our natural life. CACHE III: for crowns and medicine The second part of the installation is called CACHE III: for crowns and medicine. It is a cache of drying weaving materials and medicinal plants. The weaving materials are cat tail and cedar used to make the ceremonial hats of the tribes present in this exhibition. In our cultures these hats are status symbols as well as ceremonial dress for spiritual practice, regalia. The medicinal plants are pearly everlasting and mug wort. They are here to support our physical, mental, and spiritual health for the life of this exhibition. All of these materials combined represent living culture which is a political act that combats genocide and propagandist notions of a vanishing race.

8 BASKET FAMILY: inventory The third component of the installation is a wall display of the baskets I wove under the study of my teachers Archuleta and Robinson. The baskets are all made from natural materials I have gathered or was given and each contains complex narrative and function. This component is included in reference to the accomplishments and joy of being connected to the earth and lifeways practice. These are working baskets with multiple jobs. Some I use for gathering, some I have woven to unlock design elements of traditional basket styles, and others are the models I use to deliver weaving workshops for my own tribal groups. I include my weaving, while it is developmental, to represent the physical manifestation of the work and investment of my family, teachers, and community who have so generously and continuously offered me their knowledge, time, resources, tools, materials, food, transportation, sweat-tears-blood, and support. Embedded in each piece is a tremendous history of conspiratorial effort coming down from the generations and coming together with the natural elements through my hands. Being the meeting place of all of that intention is an honor and joy, for which I am deeply grateful.

9 BINARY CODE: Ph.D. Teri Rofkar (Tlingit) told me that all weaving is based in binary code. Binary code is a two number system. This basket is my second effort to unlock the numbers that are at play in shape of our traditional dance caps. Materials: cat tail warp, sweet grass sedge weft, maiden hair over lay Dimensions: 7 w x 4 h Date: 2015

10 BOY HUCKLEBERRY BASKET: this is the third huckleberry basket in the Chinookan style that I have made. It is the one I use the most. It is a versatile basket that I use year round. So far I have used it for chanterelle, Oregon grape root, cotton wood buds, sorrel, huckleberry-both red and black, salmon berry, black berry, thimble berry, my lunch, camera, and tools. Materials: Red Cedar bark Dimensions: 5 w x 8 h Date: 2014

11 BOYHOOD-ANTIWAR: This hat belongs to Oliver Crazy Horse Currin Logue(Klamath-Modoc) for the occasion of his seventh birthday to celebrate his sixth year in which he visited India and saw monkeys running wild in the streets and rode a motorcycle. The flicker feather he found outside his house in Portland, Oregon. It is a wildly experimental basket and the second piece I made with spruce, the toughest of the weaving materials. Materials: Spruce root warp and weft, sweet grass sedge weft, red cedar bark and bear grass overlay, flicker feather adornment Dimensions: 9 w x 5 h Date: 2014

12 CHILDS WORK DANCE CAP: this is my first attempt to find the shape of the traditional dance cap. In it I use experimental and green weaving materials. It will be interesting to see how it changes over time. Materials: tule basal leaf warp, cat tail, bur reed, and sweet grass sedge weft. Dimensions: 7 w x 4 h Date: 2015

13 GIRL HUCKLEBERRY BASKET: This is the first Chinookan style huckleberry basket that I wove. It is a gift for my tribe for the community to use at culture camp. It was put to use this summer every day by a different member of the community. It is on loan to us this winter for this show. It will go back home to the South Coast when it is done here. Materials: Red and Yellow Cedar bark Dimensions: 5 w x 6 h Date: 2013

14 HUNDRED YEAR GROWTH: this is a Spruce root and Bear Grass Basket Cup combined with a Navajo Spider Woman Story design. It was made at the request of a Dine artist Damian Jim and his partner Katja Lehmann. The premise was for a collaborative show of Indigenous weavers from around the country to respond to traditional Navajo stories in our own forms. The title Hundred Year Growth refers to the top of the basket. I have left the spokes of the basket standing upright to reference a stand of fir trees on a ridge that have been growing back from logging for one hundred years. This basket points to positive changes in logging practices in the Pacific Northwest. I am thinking of the power, resilience, and importance of the forest and

15 recognizing the work of people who have a long term vision for natural resource management. The Spider Woman design element I have included reference to in this piece are in the bear grass overlay stripe that bisects the basket as well as the last two rows of light colored fine gauge spruce root at the top. According to the Navajo Spider Woman stories a stripe was included in the design as a place for germs and bad spirits to vacate. The first stripe is to invite big business greed out of the forest. The second is to invite the damage created in the past to heal. I chose the circular cup shape as a reference to water and the interconnection between all life forms and the environment. Materials: Spruce root warp and weft with bear grass overlay Dimensions: 3 w x 4 h Date: 2013

16 OBLIGATORY SPOON BASKET: this is a working basket in two directions. Its first job was to contain visual reference to all the moves in a Coos wrapped top. It is a physical teaching model and note keeping device. Its second job is real world and nonacademic. In my camping kitchen kit, it holds the utensils. Materials: tule Dimensions: 4 w x 5 ½ Date: 2014

17 OG: This is my first large Spruce root piece. It is modeled after our historic baskets made by the Katy Tom, a Coos- Lower Umpqua weaver, identified by Patricia Whereat Phillips (Coos) and one of my teachers, Nan MacDonald (Biloxi, Chitimacha, Choctaw). In the title I am making a play on words. The yellow dye I used to create the contrast in color was made with Oregon grape root, OG. In contemporary culture OG is a slang term used that means Original Gangster. It is a term of respect for someone who has been around a long time and is an innovator. I am linking this with my thematic mentioned in the DAYS AND DAYS piece stating that traditional weaving is a militant pacifistic act to fight against genocide. Materials: Spruce root weft and warp with Oregon grape root dye Dimensions: b 9 x 10 h x 13 t Date:

18 PAYBACK FOR GIFTS OF MEMORY: This is my fourth huckleberry basket, in which I begin diverging from the Chinookan style, dramatically. This basket is free formed and open weave, made with sweet grass sedge and spruce. It is distinctly not Chinook. It is the first of two pieces I owe to the Greg s for a trade we made in the summer. I traded them two baskets for a sweet grass sedge plant from their traditional bed where they taught me to gather the plant the previous year. The sweet grass contained in this basket was from that first gathering. Their patch is ancient, huge, and in extremely good health. I wanted this sedge start to learn from and experiment with transplanting. It is now growing in my window box in the middle of the city. It is a wonder plant and my tribal weaving community will benefit wildly from all we can learn from the generosity of the Chinooks and their strong culture. I suppose they will fight over this one, while I work to make the second piece this winter. Materials: Spruce warp-natural and Oregon grape root dye, sweet grass sedge weft Dimensions: 5 w x 10 h Date: 2015

19 SALMON BERRY BASKET, HAIR UN-DID: the narrative is private. The owner is Camas Logue (Klamath-Modoc). Materials: Red Cedar bark warp, Red and Yellow Cedar bark and sweet grass sedge weft Dimensions: 4 ½ b x 5 h x 6 t Date: 2014

20 SNAKESTREEMS: The title of the piece and the true nature of it job is related to the design motif which is also private and not visible in the exhibition. The public information is that this is an experimental huckleberry style basket (my third) that is not meant for food gathering or storage. It is used to store computer cords and adapter parts in my office. For the purpose of this exhibition, the cords are replaced with hand twined cordage for many different plants. The materials contained in the body of the basket were all experimental first at bats for me. This dark Red Cedar bark was a gift from my tribe, the green band of grasses are fresh water sedges from the Umpqua (large and small varieties) that are not usually used for South Coast weaving because they have very sharp edges. I have also included junkus and maiden hair in this basket. I had not worked with any of these materials before. Materials: Red Cedar bark warp and weft, large and small fresh water sedge and junkus weft, maiden hair fern overlay Dimensions: 5 w x 7 h Date: 2014

21 THE GOLD HUMMINGBIRD: this is a large cross warp twined Spruce root piece with Oregon grape root dye and sea grass overlay. It is based on ideas about numbers and time, plant medicine, politics, hummingbird stories as well as a reference to gold, to represent justice and prestige for Indigenous culture. It is woven counterclockwise in the Siuslaw and Haida tradition, in this case to refer to the Hummingbird, a time traveler, indicated by its unique ability to hover in midair and move in all directions. The hummingbird is a symbol of unexpected sweetness. I include reference of this animal to indicate the positive energy we encounter through traditional weaving and to acknowledge that we are actively in communication with the past, present and future when we weave.

22 These principles are also embedded in the upright section of the basket which is 14 rows tall. This is to recognize with gratitude our ancestors seven generations back and then to look into the future for seven generations to come. The Sea Grass overlay at the transition between the base and the walls represents our coast and the natural environment. The yellow of the Oregon Grape Root is included for two political-medicinal reasons. Oregon Grape Root s medicinal quality is antiseptic, it cleans things. I include it to protest the ecologic distress of our natural environment. The second piece that the yellow represents artistic identity. This piece was made in response to a conversation I had with from Nicole Nathan, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft for a group show she included it in called the Oregon State of Craft. She asked me while I was making it if it would have a handle. I said, no, since I did not know how to do that at that time. I then visited the PAM collection and studied our baskets there and got an idea of how they are constructed and was able to design the handles that I have included on this piece based on our traditional technology. Handles on baskets are a way to generally date them post contact since they were often included to satisfy the new market and European basket fashions. I like that in this piece the handles look like ears. I am reminded of a bear that has just heard you and is standing up to see where you are. Materials: Spruce root warp and with Oregon grape root dyed Spruce root weft and sea grass overlay Dimensions: 8 w x 8 h (body) 10 at the ears Date: 2015

23 THEY GOT ON LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE: this is the first piece I made with Greg Archuleta. It s base is the Chinookan plaiting style and the walls are regular twined. It is a wedding gift for Rhine Ruder and Jeff Moore who after twenty-five years of marriage were able to legally marry on September 25, 2014 here in America. They lent it to me for this show, they are so patient. Materials: Red Cedar bark Dimensions: 3 b x 3 w x3 h Date: 2013

24 TOOLS AND TRAPS: This is a fast basket I wove as a model to show open warp weaving to my tribal weaving community in our workshops. When it was half finished one of the weavers mentioned that it looked like an eel or fish trap. It is exciting how when we relax and weave free form the old shapes come out of our hands naturally. Materials: tule Dimensions: 7 b x 5 h Date: 2015

25 UNLOCKING THE KLAMATH-MODOC: Camas Logue and I were trying to discover the design of a traditional Klamath-Modoc tule work hat. He found it in three tries, this was my best effort. Materials: tule Dimensions: 22 b x 8 h Date: 2014