Keeping the tradition alive

Page 5

As artists we have many mediums to work with. I have worked with oil paints, water colors and acrylics. I use my camera. I have worked with natural materials like feathers, leather, clay, concrete and raw wood.

Lately, I have been making furniture. I work with a table saw, miter saw and hand saw. Even with a chain saw you can make a lot of things that are nice. This winter I burned out my table saw so I used my chain saw and made a coffee table. As long as you can saw in a straight line it works!

This is where I get my pleasure from, from making things.

When I was a kid I dropped out of school. That's a long story. As a young adult, I took carpentry courses and this helps me a lot with what I am doing now. I also use my common sense. When we were at Indian summer games, a young woman asked me if I had finished high school to be a photographer. I told her "no" but that later I went back to upgrading a number of times and then took photography classes at college. She exclaimed, "Wow, you're my kind of role model!" It's important for young people today to have skills. Take something that interests you, from bricklaying or carpentry to electronics or industrial mechanics. There are so many options.

The picture you see is a chair I made out of wood that the beaver had chewed. I can find that wood around the lake where I live. I plan on making 12 of these chairs. The deer horns I found in the bushes. As an artist, more and more now I am using the materials I find around me.

I have read books about making things and then I try some of the things out. In Making Twig Furniture by Abby Ruoff, she credits Native Americans as the first people to use twigs and bark for practical purposes.

It is true that Native Americans used available natural materials and I continue following this tradition.

Traditionally Native people of many nations have harvested the willow twigs that grow in abundance along river banks and creek beds. They made fish traps, baskets, chairs with rawhide webbing seats. Our people made sweat lodges, eagle staffs, and shields. And when I was little, kids like me were straightened out with a young red willow.

After I read the book about making red willow furniture, I decided that making a chair was simple enough. It just takes a strong arm to bend the willow and a few screws or nails. I decided I wanted to create my own chair, in my own way. I was intrigued with the wood I found that the beaver had chewed, so I used that. I really made the chair for my dad.

He passed away before I showed him. That's too bad because he would have gotten a good laugh out of that chair.

There is something important I have learned from being an artist.

If given access to the right tools to use, Native people can make anything. I wonder if our leaders know that? Are our leaders building visions that respect our visions?