Surrounded by my artwork I think of my studio as a ceremony, a space or vessel which ideas, medicine, and creation take place. Shaped by American Indian policies throughout my life, I use my visual language to transmit Native voices, identities, and stories that may have been stripped throughout American history. To represent the forgotten past of American Indian people and fill the gaps where information might be lost. To question Native American depictions and portrayal post contact. My work materializes in an interdisciplinary arts practice ranging from installation, prints, and sculpture. I gather my knowledge from both my Northern Ute and Anishinaabe heritage to charge the content of my work. Not forgetting those sacred ceremonies before me, but to grow as an artist with them without totally assimilating to western society, but truly existing in two worlds.
Currently I have screen-printed archival family photographs from my grandmother’s photo album on reclaimed book covers to reinsert the American Indian identity onto/into printed American propaganda. I rip, tear, and rupture the books and reassemble them to create my surface. So much information and history is lost, forgotten, stolen, or incorrect about the American Indian identity. The portraits fused with the book covers acts as a forgotten/lost narrative or history that can portray Native voices and bodies. This work began with the questioning of the power of text, image, and persuasion in combination and its results it has on indigenous people. In contrast to the Book pieces, I have inserted mythical, or the noble savage representations of Eastern Coastal Indians to compare two representations of native people. In attempt to create a dichotomy between the real and the fantastical.
