It’s the time of the year where Americans gather with our families, biological or chosen, and examine the bounty of our lives. It is also one of the few times a year when Americans en masse recognize the contributions of the indigenous peoples of the land that we call home. Many of us have heard some sort of fictionalized account of “The First Thanksgiving” where benevolent Native Americans gave the hapless Mayflower pilgrims the tools to survive in their new home and celebrated with a feast after a successful harvest. These stories romanticize the colonization of the Americas and when the victors write the history we don’t always get the truth. One way that Native Americans have reclaimed the narrative is through the arts and today I will shine the spotlight on two that I think are pretty dope.
Contemporary artist, Wendy Red Star captured all the things wrong with American consumerism, food, and the way we teach our children about the heritage of the United States. the overly saturated pigment pulls the viewer into a kitschy landscape of low quality processed and packaged foodstuffs and instead of emanating nostalgia the way that a Norman Rockwell painting might there is visceral gut punch of cheap crap and cheesy faux “Indian imagery”. We must ask ourselves as a society “why is it that we constrain the honoring of Native Americans to Elmer’s glue and construction paper headdresses at the end on November in elementary school classrooms?”.
Wendy is supremely talented and also specializes in sculpture, fashion design, performance art, and painting in addition to photography. A lot of her work is comedic in nature and she pokes fun of stereotypes by juxtaposing absurdity against authentic landscapes. To learn more check out her website: wendyredstar.com
Bunky Echo-Hawk is an artist that combines hip hop with Indigenous Futurism in his gorgeous visual masterpieces. In her marvelous piece for Uncanny Magazine, Postcards from the Apocalypse, Rebecca Roanhoarse says “[Indigenous Futurism] dares to let Indigenous creators define themselves and their world not just as speaking back to colonialism, but as existing in their own right. That is not to say that the past is ignored, but rather that it is folded into the present, which is folded into the future—a philosophical wormhole that renders the very definitions of time and space fluid in the imagination.”
Echo-Hawk’s Maria Tallchief painting is a visually arresting portrait of America’s first major prima ballerina painted in smoky gray, fixing a vermillion headdress against a bubblegum pink and dusty blue background. It wasn’t until I saw this painting and researched Maria Tallchief that I learned one of the first and famous ballerinas to portray a sugar plum fairy in The Nutcracker was a Native American from the Osage Nation.
Apart from the producing great artistic pieces Bunky has also partnered with Nike N7, a collection of apparel and shoes aimed at empowering Native American youth to get active and embrace their culture. The Nike N7 fund supports Native communities with grants for youth sports and activities.
I am just an admirer from the fringes and cannot adequately represent all the amazing creators of Native American descent. All I ask is that when you think of the cornucopia of contributions given to us by First Nations peoples shift your brain away from maize and Squanto and expand your brain to present times including the gift of the first Native American woman in the US Senate, Sharice Davids. Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!
Proper Primer 