My paintings often speak of transformation and renewal. I am a descendent of the Karuk, Yurok and Hupa peoples of northern California. At the core of our cultural ceremonies is renewal. My ancestors had ceremonies every year to “Renew the Earth,” to get rid of sickness and to restore balance to the world. In the Spring there were ceremonies for the return of the first salmon and ceremonies for the return of the Spirits of our dances whose purpose was to bring luck to new women and to heal our children. We had ceremonies to renew life and to bring back the deer and the acorns every year and to give thanks to the Earth and the Heavens for providing all that was needed to survive. This painting, called Packing Medicine represents our healing ceremony for small children.
Packing Medicine 2007
Our ceremonial life was disrupted with the onslaught of the gold rush to our area in the mid 1800’s which brought genocide, disease, and destruction to our way of life, our culture, and to our environment. This was followed by more devastation by the lumber industry and by the removal of our Indian children from their families to boarding schools.
In the 1960’s, the struggle to restore our indigenous rights escalated. There were great efforts among our people to assert our given rights to our traditional ways, such as fishing and land use as well other basic rights like education and access to good health care. At the same time, a renaissance began of our tribal cultures, including language, traditional arts, and ceremony. I have been fortunate to be a small part of this ongoing renewal along with family and community. Young and old have worked together to renew most of our ceremonies. Many of our people now dance, sing, and pray to “Renew the Earth,” to renew our natural foods, to get rid of sickness, and to renew our minds, bodies, and spirits. This painting, called “Remaking Our World,” illustrates part of our world renewal ceremony, we call the White Deer Skin Dance.
Remaking Our World 2005
I think my first conscious expression of renewal and transformation in my paintings began to evolve fifteen years ago after my intimate involvement in renewing a Karuk girls’ puberty ceremony for my daughter. The ceremony is about the transformation of a girl into a woman. It is a rebirth. My painting shown here illustrates this transition and reconnection to the spiritual world. The girl is blindfolded for the duration of the ceremony and looks inward through prayer and isolation from the outside world. When her feather blindfold is removed, she has been reborn, looking out into the world with the new eyes of a woman. The experience with my daughter was a rebirth of a ceremony, a rebirth of a girl into womanhood, and a rebirth of myself into a deeper spiritual realm and connection to my culture and ancestors, and to the Earth.
Rebirth into Womanhood 2007
Several years ago, I went through a personal transformation when I received a traditional tribal tattoo on my chin which is called Thúkin in our Karuk language and now called a “One Eleven” because of the three stripes. This experience was a rebirth for me, and brought a renewed interest and desire for other Native women in our area to receive this special gift. With the devastation of culture by the early 1900’s, shame instead of beauty became associated with this tradition. There were only a few elderly women who had the tattoo when I was a girl and none were living by the early1960’s. About twenty years later, a handful few women chose to get tattooed by the only available method using a machine. Then in 2004 I was honored to receive my tattoo using a traditional tapping method. The painting here expresses this time of renewal and pays honor to our great grandmothers who wore their tattoo proudly.
Tattoo Woman Returns 2005
In our cultures there is a belief that Spirit Beings inhabited the Earth before Human Beings came into existence. As the time of Human Beings drew closer, these Beings transformed into the all the things of the natural world that would help humans to survive and flourish. They became the food and medicine plants. They became the animals, the birds, the fish, and ocean life. Some became the Mountains and Rivers and Rocks. These Spirits gave ceremonies to the first Humans to renew our way of life and to remind us of our connection to the Earth and to the Spiritual world. We have stories that tell us about the time of the Spirit Beings and how things came to be in our world. Some of my paintings illustrate traditional tribal stories that often express the transformation of Spirit Beings into the world and time of Human Beings. In this painting, a young woman Spirit person is transformed into Abalone when she tries to escape from a young man who betrays her love.
Abalone Woman: Transformation 2005
Renewal is important to our natural world and to the survival of the traditional way of life of our tribal people. Many of us feel that the rivers in our area are our life blood. They have always provided one of our main sources of food, the salmon. Recently, the health of our rivers and our salmon have become threatened by dams on the Klamath River that have created toxic levels of green algae. I had an opportunity to work with some high school Native youth to create some large painted panels that address the importance of salmon to our people in ancient times as well as today. The renewal and life cycle of our salmon, and the current threats to their survival, have also been a focus of my own personal paintings. The survival of the salmon is like the canary in the mine. Its survival reflects the survival of our natural way of living. I have included here a sample of the large panels done with the students as well as one of my own paintings.
Traditional Fishing 2007
Hope and Renewal Swim Against the Current
Recently, I created a painting to express my deep concerns about the state of the world we are in. I feel sadness when I think about the destruction caused by humans to the Earth. This includes the injustices against each other and to other living things. Because of this, there is a great imbalance in the world. Humans have a responsibility to help restore that balance, yet most refuse to accept that responsibility. In this painting, I wanted to convey my belief that the Earth cannot wait any longer for humans to wake up and so has begun to heal and renew herself. Transformation and renewal can be a frightening and painful experience, but it can be the beginning of something new and beautiful. We as humans can be part of an effort to heal and remake our world to one of balance and harmony, or we can let the Earth and the Heavens do it for us. I just recently attended one of our “World Renewal” ceremonies that renewed my hope that we can be part of the healing power.
Earth’s Tears of Rebirth 2010
