Interviews By Larry Abbott
.
Ernie Whiteman
Northern Arapaho
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LA: Can we start by talking about your sculptures that use steel and neon? EW: These were part of a series that I worked on. I have a background with steel, bronze, wood, and stone, and I had always wanted to incorporate neon with my work. I've researched pictographs and rock writing for a number of years, being raised out West around them. I've always felt this closeness to the rocks, being a sculptor myself, and as a child I would go into the mountains, often to a site called Dinwiddy on my reservation. The only way that I can explain that to people, particularly non-Native people, is when I went into this canyon, it was like walking into a cathedral. I could feel this presence and the power there that existed within this canyon. Every time I went back there as I got older I would feel that, and began to get more attracted to the rocks and the writing and tried to understand the writing and, with no knowledge at all as a young person, began to inquire. There was very, very little information out there; it was mostly from the anthropologists' perspective, dates, times, and all that; nothing that really talked about the rocks. So I took on this endeavor, which will probably be a lifelong endeavor, trying to understand the rock writing. I try to understand as much about the writing before I utilize it. In other words, I'm not just emulating something or putting it out there for decoration or aesthetic value. I try to understand the meaning of what is being said there or grasping some of the meaning. I wanted to present this ancient way of working with the rock in a new context that would be more acceptable to contemporary culture. Steel and neon are familiar materials to people, so that's what got me on this project, to take the steel and the neon and create a marriage between these two materials and to bring out some of the messages in the rocks. I think the main thing that I'm trying to do is to give recognition to the rock writing. It's so misunderstood in this culture that it's often looked at as a form of abstract expressionism, whatever that means. If you're conquering a culture, you don't want to give credit to the fact that this culture had a written language. Without that written language, you can, in a European context, say that it's not a culture. But I'm finding more and more out about the rock writing, that it was a form of writing that everyone understood, regardless of their age. So you have a culture that was literate, not illiterate. The pictographs served a greater purpose than many of the most complex forms of rock writing, for example, the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which didn't serve a community purpose, only for the pharaoh and the scribe. The scribe also died with the pharaoh because he could read in the afterlife what he had scribed. The common people couldn't read it, couldn't understand it, same as the Sumerian cuneiform, another very complex form of rock writing which was only for the elite. I'm looking at the language now that has been thought of as probably a very simple form, but serving a greater number of people, and trying to give that recognition back to this forgotten language. But it's not forgotten; it has to be reintroduced in a way that's non-threatening. That's what I try to do through my work, so that people can become inquisitive about it and want to know more about it. LA: How many pieces did you do? EW: I did a series of five. They're six feet tall. They're all untitled. The symbols speak for themselves. As you see, I have a little mark that represents a particular symbol. It would be unfair for me to title something that has its own language, that has its own voice, and to identify that with my label. They're all untitled and I just put a symbol next to them. LA: On this piece, it looks like you have neon coming right through the center of the form. EW: This is the only piece where the neon is visible. This was the first piece I executed and it worked out very well. It goes down to the heartline. In the rest of them, the neon is not visible. It creates an aura around the piece, which is what I was trying to achieve because, by themselves, being steel, they needed that little extra color and light. I love light, so working with neon, with different colors, I was able to achieve that. LA: Did you also paint on them? EW: Each piece has a different surface treatment. No two are alike. The first piece, this piece, I have let rust and I left all the markings on it so it has this very ancient look to it of deterioration. And it will deteriorate with time, whereas other pieces like this, I've combined different kinds of metal, or making metal on metal, treating the surface as a canvas and telling the story by utilizing rock writing on a rock writing symbol. This one has a painted surface with metal attached, but with underlying paint and different kinds of surface treatment. Each piece is unique in that it has a different surface treatment than the others. LA: Did you use a torch to cut the forms? EW: They were cut out with a plasma cutter, each one of them, because a plasma cutter allows me more freedom than an arc or acetylene. It's much more intense and it acts for me more like a pencil or a tool. I can move it randomly, move it around and play with it while I'm working. I'm not really concerned about precise exactness because the symbols do not have that, so if edges are rough, that's the way it has to be. LA: Do you rough out the basic shape ahead of time? EW: In my mind they were all sketched out. I had a preconceived idea of what the symbol was, but as I moved along -- they are very powerful and many things have happened during the time that I've had them out, people have experienced different things -- I like to think that they have evolved in their own way. The rocks have called me. I haven't introduced myself to them. I was attracted to them as a young child and it's been a way that I've always worked. I've always incorporated the symbols in my work. LA: You mentioned that the rocks spoke to you. Is that how your inspiration generally comes? EW: In the early stages I planned things out more because that came from a lot of the professors and the people that influenced me at the time. I had a professor who influenced me a lot, now that I look back at it, and that was his way of working. He was very precise. He taught me sculpture. He taught me jewelry. I had a master plan for everything. I knew what the piece was going to look like even before I executed it. Well, I ran into another professor and I showed him my slides when I was getting in graduate school. He looked at them and said, "Oh, slick work, fine craftsmanship, but you're too damned tight." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Let me show you and I'll give you some techniques for loosening up." So I started making masks at this point out of found objects. I think the first mask I executed was made out of sandpaper, dealing with texture and stuff like that. I started to loosen up a little bit, to be more spontaneous about my work, not to intellectualize it too much, but just to let that creative energy and creative spirit flow. If you make a mistake sometimes, let it go, it'll work. So I did that and he said, "I can never take away what you have already learned, but I'm going to introduce you to a new way to create." And that's exactly what he did. I think it has helped me a lot more in my work. I'm more relaxed about it and I can let it be more spontaneous. But I still do have that other background that sometimes steps in and you have to be cautious of that. LA: What are some of the found-object pieces like? EW: They were made mostly out of objects that we use in contemporary culture. For example, I did a series of masks that were made out of household objects, cooking utensils, anything I'd find in the street and transformed them, because we live in a throw-away society. We dispose of everything and I wanted to give beauty back to the things that we dispose of and to give them life again. A lot of these objects were objects that people no longer used, people didn't want, or things I stole, or whatever. I always told people if you invite me to your house for supper, search me, because I may have cooking utensils in my back pocket for a new mask. LA: Did you ever see Larry Beck's work? EW: Larry Beck was probably very influential when I saw his early pieces. He got me thinking a lot. I didn't see his work until I had started the masks, but then I started looking at his work and felt a connection. LA: Do you consider yourself more a sculptor or a painter? EW: I was originally trained as a painter. I started out as painter. After a while I became not really tired of it, but I became challenged, let's say, in a way that I couldn't really express myself with painting. I wanted to add more dimension. I wanted to be able to look at something in more than the dimension that we see in painting. So I got interested in sculpture and started studying sculpture. I think my first pieces were in wood. Then I gradually moved into stone, into bronze casting, and then metal fabrication. Now I do found objects in a variety of things that involve sculpture. Sculpture, right now, is one of the primary things that I have been doing, although I'm going back to painting and creating a new body of work. So we'll have to see what happens with that. LA: Spirits of the People Remember from '93 is a mixed media piece which includes text. Part of it looked like a ledger drawing, and you include a piece of bone in a case below the painting. EW: Originally, when they called for works for The Spirit of Native America show, they had to be flat. So I initiated a couple of these pieces. This was a work-in-progress at the time and referred to the Ghost Dance movement that was bringing Native people together again. It was more a spiritual gathering than a military gathering, but the government, not understanding this, began to execute people, and I make reference to that. The government started campaigns against Indians, so the text includes "Washita River, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek," which were some of the massacres that occurred during that time. You'll notice the Ghost Dance symbol with the blood on it, and the ledger style of work with a realistic background, but I've also included photographs of people from my tribe, meaning that we are the spirits who remember. We remember these things and what happened in the past. A lot of the conflict was over land and gold. But to take it into the '90's, this is where this piece comes in. I don't know if a lot of people are aware of this, but many of the massacre sites were places where the government would decapitate Indians, would disembowel the human bodies, the Native bodies, and take them back to study, to look at, to put into museums. With the repatriation law, we're getting these bones returned. This piece also relates to that. This is what happened in the past, but this is also what we're dealing with today. We can't, even if we wanted to, forget what happened to our people during these massacres because we're being reminded today. I think it's very important that we remember the history of what happened to the people. LA: Have you used text in other paintings or other work? EW: Not as much. I have a couple of other pieces that I've used text and normally I don't make a lot of statements about things. I don't even call them political because if you're from a culture that is born in a political atmosphere, you have no choice. For example, Native people have to be enrolled when they're born, not just a birth certificate, but a piece of paper that says how much Indian blood you have. This governmental monitoring of ethnicity has never existed except for two other places in the world: one was under Hitler and the other is in South America; the third is here in this country. You're born into a political situation, not by choice, so your experiences in life are going to be dealing with political issues. As a Native person I'm just voicing my experiences, I'm voicing history, I'm voicing knowledge. I don't look at that as being political and I don't look at that as being an activist work of art or a militant work of art. It's only historical. It's factual. If people perceive it politically, then that's not my problem. LA: Would you say that you don't consciously make political works of art? EW: Well, in a way I do, if I feel strongly enough about something that it needs to be done, but I don't deliberately say, "OK, I'm going to make this political piece and I want everybody to look at it." I don't think of it that way. I like to look at it, as I say, historically. I like to look at it from a tribal perspective because that's where a lot of our art comes from, from the community, from the people. It's not just me speaking so I have to be fairly accurate in what I'm trying to say, because if I'm not, somebody will find out and correct me. LA: Grandfathers May I Make Art? (1992) addresses a specific issue. It's a large piece, 46 1/2 by 112 inches, with neon in the center. You've also used some photographs and some letters. EW: This piece was created in response to Public Law 101-644, which affected many Indian artists throughout the country and created a lot of controversy. This law was instituted as a response to foreign artists passing off pottery and jewelry as Indian art, and required artists to be enrolled in a tribe. But the law affected many Indian people who could not prove through a piece of paper that they were Native. Because different tribes have different enrollment procedures, someone could be fully Native but not be enrolled. In the piece I originally configured both sides of the neon in the shape of tepees falling down, but it occurred to me that this law was not going to achieve that, so I deliberately cut the sharp angles off the design because I don't think the tepees are falling down yet. I attached a copy of the arts and crafts law and letters that were written by the superintendents and agents in the 20's, and utilized family portraits of grandfathers, great-grandfathers, two chiefs and my own photograph with my tribal I.D. I realized that the only permission I needed to do my art came from my grandfathers. That's how the title came about. I didn't need the Federal government to tell me if I am Native or if I can do my art. I used some circles that say "Indian Police." These refer to Indian people who were forced to be the police of their own people, and who often killed their own people, because they were working for the Federal government at that time. That still exists today in a new form. We have people going around policing the arts to make sure that only enrolled Native people are represented in the exhibitions that claim to display Native art. That reminded me of what happened in the 19th century, and how history repeats itself in a different way. I found a label once on a souvenir that said "Made by Real Indians," and I attached that next to my signature. I also have a gauge, like a gas gauge, which indicates the range of "empty" to "full" to show blood degree. Are you half, three-quarters, one-quarter full? I had a map of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming with barbed wire around it to show the control the government has had. But again, this was not meant to be a political statement; instead it makes the point that I was born in a political situation by having to be enrolled and prove my blood degree. I'm merely showing the historical background of what happened and how that affects me. LA: You've said that, "Although I work with contemporary materials and tools, I continue to perpetuate the teachings of my people." 1 EW: One of the things that I try to remember, and one of the things that I try to teach younger artists, is the fact that we have to give as artists because someone gave to us. I didn't just become an artist. I was taught. People took the time, the energy, to encourage me, or discourage me, whatever. Nevertheless, that someone did give to me and in return, I must give that back. And it's the same way with the culture and the traditions. Somebody was willing to share that with me, so in turn, I return that through the work. I pass that on. But sometimes there's that fine line because you can only go so far. You can't lay everything out because sometimes it may be religious or ceremonial. So you do have certain things that you can't share with people. That's where a lot of my work comes from, because I was raised by a lot people from my reservation. I think that's where a lot of my early art training came from, from my people. I like to think of art as a way of giving back and sharing. LA: Deer Medicine (1989) combines contemporary and traditional materials. There's a deer jawbone embedded in the bronze, along with the figure of a lizard and some beads. EW: I spent a lot of time in the mountains, and was associated for many years with a wilderness youth camp, Rediscovery Four Corners. These experiences led me to a deeper appreciation of animals. I tried to pay tribute to some animals, showing them respect in my art. The deer, as well as the lizard, is also a powerful being in its own right in many Native cultures, a powerful entity which carries the medicine. They go together. The beads I embedded in the bronze are cast from clay and show an ancient way of being strung. Incorporating materials from Native and non-Native traditions is something I've always done. LA: You've also used petroglyph imagery in Turtle Clan Women Stole My Heart (1993). Is that a self-portrait? EW: No, no. There's always a little humor. I like to interject humor. I like to sometimes throw in little bits and pieces. My wife was the main reason I moved out here to the mid-West and I became more aware of her people, the Oneida people, and the clanships that they have. She is Turtle Clan, so in a way this piece is saying how I ended up here, a Turtle Clan woman stole my heart. So there's a little bit of everything. Knowing I was going to South America for the exhibition, I included a brightly-colored parrot, which is indigenous to those people. This gentleman here kind of represents anybody. It could be me, but it all deals with kind of who I am, too. So that's why I titled it Turtle Clan Women Stole My Heart. LA: In the clay and mixed media piece Turtle Island (1993), you again use some petroglyph images. EW: These two pieces almost didn't make it out of the country, Spirits of the People Remember because of the bone, and this one because I had a parrot feather on it. The feather was only going back home. That was part of this work. The feather was indigenous to that part of the world; it's not indigenous to Minnesota, even though I got the parrot feather in Minnesota. So, in a way, I'm sending this feather back home to where it really belongs, but they didn't see it that way. U.S. Customs said it might be carrying mites, so what did they do? They put a pigeon feather on it. A pigeon does not carry mites? I never could get that. On the other one they wanted to know exactly what kind of bone that was. I said it was a rib bone of a buffalo. I said if I had stuck a human bone on there, there would have been a little problem. Turtle Island also has text around the edge if you look closely. These are probably some of the messages that might have been too strong. It says, in the red, you can barely see it, "Indians are tough." My wife [Roberta Hill Whiteman] is a writer, and I have parts of her poetry that pertain to remembering. The blood remembers. We may forget, but it's always in the blood. So Turtle Island, to me, encompasses more that just the name "Turtle Island." It speaks of the people; it speaks of why we're still here; we're tough. We've had to be tough; we've had to be survivors. The blood remembers; the blood knows. The red represents the people, the blood of the people leading right to the island. This piece speaks of that. LA: Do you ever work collaborate with your wife? EW: I think this marriage of 16 years has been an art collaboration, you know. We have collaborated somewhat in the past and are doing small things now. I think the first piece we collaborated on we were very cautious about influencing each other. We did it very professionally, I thought. We came together. We sat down and discussed ideas and went our own ways. She did her writing. I did the visuals, but we had an agenda that we had discussed. When we brought the piece together, it had some consistency and it came together. I didn't influence her writing; she didn't influence my painting. I've illustrated a book of hers Star Quilt, her first book, and she has a book coming out called Philadelphia Flowers. I did the cover on that and a couple of small illustrations. That's been pretty much the collaborative things that we've done. We've always been pretty cautious about collaborating too much and I think you can run a risk sometimes, particularly if it is a family member. These collaborative pieces can sometimes work or sometimes they can not work. So there's that fine line. LA: About collaborations, you worked with Spiderwoman Theater on a theater production, Daughters from the Stars. EW: I was able to do the backdrop for them. They wanted something very simple that could be taken with them because they travel all over. I did the masks and did some other set props for them. That was my first endeavor in collaboration with artists of that nature. They are very energetic people, very professional about what they do at all times, so to me that was a real honor and a real challenge. LA: How did you go about designing the backdrop? EW: Well, amazingly, they left a lot of that up to me after discussions, after hours and hours of bringing material to me about the story and their experiences. I had to extract a design from all this information and come up with something that would represent what the play is about. What I came up with involves what I like to think of as layers of history. The back part is a design of their people, but within that design are four figures that represent four women and in between there are elements of the history of their family. That is almost a ghostlike image, but these four women are very powerful. They stand out, and concern the creation story of their people. They come with a very interesting background, being from North and South American Indian descent. In the play they evolve from two of the figures represented on the backdrop. They emerge through the backdrop. That was probably the most challenging part, to create an illusion effect where they do come out of the piece itself and appear as part of the story. LA: I've seen the play. The backdrop is quite large. Did you approach it as you would a painting? EW: I did approach it as doing a painting but I didn't approach it in the sense that it was a fine-art painting because it was executed in a different way. It had to be highlighted; many things had to be taken into consideration as to how its presence was going to appear on the stage. When I'm doing a painting, I'm only concerned about people who are going to see it. If you're working with something that's going to be seen at a distance, you have to exaggerate certain elements and keep in mind how that's going to look under lights. So I didn't approach it as just a regular painting; you have to take into consideration that illusion. LA: What were the masks like? EW: I created one mask for Lisa [Mayo] which deals with part of the story that relates to mythical creatures, mythical beings. She transforms as she puts the mask on and becomes this mythical figure, incorporating other cultures and other histories. She transforms into a mythical person. In order for her to do that, she changes her appearance and utilizes the mask. The masks were made out of plastic, artificial hair, paint, a combination of materials. Like I say, I've never made a set design before so I had to do research and find out the hard way. But I came up with these creations and they worked. LA: Do you remember when you first did artwork? EW: I was always into the arts. Even within my own family amongst my brothers, I was often looked at as the weird one. I didn't dress like them. I didn't do a lot of things that they did. One of my older brothers, God rest his soul, said, "You're going to be 50 years old and still going to be wearing sneakers and T-shirts." I'm getting close to that and I'm wearing sneakers and T-shirts yet. I've always been involved in the arts in one way or another. Art has been always a part of my life, but I didn't really get serious about it until probably the last ten years. I've always been in touch with it, but I've worked at numerous things. The last ten years, it seems like that's when I needed to start doing it and getting serious. Had I started earlier maybe I would have been burned out. LA: You currently work at the Walker Art Center in the Education Department. What are some of the things that you do? EW: If you look on the wall here, you'll see some of the things that I'm involved in. I work particularly with the Native community, but I go out and work with all communities. We work here programming, educating and doing numerous programs, so I spend a lot of my time outside, and a lot of the time it pulls me right into the arts of other cultures. It's something I enjoy. I don't know if I'm going to do it forever, but I like doing it right now. I'm involved in other arts organizations in the city. I serve on a number of boards, like the Native Arts Circle, Intermedia Arts, and Compass. I like to find out what the pulse is out there, not only with the Native community but in the whole arts community. I'm very involved with the arts here in the Twin Cities. As you noticed, on my museum badge one of the guards has crossed out Whiteman and written in "Artman." One of the guards was looking at me and I said, "I'm Artman, not Whiteman any more." They call me "Artman" here. LA: He does have a big "A" on his chest, I can see that. I don't see a phone booth around anywhere, but . . . EW: . . . don't forget my red cape. I wear my leotards under my underwear. LA: Earlier you mentioned Larry Beck. Are there other artists that you looked at, or any family members? EW: My Uncle Ernest was a very strong influence in that he appreciated the arts, and he involved himself in the traditional arts. I observed the discipline that he had, and now that I look back on it, he was a role model for me. From him I understood that one could have the imagination to create things of beauty. My mother and my uncle were the two most encouraging members of my family. In terms of artists, it's hard to say because one of the things that I was often criticized for when I was in school was that I didn't have a style, that I would do a body of work, the next body of work would be totally different. It looked like two different artists. I would be influenced by people around me. I would look at a lot of art but I was always cautious not to get too much influence because I knew that I would start to emulate their work and it would be visible. So I jumped around. I had different people that I looked at. At the time I was very young there weren't very many Native artists so I looked at a lot of artists who were around the area, Western artists with a Western style of art. I can probably paint a Russell and a Remington sunset just as good as they can after all the calendars I looked at growing up in that environment. So I've had different influences depending on where I'm at. In Minneapolis I have the influences of all the art at the Walker and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. If I travel I'm influenced by that. I don't really have any specific artists that I can truly say that I'm influenced by because I'm influenced by all artists, particularly a lot of the Native artists today. They all influence me and so it would be unfair to pinpoint one. LA: George Morrison has had a strong impact on many Native artists. You exchanged some art with him? EW: George has been very influential for a lot of artists throughout the country, particularly Native artists. He was schooled in the '50's in New York with some of the great people like Jackson Pollock and used to hang out with them. A lot of people don't realize that history. George has always been here in the mid-West and was never given a lot of exposure like a lot of the artists that went to New York at the time. A lot of the people here, particularly the Native people, realize what we have, but I don't think the rest of the country really realizes who George Morrison really is. He's a living treasure. We invited him one time to an opening downtown here that involved a group of sculptors, Native sculptors, and everyone said, "George Morrison's here." Everybody went to the front of the gallery and there was George, smiling as he usually is, and all the sculptors made a circle around him and started talking to him. From that point on he took on this aura of being like a godfather to sculptors, an Indian godfather. I said, "You're kind of like the godfather," and he said, "Well, I've been called grandfather a lot, but not godfather." A lot of us refer to him as the godfather, the godfather of contemporary art. To us that's who he is. I think that George deserves more recognition than he's been given, but he's a very humble man, a very pleasant and beautiful man. I have pictures with George that I'll treasure for the rest of my life. We've shown together a few times. He still maintains an excitement about his work. I very much respect George. Artists can rarely afford each others work; at least, very few of us can. George was over visiting the studio and became quite connected to one of the pieces. He said, "I'd really enjoy having one of your pieces, but I don't know if I can afford a piece like that." And I said, "Well, I really would enjoy one of your pieces, but I don't think I can afford a piece like yours either." And he said, "Well, maybe we can work out a plan here." So two years later the pieces finally made it to George Morrison's studio in Grand Portage and this afternoon I'm going to the studio to get the crate back. Hopefully, I'll have a little surprise in it. I don't know yet. Knowing George, he may want me to come up and get the piece, but I said, "Whatever you want to exchange for this is fine." LA: One reason he might have liked this piece was that you have a horizon line in it. EW: Yes. George has been doing his Horizon series for quite some time. I looked closely at this and saw that there was something in there, an element of the strip of metal that runs across the piece looked very much to me like some of George's work. That seemed to attract his eye, and it seemed to be something that he could relate to. Maybe George influenced me and I didn't know it. I could be wrong, but I think that myself. It does look a lot like his work. LA: You've been exhibiting since '83 or so. As you look back over your work, how has it changed, how has it developed over that time? EW: Well, you know, we talk about evolution of one's art and sometimes I think that we often keep stepping backwards to get where we're going. In a way, I'm going back, looking at rock writing, so historically I'm taking a step backwards. But my earlier works, I think, related to what I was dealing with, what was going on in my life. It was pretty realistic work almost to the point where it was like the stereotypical Native art that was out there . . . and still is out there. As I went further in my work, I was discouraged by a lot of professors because they said, "You're doing that Indian stuff again." Now I look back at those things and I think well, it wasn't because I was doing Indian things. There was a lack of knowledge by those professors about Indian art, which still exists today. So I moved off in different directions. I also make jewelry. A lot of the work I was doing was trying to find how I fit into the big picture, bringing some of my culture in. I was using a lot of stereotypical images, but trying to change them a little bit. And there was an evolvement of my work in that context where it's moved out of that. I consider it moving out of that even though some people might say it still has a lot of Native influence. I think the message is much stronger now. I think there's much more substance and sustenance to the work than there ever has been before. So it has evolved in a way but it may go back. I don't know. Who am I to say? NOTES SELECTED EXHIBITIONS We, the Human Beings, group exhibition, College of Wooster
Art Museum, Wooster, OH, 1993 |
