In process: et al # 8

 

Below is the journal for my newest et al painting project. This painting is being created with the help of the Cherokee Community on the Qualla Boundary in The Smokey Mountain region of North Carolina.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Three days before my planned trip to Cherokee I received the bad news that the legal counsel for Harrah's Casino would not allow me to distribute fliers asking for doodles from their employees. So I went anyway and simply solicited drawings in person. While my wife sat in front of a slot machine, I visited with employees throughout the smoky casino. I met Chinese acrobats from Orlando, a Brazilian waitress, Cherokee house cleans and security guards, and White waitresses and waiters. Why go to Cherokee? I had heard that Cherokee was brimming with foreign workers and this intrigued me. How were things between these workers and the Cherokee? To me it seemed like a macrocosm of the larger trend in the globalization of the American South. It is.

Later that night I sat in Lift, a new coffee house and alternative art space in the old section of Cherokee. We listened to music and saw performances as varied as the audience. A Lithuanian lady performed an interpretive dance with the help of Mexican friends. Other Eastern Europeans sat with Cherokee and surfed the net on Lift's Wi-Fi. We heard haunting beautiful love ballads, talented youth playing guitars, classic piano, and head banging hard rock. The owners of Lift, one a Cherokee, the other a New York City transplant, worked hard to make everyone welcomed. My head still spins from the diversity that I found in the corner of the North Carolina Mountains.

After collecting doodles from that night at Lift, and from employees of the tribal counsel I met who were raising money for the Tsunami victims, and even from a wonderfully thoughtful Cherokee and his wife who were posing for tourists in buckskin, I returned home knowing that Cherokee, like the rest of the place I call home, was undergoing a dynamic change in culture. What about the relationship between the foreign workers and Cherokee? It seems that this new community is filling the lowest paying job niche, like the fast food services popping up around the Casino. If that night at Lift is any indication, this community of immigrants will only add to the excitement brewing in Cherokee.

I look forward to finishing this painting and returning to share it in Cherokee.

Notice the blending of Biker and Indian images on this Cherokee owned SUV.

This table helped me with drawing doodles for my painting. Seated are a group
of friends that were from Mexico, Eastern Europe, and Cherokee.

Here are a few of the doodles I collected:

Friday, March 18, 2005

I am "workin hard" on this painting these days. The current challenge is to figure out how to represent both the traditions of this community and its present reality. I enjoy this challenge; to juggle conceptual elements and aesthetic concerns and creating a painting that excites me in the end. I really love the giant juggler drawing above. In one way it represents my efforts and in a larger way it represents the Cherokee Nation; how to juggle future economic growth while fostering cultural growth and maintaining traditions of importance from the past. But the giant does it so easily, and with a smile!

Here are the first two states of the painting. The digital image seems too light. I'll fix that on future shots. More to follow soon.

Imagery currently in the work include a North, South, East, West linear division, a vulture's wing (from the Cherokee creation legend of the Smoky Mountains), pedals of a flower in the bottom left side, and an upside down Wolf in the right bottom corner. The Casino is seen emerging from the top left. A river of green water (mountain) are appearing in the top right. Much of this will change and more images will emerge.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Here is the current state of this painting.

Sunday, April 3, 2005

So what has this painting got to do with my experience in Cherokee? Lots. The central figure was taken from the juggling "clown" drawn by someone I met at the open mike night at Lift in Old Cherokee. (See above) It has come to represent to me the "Booger" character in the post-contact Cherokee dance. In this dance, this disruptive character rushes the dance circle and begins to chase women and cause general havoc. This character represents the early "immigrants" from Spain and England that came with gold and lust in their eyes and disrupted the life and culture the Cherokee.

My booger character is juggling seven balls. Marble games were popular among the Cherokee. Seven is a sacred number, as is four-notice the four-sided white crosses. The picture is also filled with pink feathers. They represent both sacred imagery of old and the new tackiness of souvenirs. The wavy water coming into the middle from the top right represents the Cherokee's practice of going to water to purify oneself. There may not be as many direct quotes from donated doodles I collected but much of the spirit from those images is present I feel. The booger character is meant to look both friendly and scary. It is left up to you to decide.