Missoula Art Museum Dwayne Wilcox: Above the Fruited Plains

Dwayne Wilcox

ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAINS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T

he Missoula Art Museum has made a public commitment to contemporary American Indian Art. For the purposes of this publication we have relied heavily on the artist’s voice, developing interpretation of these works from Wilcox’s artist talks at MAM, and through direct interviews.

Wilcox’s 2012 exhibit Above the Fruited Plains was hosted in MAM’s Lynda M. Frost Contemporary American Indian Art Gallery.

This gallery is dedicated to honor the creative cultural contributions of American Indian people to contemporary art, and to ensure that Indian artists will always have a place to celebrate that contribution.

MAM’s mission would not and could not be accomplished without the support and feedback of the American Indian community in and

around Missoula. In particular we wish to acknowledge Jaune Quick-toSee Smith and Corky Clairmont for their support and direction when establishing the Lynda M. Frost Gallery and our ever-growing collection of Contemporary American Indian Art. MAM would also like to thank The Pleiades Foundation, a Montanabased non-profit that supports sustainability, good land stewardship, and strengthening the social and cultural fabric of rural communities.

The collection of these eleven Wilcox ledger drawings and the printing of this catalog would have been impossible without their financial support.

Cover: Rectum, hell! Damn near killed ‘um! Or I can see my TEE-PEE from here. Anyone who ever grew up around horses has found themselves unseated. – Dwayne Wilcox

Wow! Real Full Blooded White People! Photographs of native people in regalia are prized by those who wish to see them in their natural habitat. Imagine natives playing that role! – Dwayne Wilcox

The Shag. A haircut I had in the mid-’70s that was related to a popular TV show; the star’s name was David Cassidy. I thought I rocked the look but my friends didn’t. – Dwayne Wilcox

Dwayne Wilcox: ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAINS Curator’s notes by Stephen Glueckert, Senior Exhibitions Curator

M

AM is honored and delighted to travel the exhibition Dwayne Wilcox: Above the Fruited Plains. These eleven works were collected following his Missoula Art Museum exhibition of the same name in the summer of 2012.

Dwayne Wilcox’s ledger drawings are compelling, multi-layered, and beautifully executed. The work begins with a story that draws the viewer in, usually by way of a cultural reference such as the powwow, as in They Start Young, a biographical reference, as in Wilcox’s haircut in The Shag, or a historical reference, like George Armstrong Custer in You May Cut the Cheese.

His works are immediately laugh-out-loud humorous in the way they poke fun at white and native cultures. Beneath the initial layer of an amusing story, however, are many layers of meaning.

The multiple layers of story in Wilcox’s work communicate a complex world drawn from his personal experiences and his culture’s deep history.

Many of the drawings are autobiographical in nature and reflect the physical and psychological state of the artist. They are humorous yet realistic. His work does more than document his life, though. It expresses his true, informed feelings about complex, often difficult-to-discuss subjects.

Wilcox’s openness and honesty is tempered by his trickster approach that takes us on an expressive journey of memory mixed with commentary on the past and the present. Wilcox’s art reminds us that people protect themselves from more difficult, painful, and challenging situations with anger, hopelessness, and passionless intellectualism. Humor, however, is a wonderful tool for breaking through these barriers toward truth and reconciliation. His work seems to ask, “Can we ever be secure without the trust and compassion of our neighbor? Can we ever be happy in the absence of laughter?”

Wilcox’s drawings comment on the contemporary life of Indians on the reservation. We Gotta Get in Shape shows two Indians in their Sundancer garb, painfully self-conscious of their weight gain as they age, an experience common to all humans regardless of culture, sex, or economic situation.

Wow! Real Full Blooded White People calls out tendencies toward insensitive

stereotyping. The mothers in They Start Young wear painstakingly rendered traditional regalia side-by-side with modern store-bought sunglasses, strollers and coolers. It is the humor in the works that Wilcox hopes will serve as a template for talking about sensitive subjects. Documenting the inherent humanity and commonality in all of us, for better or for worse, is his attempt at healing the painful wounds resulting from centuries of oppression his people have suffered.

Wilcox’s works observe the underlying imbalances and simmering tensions between the dominant and the suppressed culture. You May Cut the Cheese from Wilcox’s Leveling the Playing Field series may be an amusing redux of the armed removal of the Indians from their land, but we all know what really happened. You Can Trust the Government. Ask Any Indian references a personal experience of Wilcox’s while admiring a truck’s bumper sticker, but it is also a reminder of the endless string of broken treaties that continue to today, resulting in the impoverishment of the Lakota. The Shag features three boys in letterman jackets that would be dead by the age of thirty, all alcohol-related tragedies, the result of generations of poverty and hopelessness. Beneath the wry humor, Wilcox’s works never stray far from reminding the dominant culture of their hand in the relentless violence that led to the near destruction of his people.

Wilcox’s works also bring a unique, fresh, and welcome approach to the ledger art genre. His drawings display a strong sense of design, faithfulness to the media, a contemporary story, and an edge of irony. While strong design elements are present in ledger art by many artists, Wilcox consistently provides a resolved, well-rounded narrative that has something to say about today’s Indian experience, rather than a romanticizing vision of the past.

He states, “The culture I grew up in has a wonderful place for humor and it is also medicine, and I would hope to show this to the outside world.” Any comedian will tell you that successful humor is the result of hard work, and Wilcox has worked diligently to develop his voice. His artworks enable us to face painful truths head-on and trust in the healing power of humor.

We need to get into shape. A couple of friends would come home to South Dakota to attend the yearly sacred dance. Each year they would return a little larger than the previous year and blame their wives for shrinking the dance skirts. Some of the local boys would refer to them as shape shifters. – Dwayne Wilcox

Humor IS MEDICINE

By Ted Hughes, Registrar

For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift. When we were dying like flies from white man’s disease, when we were driven into reservations, when the government rations did not arrive and we were starving, watching the pranks and capers of Heyóka were a blessing. -John Fire Lame Deer.

S

everal years ago, Missoula Art Museum’s Senior Exhibitions Curator Stephen Glueckert was visiting the annual Native American Art Show in Great Falls, MT, when he came across an approach to ledger art that he had never seen before. The artist was Dwayne Wilcox. Glueckert was struck by the originality of Wilcox’s use of ledger paper as a platform for contemporary expression. Instead of the usual ledger art that portrayed a 19th century, romanticized warrior culture, Wilcox’s work captured contemporary Indian life and made strong commentary using humor, satire, and irony.

In many ways, Wilcox’s work is a contemporary take on Heyóka, the trickster spirit or sacred clown of the Lakota people. In Lakota tradition, Heyoka held up a mirror to the culture through satire, and asked difficult questions that called attention to uncomfortable truths. Heyóka used humor and buffoonery to challenge the audience to think about situations differently, forcing them to face their doubts, fears, and prejudices. The Heyoka spirit in Wilcox’s work confronts not only the prejudices and

absurdities of the dominant American culture, but those of his own culture as well.

Wilcox is an Oglala Lakota, born and raised on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He is a self-taught artist who has been practicing his craft for more than 30 years. Wilcox’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of institutions throughout the United States, including the Smithsonian, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth and the Peabody Museum at Harvard. His work has received awards from the Santa Fe Indian Art Market, and the Heard Museum’s Indian Art Market.

Growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Wilcox was surrounded by some of the most profound poverty found in the United States. As a teenage boy he witnessed the 1973 armed standoff between Lakota and American Indian Movement activists and the FBI, U.S. Marshalls, and state law enforcement at the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre.

AIM had come to Pine Ridge to support locals who considered the tribal president corrupt and autocratic, and to draw attention to US

Government failures to honor treaty obligations. Wilcox, when trying to join the armed standoff, was told by one of the activists to put his rifle away and go home.

Following a stint in the Air Force, Wilcox settled in to establishing himself and making a living as an artist. His early work was, as he refers to it, “pretty.” In other words, it was decorative, broadly appealing, and depicting a bygone era in a romantic light. When living on a reservation with 80% unemployment and few economic opportunities, making a living becomes an imperative. He acknowledges that the ledger art that portrays brave warriors and mystical ceremonies is the type of art that sells best in the marketplace, and this puts food on the table. Wilcox describes the most popular forms of ledger art as a romanticized mish-mash of the ceremonial aspects of Indian culture with 19th century warrior motifs. Art that, as Wilcox puts it, “Would make a good tattoo.” This untaught vision of “what art is” is not only embraced by white consumers but also by Indian people on the reservation.

Wilcox likes to say that, even though he had grown up on the reservation, he had never actually seen an Indian warrior with spear raised high riding a painted horse across the plains. The popular form of ledger art described a world of “What we used be, kind of, but not anymore.” This disconnect troubled Wilcox. He was more interested in a ledger art that captured current day-to-day life and featured contemporary people. This desire led to a period of exhaustive research, with Wilcox delving into important historic ledger art collections at institutions such as the Smithsonian, Dartmouth’s Hood Museum, and Yale’s Peabody Museum. His investigation led him to view the original ledger artists as conducting a form of visual journalism that documented their contemporary world. He also noticed that early ledger artists were exclusively men, presenting a distinctly masculine view of a culture that honored bravery and warriors.

Much of the ledger art he came across portrayed battlefield scenes, what Wilcox calls “The worst things that humanity can do to each other.” Depictions of dayto-day tribal life were conspicuously rare.

Wilcox was not interested in these warrioristic images. He believed history was not always about “what war you won, who you threw out,

what you took.” He sought out drawings that captured practical daily life.

His search brought him to the archives of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA. Carlisle, founded in1879, was the first federally funded off-reservation Indian boarding school, and became the model for other Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools, and hundreds of private boarding schools throughout the US. Wilcox was interested in viewing the art of the children placed in the school, children too young to have experienced the battlefield, and came across drawings of Indians performing daily routines such as preparing food or playing games.

Wilcox’s exploration also brought him to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he came across several drawings by an ancestor named Chief Old Chief Smoke, an Oglala leader who lived from 1774-1864. One drawing in particular stood out because it portrayed two men lying on the ground near a horse and a skunk, with blood dripping from its tooth. One of the men was clearly gassed by the skunk, and the other had a bite wound. Viewing a ledger drawing that portrayed daily life with an almost slapstick sense of humor was an “aha” moment for Wilcox.

This 19th-century drawing had captured the humor and humanity found in everyday life.

Wilcox’s research confirmed his nagging feeling that the usual decorative, romantic ledger art currently produced for the art market was “selling the public a bad horse.” Neglecting to portray contemporary Indian life failed to acknowledge that current Indian lives are just as important as past Indian lives. Following his research expeditions, Wilcox’s art became less about what would sell and more about what would make people think. Rather than trying to retread the romantic subjects of the past, such as warriors, mounted hunters, or similar scenes of days-gone-by, he instead sees his work as continuing the “journalistic” tradition of original ledger art by telling stories drawn from his experiences and commenting on issues relevant to today’s Native American culture. By tapping into the tradition of Heyóka, Wilcox’s art becomes medicine for our lives, a way of looking at ourselves without judgment, and a guide to treating each other better.

Let me do all the talking when we get there! Dressed to court with many gifts, telling his traveling companion the plan. I talk to my dog all the time.� – Dwayne Wilcox

You may cut the cheese. Sarcastic look at the food subsidy Government Cheese. Natives didn’t use dairy products; only as a baby. – Dwayne Wilcox

William Tell Overture. The Lone Ranger, another TV program popular on the radio then television that started with Rossini’s William Tell Overture. How we learn the American culture has been through the media for the best part of the last century because most natives did not know a real white man. So what I’m saying in this drawing is we have been conducted to learn a new culture. – Dwayne Wilcox

Get a TEEPEE already. AH! The good old days when you courted in cultural privacy and I don’t know how that lead to hickies and public groping like there’s no tomorrow.

Love? – Dwayne Wilcox

You can trust the government ask any Indian. A couple Indian guys came up from Oklahoma and they had a cool bumper sticker that we all admired. Hey! Really like your bumper sticker, hay! – Dwayne Wilcox

Puttin my face on. My war face! When they ask to see my War Face in basic training I said “I need a mirror. – Dwayne Wilcox

They start young. A common sight at any powwow.” – Dwayne Wilcox

Dwayne Wilcox: FOR EDUCATORS BACKGROUND

L

edger Art is a term for Plains Indian narrative drawing or painting on ledger paper. Most scholars agree that Ledger Art evolved from Plains Indian hide painting. The term comes from the accounting or ledger books that were a common source of paper for Plains Indians from the 1860s to the 1880s. Native people obtained ledger books through several sources–some were taken as “booty” from raids or battles while others were obtained through trade. Paper was sometimes provided to imprisoned Native Americans, most notably those held at Fort Marion in Florida, where they were encouraged to draw and in some cases sell their drawings. By the 1870s and 1880s Indian artists were consistently selling drawings to traders and Indian agents. Drawings were primarily executed in a traditional style and depicted warriors, warrior life and courtship. As Native people became increasingly influenced by white American culture, their drawings became a record of pre-contact and pre-reservation life.

A contemporary revival of Ledger Art began in the 1960s and 1970s. Dwayne Wilcox is part of this revival, and began drawing in the 1970s. He has extensively researched traditional ledger drawing at a variety of institutions including the Smithsonian and the Peabody Museum at Yale. But rather than relying on imagery based on a romantic vision of the past, Dwayne takes his ledger drawing into the 21st century by employing humor and satire to show us images of his personal life and the lives of Native Americans today.

INTRODUCTION Dwayne Wilcox’s work is an exceptional tool for educators interested in teaching students about Native American culture. The work speaks directly to several of the Essential Understandings established by the State of Montana

Office of Public Instruction’s Indian Education for All mandate. This mandate requires all teachers to educate about Montana’s rich Native American culture as well as to provide opportunities for Native American students to excel and thrive in the school environment.

Below are the key Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians addressed by the ledger drawings of Dwayne Wilcox.

Essential Understanding 2 There is great diversity among individual American Indians as identity is developed, defined and redefined by entities, organizations and people. A continuum of Indian identity, unique to each individual, ranges from assimilated to traditional. There is no generic American Indian.

Essential Understanding 3 The ideologies of Native traditional beliefs and spirituality persist into modern day life as tribal cultures, traditions, and languages are still practiced by many American Indian people and are incorporated into how tribes govern and manage their affairs Essential Understanding 6 History is a story most often related through the subjective experience of the teller. With the inclusion of more and varied voices, histories are being rediscovered and revised. History told from an Indian perspective frequently conflicts with the stories mainstream historians tell.

Each of these understandings are visible in Wilcox’s work, through the sometimes biting humor of his drawings and through the poignancy and beauty of others. This section will give a brief look as to how educators can use Wilcox’s art work to investigate American Indian culture and history.

OVERVIEW

T

he educator will use a series of questions borrowed from the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to examine Dwayne Wilcox’s They Start Young, a ledger drawing depicting two women at a powwow. The VTS method of inquiry encourages students to find meaning in visual images based on what they see. Students become engaged as they contribute their own ideas and observations. The teacher’s role is as a neutral facilitator repeating and clarifying what students say, and adding more information when necessary. After the VTS discussion teachers then direct students to research the particular subjects of interest that emerge through the VTS process. An art project inspired by Dwayne Wilcox is the final component. The art project is suitable for grades 3 to 8. Adaptations could be made for older or younger students. The project finishes with a critique encouraging student to examine how their art communicates.

STEP 1: INQUIRY Using the questions established by the Visual Thinking Strategies, students gather insights and decipher meaning from the Wilcox image. The image, They Start Young, can be projected from the MAM website* (see reference below) or copies can be made from the image in this catalog.

• Project the image and allow students to view it silently for a few minutes.

• Ask “What is going on in this picture?” After each response, paraphrase the answer being, sure to clarify the meaning when necessary. Point to the area that is being discussed.

• If what the student says needs clarification, ask: “What do you see that makes you say that?” In this way the students must back up their statement by what is actually seen in the artwork.

• Continue to ask: “What else can we find?” until the discussion is finished.

Make a list of everything the students notice and then select a few subjects for further research.

This may include elements of powwow regalia, for example, the large beads on the women’s dresses, the breast plates and ribbons, moccasins, chokers, hair wraps and ornaments, as well as the material aspects of the piece, such as the type of paper and art materials. Inquiry may lead to a discussion of the history of ledger art, the role of women in native culture, or the influence of European contact on native dress. See if students can determine what types of dances these women may be competing in by examining their regalia. Also notice the objects only found in today’s culture, such as baby carriages, sunglasses, and the powwow dance competition numbers.

STEP 2: ART PROJECT Students will create their own ledger drawing inspired by Wilcox.

Ledger drawing typically demonstrated heroic deeds in battle or in hunting.

Wilcox creates his own stories for his ledger drawings, commenting on issues concerning native/white relations or of humorous scenes related to reservation life or his personal life. Students will create a ledger drawing from their own life experience–an event at school, a dance, a sporting event, a birthday party, a family gathering–any important event in their lives.

• Examine the drawings of Dwayne Wilcox and other ledger artists. Note the distinctive compositional devices that are consistent in all ledger drawing.

Note how the primary figures are on one plane and all the same size, and most of the faces are in profile. There is no perspective or background and very little shading.

• Find paper that can be used as ledger paper: musical notation paper, receipt books, ledgers from the school office, graph paper, phone books, used notebook paper.

EDUCATION RESOURCES • Demonstrate basic human or animal forms and proportions. Demonstrate a face drawn sideways.

Different ledger artists use varying degrees of detail. The amount of detail can be left to the indiviual students. Note that Wilcox’s figures have no facial expressions but do have an exaggerated pointed nose.

• Have students create sketches of scenes and choose the best one for the final ledger drawing. Encourage simplification of the design so that only the main images are depicted, without a background.

• On “ledger” paper, sketch with pencil first and then complete using color pencils and/or crayons.

STEP 3: CRITIQUE Display all drawings and invite students to talk about what they chose to draw. Ask the question, “What would this picture tell future historians about life today?”

1. www.vtshome.org 2. * http://missoulaart.pastperfect-online.com/36919cgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword= wilcox;dtype=d (OR go to www.missoulaartmuseum.org “Search MAM Collection” and type in “Wilcox” to view and project all of the Wilcox artworks presented in the catalog).

3. http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/docs/2010learningtolookledger.pdf lesson)

(Ledger drawing

4. Smithsonian Institute/Keeping History: Plains Indian Drawings http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/ledger_drawing_1.html 5. MontanaHisorical Society /The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives http://mhs.mt.gov/Education/IEFALessonPlans.aspx 6. Montana Historical Society Ledger Lesson and Information http://mhs.mt.gov/Education/PictographicArt.aspx 7. MT OPI Indian Education for All: Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians http://opi.mt.gov/pdf/indianed/resources/essentialunderstandings.pdf 8. http://www.harwoodmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/4

(Wilcox exhibit)

9. Marks of Strength; Indian Ledger artists… Rogel, Christine http://www.pepionledgerart.com/092-096%20Indian%20Ledger%20ARTS12%20LR.pdf 10. Arizona State University, What is A PowWow? http://powwow.asu.edu/description.shtml 11. Ledger Art Collection; Milwaukee Public Museum http://www.mpm.edu/research-collections/anthropology/online-collections-research/ledgerart-collection

2014 MAM Board of Directors

Published by the Missoula Art Museum 335 N. Pattee, Missoula, MT 59802 The Missoula Art Museum is an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums.

Copyright Š 2014 by the Missoula Art Museum Book Design: Yogesh Simpson Photography: Chris Autio MAM serves the public by engaging audiences and artists in the exploration of contemporary art relevant to the community, state and region.

Betsy Bach, President John Paoli, Vice President Leslie Ann Jensen, Treasurer Brian Sippy, Secretary Liz Dye Dustin Hoon Joe Nickell Bobby Tilton Paul Tripp Janet Whaley

Missoula Art Museum Staff: Laura Millin, Executive Director Anna Buxton, Development Associate John Calsbeek, Assistant Curator & Preparator Tracy Cosgrove, Internal Operations Manager Alison Dillon, Visitor Services Manager Stephen Glueckert, Exhibitions Curator Kay Grissom-Kiely, Grant Writer Ted Hughes, Registrar Katie Stanton, Marketing & Communications Director Renee Taaffe, Education Curator

Dwayne Wilcox is an Oglala Lakota, born and raised on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He is a self-taught artist that has been practicing his craft for over thirty years. Wilcox’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of institutions throughout the United States including the Smithsonian, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth and the Peabody Museum at Harvard.

His work has received awards from the Santa Fe Indian Art Market, and the Heard Museum’s Indian Art Market.