Jimmy & Grace

JIMMY MEDEL

Transformation Mask by Jimmy The powerful Transformation Mask has an important place in the lives and mythology of the North West Coast people. I was inspired by Richard “

Hunt’s amazing “Totem Pole Transforming from a Hawk to a Man”, and his “immature Thunderbird.”

Native art is very much alive. Some design might come in a vision. There is a spirituality about Native art. It speaks of its power. 23

My name is Jimmy Medel. My mother’s name was Imogene Louise Tillotson-Medel. Her father was Byron Tillotson (Yuki & Pomo) and her mother Delphine Manuel Calzado (Coastal Miwok, Kashaya, and Southern Pomo). As you can see, I have that Native blood line that truly comes from Round Valley Reservation located in Northeastern Mendocino County in Northern California.

In 1851, the governor of California declared that a war of extermination would continue to be waged until the Native people went extinct. That year, organized lynch mobs killed Yuki. Yuki faced a choice: starve to death on the reservation or take a risk and be slaughtered by Gold Rush miners and settlers. It is long past time we shine light on this darkness. To all my relations, as Indigenous people, I know they all died with dignity. They struggled hard for their existence.

By 1864, only 300 Yuki Natives remained. I’m dedicating my painting, “Transformation Mask,” to my Ancestors. I want them to know my thoughts of them are in each brush stroke as I created this painting in honoring them. May the Creator bless everyone with “ the fruits from the tree of life. I see a time of seven generation, when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacret Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.