Lemon

If you need to get rid of negativity, but you don’t have access to a ton of supplies, then this spell is for you. Note that the lack of supplies makes the energy manipulation required for the success of this spell very advanced. 1. Take a piece of paper and write all of the things on that paper you want to send away or dismiss from your conscious or subconscious mind.

2. Sit with the paper in front of you, staring at the things which bother you, allowing yourself to dwell on those feelings.

3. Put all of the negativity into the paper, visualizing it turning dark brown or black, stained, and gross (if that helps).

4. Rip the paper up into a ton of tiny pieces, focusing instead on the positives in your life, and allowing the optimism of a life without these negative things to flow through you.

I’ve spent a frenzied couple of weeks trying to get everything squared away at home and work before I go on vacation for the MQX show in New England. I actually leave the day after tomorrow (after a full day of work), and since I’m taking the train, I wanted to make sure I had enough handwork to keep me busy.

My herron is nearly complete, so I started on a secondary element, this little tortoise. I modeled him after the gopher tortoise that lived in the front yard of my old house.

I have to say I am loving Kathy McNeil’s Apliquick technique, and I can’t wait to use it on my future art quilts.

The Apliquick is a fusible interface that you turn the edges of your applique over (like freezer paper, except that you leave it in). If you draw your pattern on the shiny side (which gets ironed down), you don’t even have to reverse the pattern. The downside is if you draw too dark, it may show through your fabric. This happened while I was doing my bird’s pale pink feathers.

This is where a Frixion pen comes in handy. It’s good and visible, writes on the shiny side fine, and will disappear once it’s ironed to the fabric.

You cut your applique shape with a small allowance, just like in the freezer paper technique.

The Bohin glue stick came with our class kit, and it has already become indispensable in my toolbox. I love that it goes on pink so you can see it, and paired with Cherrywood, it makes the edge extremely easy to work with.

The forked tool holds your piece steady, while the other has a beveled edge to scoop and turn your edge.

The result is a perfectly smooth edge, and with my bits lightly glued together, I can treat my tortoise as a separate unit and do all my hand applique on the train.

These are warrior shields from the Wahgi people of Papua New Guinea. The warriors paint them with imagery meant to symbolize animals who have traits they wish to embody in battle. These depictions are intended to give the person using it the powers of what they’re depicting.

Now. Look at this Wahgi shield:

Hmm. That looks a bit different from the others.

That looks VERY different. Why, it looks like

The Phantom… American comic book character by Lee Falk. And that’s because it is.

The Wahgi people were isolated from the rest of the “modern” world until 1933. They came into contact with WWII service men who shared some aspects of western culture with the tribesmen. In particular, they showed them the comic books they read while shipped out. The Wahgi loved them. In particular, the Wahgi adored the stories of the Phantom, who wasn’t even particularly popular in its home of America.

He is so popular that the few Wahgi who can read english will read the comics out loud in the village center and hold out the pages for everyone to see, so the whole tripe can enjoy them and marvel at the Phantom’s might in battle.

They identify with the Phantom because he came from a jungle territory, like them, wore a mask to fight, like them, and came from a long line of warriors, which the Wahgi, who worshiped their ancestors, deeply respected. Further, despite not really having superpowers, the Phantom is strong, clever, and incredibly fast. He was so fast that his enemies began to believe that he was impervious to bullets and could not be killed.

Therefore, the Wahgi began painting HIM on their shields to invoke HIS abilities in battle. There are TONS of Phantom-Wahgi shields out there.

This reminds me so much of Americans who like, bring Captain America shields to protests and stuff! Or even like, when councilman Lan Diep was sworn in holding Captain America’s shield:

There’s really no difference here, especially if you don’t use condescending, colonialist language like “tribesmen” and “These depictions are intended to give the person using it the powers of what they’re depicting.” Apparently the difference between “striving for ideals” and acquiring “powers” is whether or not you adhere to the dominant culture in the United States?

The problem here is this is how stuff like this is taught in art history classes, as if it’s somehow mind-blowingly quaint that indigenous people anywhere like a freaking comic book character, or use his likeness as a “talisman.” *eyeroll*

There’s an obnoxiously pervasive narrative I see all the time around indigenous peoples from all over the world, that instead of making conscious aesthetic choices, they have somehow been “tricked” into liking something inherently inappropriate or anachronistic.

I’ve seen this narrative pressed onto the Quechua and Aymara Cholitas of Bolivia, implying that they were “tricked” into choosing to wear bowler hats because some mythical western trader of long ago had a surplus of too-small hats:

Or in North America, a lot of traditional regalia like Jingle Dress, Fancy Shawl, Grass Dance or Ribbon Skirt is called “garish”, and I’ve heard non-Native people complain that it doesn’t look “Traditional enough” (!!!) because it uses bright or neon fabric, beads, and trim materials.

[sold out pre-made Jingle Dresses from Powwowfabrics.com]

Kiowa artist Teri Greeves designed this piece called Great Lakes Girls, a synthesis of traditional bead and quill-work that utterly transforms high-heeled tennis shoes designed by Steve Madden. The women depicted in Jingle Dress represent the artist’s husband’s Anishinabe people, and some of the materials used, like spiny-oyster shell, come from the southwest and are often used in jewelry made by Diné people.

The artificial conflict that a work like this creates in a non-Native viewer is based on the assumption that the “tradition” of indigenous peoples, and overall, our cultures, MUST remain static in order to be seen as “authentic” to the dominant culture. Even more frustrating, I often see the concept of Pan-Native culture and identities discussed as if this can ONLY mean a false sense of sameness imposed by colonialism and colonial structures, rather than an actual show of solidarity between Native peoples in philosophies, practices, and activism.

The lack of nuance around understanding these synthesized cultures leads to the delegitimization and erasure of traditions like the Mardi Gras Indians, Baby Dolls, Skull and Bones gangs, and their connection to both sacred clown traditions like Heyókȟa and West African dance and costume traditions.

I personally believe that decolonization and resistance can only be possible once the concept that appeal to (and categorization by) the dominant culture is a necessary step, is disposed of. I reject the notion that we must accept a binary existence of one or the Other, as if we can only be Historical or Modern but never both. As if a living culture is out of the question, or some kind of oxymoron.

But the biggest wall between the Self and the Other that I’m trying to break down here is the notion in the original post: that the academic teacher/learner and the “topic” are somehow eternally separated by both time and geographical distance. I’m sick and tired of being traumatized by being taught Who I Am and What I Believe by someone who doesn’t actually know, and doesn’t really believe I can exist in the same room they inhabit.

What this comes back to is a quote I posted a few days ago on how art/education/community intersect: