#bkmartsofamericas

Mini Art Lesson Tuesday, July 21, 2020

This Mini Art Lesson honors Native American history and culture through the work of the Kwakwaka'wakw, the Indigenous peoples to the Pacific Northwest Coast of the United States. This Baleen Whale Mask was worn to tell the story explaining why whales live deep in the ocean, and involved a very strong, persistent whale character. For this lesson, let’s engage in pretend play with kids ages 2–6 and popsicle puppet crafting for kids ages 7 and up.

FOR AGES 2–6: LET’S PLAY

This mask was likely worn over the length of a Kwakwaka’wakw chief’s back, covering his entire body. In the spirit of this, we will be creating a story chain to go the length of your child’s back.

Step 1: Talk to your child about their favorite story. For this lesson, Chloe chose Dear Girl by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jason Rosenthal, and her younger brother Davis chose Where Oliver Fits by Cale Atkinson. 

Step 2: Discuss the main events within the story and have your child retell them by drawing individual scenes. 

Step 3: Work to put the drawings in chronological order of events within the story. Then, tape the story together in that order. 

Step 4: Have your child wear the chain of drawings along the length of their back and retell the story back to them using their pictures as a visual. 

Step 5: Thank you so much to Maria, Chloe, and Davis! We hope you enjoy your stories and artworks as much as we did. 

FOR AGES 7+: LET’S CREATE

Step 1: Think of a story that is important in your life. Do you have a favorite book? Or a story from your family? For our lesson, we’ll be using the Kwakwaka'wakw origin story.

Step 2: Make a list of all the characters in that story.

Step 3: Sketch out what these characters look like on paper. Then, color them in.

Step 4: Cut out your drawings so that each character is on its own piece of paper.

Step 5: Now, take a new piece of paper and roll it up. Tape the paper so that it stays rolled up. If you have popsicle sticks or cardboard, you can use this instead to create sticks for your puppets.

Step 6: Tape your paper or sticks to the back of your characters.

Step 7: Now you can have a puppet show and tell your story! 

Posted by Tamar MacKay and Noé Gaytán

Our upcoming exhibition, Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas, looks at the effects of climate change on Indigenous communities across the western hemisphere. With works spanning 2,800 years, this installation explores the complex worldviews of Native communities, the threat of environmental destruction and its relationship to colonialism, and the work being done by Indigenous activists to protect the planet.

Now open, Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas draws upon the strength of our Arts of the Americas collection to highlight the complex worldviews of Indigenous peoples and explore how their beliefs, practices, and ways of living have been impacted by the ongoing threat of environmental destruction. With regional groupings spanning North, Central, and South America, this exhibition highlights different Indigenous understandings of the natural world and activism toward environmental justice. ⁠

Jeffrey Gibson, an artist of Choctaw and Cherokee descent, incorporates elements of Native American art and craft into his practice, creating a rich visual and conceptual dialogue between his work and the histories that inform it. In our new exhibition Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks, he selected objects from our collection, which are presented alongside his recent work. The resulting multimedia, floor-to-ceiling installation questions long-held institutional categorizations and representations of Indigenous peoples and Native American art. See it now through January 10, 2021.

This tetrapod (four-legged) vessel reflects how the ancient Maya visualized the world across three interconnected levels: the celestial overworld, the earthly middleworld, and the watery underworld of the dead. This expansive idea of the world and the place of humans within it has been displaced since European colonization in the 1500s, when land came to be divided into a series of geopolitical borders. The Maya vessel, now on view in the exhibition Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas, serves as a reminder of the ways that colonial worldviews contradict Indigenous understanding of the environment, and the effects of these tensions on national and international climate policies today. 

Tag along on a virtual tour of Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas led by Joseph Shaikewitz and Shea Spiller, Curatorial Assistants, Arts of the Americas and Europe!

Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas explores the severe impact that climate change is having on Indigenous communities across the hemisphere, and how this situation has an even longer history rooted in the legacies of the European colonialism. The exhibition highlights the complex worldviews of Indigenous peoples and considers how their beliefs, practices, and ways of living have been impacted by the ongoing threat of environmental destruction.

In the introductory gallery, a photograph by Tailyr Irvine from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests at Standing Rock connects to a model tipi by Teri Greeves. According to Greeves, “In staking down a tipi, a way of life is staked down and thus sacred space is created and held.”

This vessel encapsulates the Maya understanding of the world and its existence across three interrelated levels: the celestial overworld, the earthly middleworld, and the watery underworld. In the exhibition, the work serves as a reminder of how geopolitical borders and discussions of climate policy on a national level contradict Indigenous worldviews and the spread of myriad cultures across the hemisphere for millennia.

This intricate basket by Gail E. Tremblay combines traditional weaving methods with 16mm film taken from a 1967 ethnographic documentary on Inuit life. As Tremblay explains: 

“With the threat of global warming, I want people to think about the importance of the Arctic, how it supports life, and how the Native people who live there keep that life going. The exploitation of oil and fossil fuels is causing people to destroy the Earth, and the lack of balance is endangering life on the planet.”

This grouping of work from the Canadian and U.S. Northwest Coast includes Preston Singletary’s Guardian of the Sea, which speaks to the scarcity of natural resources once abundant in the region. Singletary comments: 

“Corporations and even our current government are rolling back environmental regulations, defunding scientific research, building oil pipelines which endanger our clean water, and a whole host of other issues that endanger our health as a nation. In my opinion, this is due to the lack of a true spiritual connection in relation to nature. . . . It is driven by a blind and misguided capitalist perspective that is not balanced by a respect for our environment.”

In her Broken Treaty Quilt series, the artist Gina Adams reproduces passages from United States government treaties with Native tribes on vintage quilts to draw attention to the deception and violence committed against Indigenous peoples during the formation of the U.S. The passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, which Adams quotes here, broke reservations up into individually owned plots that could be bought and sold, going against core Native understandings of communal ownership. As a result, more than ninety million acres of tribal land were sold to non-Native people.

The exhibition also highlights the perspectives of Indigenous climate activists, like Xiya Bastida, who notes:

“People say the climate movement started decades ago, but I see it as Indigenous people protecting Earth thousands of years ago. We need to bring [this philosophy] back and weave it into today’s society. . . . It shouldn’t be ‘we the people.’ It should be ‘we the planet.’”

This case shows artwork from present-day Peru that relates to the concept of “pacha,” a Quechua word that encompasses interrelated ideas of space, place, time, and the universe. This expansive worldview continues to inform much Indigenous activism and advocacy for environmental stewardship. 

Several million Indigenous people inhabited the Amazon rainforest prior to European colonization in the 1500s, and their artistic traditions—such as the brightly colored featherwork and earrings made of beetle-wing covers—and connection to the natural world continue to this day. Climate in Crisis emphasizes the survivance of Indigenous communities in the Americas and beyond as well as the central place of Indigenous worldviews in the creation of environmental justice.

Thanks for joining us! Tune in next Sunday for another virtual tour of our galleries!

“’When fire is applied to a stone it cracks’ is credited as an Irish proverb with no identified author. This title describes my interest in providing a different perspective for viewers when looking at historical objects within an institutional setting. I often appropriate words from found texts, song lyrics, or poetry that have impacted me and have provided guidance as I try to create a space for myself, others, and the histories that are part of my heritage. This quote is both factual and metaphorically poetic. Heat can be applied to stone either naturally or deliberately until the stone will crack and break open. Fire is symbolic in many cultures and expressions of faith, and often represents divinity, passion, destruction, and transformation. On the other hand, stone is seen as dense, heavy, solid, and static. I read 'fire' in this quote to describe the innovative making, use of materials, transformative techniques, and the survivalist ethic of Indigenous people Our use of new and different materials to make things that support ourselves and our communities is the 'fire' that continues to break open the static and antiquated ideas regarding who we are and what we are capable of." 

— Jeffrey Gibson⁠

CLOSING SOON—Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving is in its final weeks at the Brooklyn Museum. This rare presentation exploring the artist's creative vision and self-crafted identity closes on May 12. Tap link in bio to get your tickets to experience Kahlo's clothing and personal items, paintings and drawings by the artist, and works of Mesoamerican art from our collection.⁣