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Lillian Pitt (Yakima/Warm Springs/Wasco),
Warm Springs Stick Indian, cast crystal, 18" x 9" x 6", 2006
While maskmaking today among Native Americans is not nearly as
universal as it was in ancient America, the art and craft of creating
these unique tools for human expression did not disappear, and in fact
their creation is once again expanding. Indigenous maskmakers of North
America today are as varied as the art they make. Some have made masks
from the beginning of their art careers; others segued in from other
mediums— painting, sculpture, etc.; some went in search of their
cultures; others were surrounded by it.
All made remarkable journeys, meeting crucial moments and crossroads
where their lives changed forever because of their art. Despite the
obstacles, they live today and face tomorrow with their heritage and
their unique worldview essential to their lives as artists.
lillian pitt
The matriarch of modern Native American maskmakers, Lillian Pitt
(Yakama/Wasco/Warm Springs) has a long career as an artist, and no
collection is complete without one of her memorable pieces. That wasn’t
always true. Some 25 years ago, she was rolling curlers in a hair salon
until she suffered a back injury.
Pitt was soon in community college, where her life took an exciting
turn: ceramics class. “I fell in love with clay; it was so magical!”
she exclaims. “I never considered myself an artist when this all
started. I took some clay home and said, ‘Hmm…what should I do?’ And I
thought, ‘Let’s make a mask!’ Then my teacher said to ‘raku’ it. My
response was, ‘What’s that?’ It was like being a clean slate; I knew
nothing about it.”
It was Pitt’s naiveté that helped her get her first big break, when
R.C. Gorman blew into Portland, Oregon for an exhibition
meet-and-greet, she recalls. She went up to him and showed him
photographs of her school projects. “He bought my first two masks and
got my work into a gallery,” says Pitt, who still sounds amazed about
it after all these years. “It was all [because of] his nurturing and
wonderful generosity. Up until then, I was a community-college student
on my way to a four-year social-work degree; but he changed all that.”
Pitt’s artistic inspiration comes from her ancestors, she says. “I have
a 10,000-year-long history in the Columbia [River] Gorge—that’s how
long my people have been there. It’s where I find some of my designs,
in the petroglyphs there; [I also find my designs] in our other
traditional things, such as basket designs, beading designs, and our
legends and stories.”
The Portland-based artist is now working in bronze and cast glass,
producing masks (as well as prints, scultpture and jewelry) that are
both beautiful and subtle, yet wildly unique. You can see her latest
work at the Gary Farmer Gallery in Santa Fe this summer during Indian
Market.
Lillian Pitt’s work is shown at the Bonnie Kahn Gallery in Portland,
OR; Sunbird Art Gallery in Bend, OR; Northwest by Northwest in Cannon
Beach, OR; Jeffrey Moose Gallery in Seattle, WA; and Images of the
North in San Francisco, CA. Details: 971/212-5067 or lillianpitt.com
jerry laktonen
Ask
maskmaker Jerry Laktonen what inspires his art and he’ll tell you a sad
story with a happy ending. The fifty-something Alutiiq grew up on the
shores of remote Larson Bay near Kodiak, Alaska, never seeing much of
his culture.
“I never saw my people’s traditional arts until I was a young adult,
when I saw pictures from the early 1900s of village beaches covered
with kayaks,” says Laktonen. “My dad told me that 20 years after
that—when he was a boy—he never even saw a kayak paddle. That means
many of our cultural items disappeared in just one lifetime.” Curious
about how this occurred, Laktonen found that many adults were wiped out
by diseases, so an untold number of children, including his father,
were sent to missions or boarding schools, breaking the cultural
continuum.
Jerry Laktonen (Alutiiq),
Octopus, yew and cherry woodcarving, 27" x 18" x 4", 2007.
Laktonen began researching the history of his people’s arts and was
stunned by the depth and beauty of Alutiiq fabric and wood cultural
artifacts—including large bodies of work held by Russian and French
collectors. “The extreme beauty of it—I was amazed,” he says. “It was
just out of this world—highly imaginative and technically advanced.”
Then a disaster struck, damaging the local ecosystem, crippling his
livelihood and making worldwide headlines: the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil
spill. An amateur woodcarver, Laktonen had been a fisherman for years,
but after the oil spill he had to find another way to feed his family;
he found it making Alutiiq items from the past.
Now based in Granite Falls, Washington, Laktonen conjures masks from
yellow cedar, quartz, cabochons, angora, aged red ochre, amber,
carnelian and curly maple, to name a few of the materials he
incorporates into his work. They evoke the same pleasure as a gourmet
meal from the hands of a master chef. More importantly, Laktonen says
he’s happy to contribute to the appreciation of Native art, tradition
and culture.
Jerry Laktonen will be showing at the 2007 Santa Fe Indian Market. Details: 360/691-7772 or whaledreams.com
below, left to right:
Fierce One,
Becky Olvera Schultz (Azteca/Kickapoo), clay, horse hair, turkey
feathers, deer tail, bone and glass, 14"h x 12"w, 2003; Mask by
George Bettelyoun (Oglala Lakota);
Alma Guerrero, Zarco Guerrero (Juañeno/Acjachemem), carved mahogany, 12" x 6", 2005.
becky olvera schultz
Sometimes tragedy can bring about good things in your life. That’s what
happened in to Becky Olvera Schultz (Azteca/ Kickapoo) when her only
brother committed suicide in 1992.
Calling that a “life-altering experience” and seeking a way to heal the
pain in her life, Schultz recalls that a friend encouraged her to take
a drum-making class. “I rejoiced in working with my hands again; I had
forgotten how therapeutic and centering it is,” she says.
Since then, Schultz has found a special niche in Native art,
maskmaking, in work that is inspired by “all peoples indigenous to the
Americas.” Schultz says she finds the faces she uses in her masks in
the features of Native people, faces she finds to be “intriguing and
beautiful, no matter what age, gender or group.”
With five solo shows to her credit and her work in a variety of leading
galleries, Schultz works in terracotta and white clay, using acrylic
paint, horsehair, bison fur, leather and beads to create vibrant and
thoughtful masks that are delightfully titled. She adds, “I take
satisfaction in my creations knowing that each person viewing my work
will respond in their own way to each piece.”
Details: Becky Olvera Schultz, P.O. Box 217, Aptos, CA 95001; 831/688-0694 or native-expressions.com
george bettelyoun
If you do an Internet search on George Bettelyoun (Oglala Lakota),
you’ll find his sports career near the top of the list, as he was named
last year to South Dakota’s “1980s All-Decade Team” in basketball. That
doesn’t mean he isn’t a true artist, however.
“‘Mister basketball’ aside, I got old—you can’t do basketball all your
life—and I had to fall back on something and that was my art,” explains
the thirty-something resident of Minneapolis.
A former fashion model with a bachelor of arts degree from Mount Marty
College in Yankton, South Dakota, Bettelyoun remembers that his biggest
push in art as a child growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation came
from an uncle, who was a cartoonist with Hanna-Barbera. Another
inspiration, says Bettelyoun, was the Native Arts Circle, a
Minnesota-based arts advocacy group. “They provided me with an outlet
for my creative expression,” he says. “I was doing art before, but I
didn’t know that it—art—was who I was, or that I had a talent to do it
and make a living from it.”
Leather is a big player on his materials list, he says, along with
textiles, paper, beads and feathers. “I just finished a piece for an
art show—two masks of jingle dress dancers—and I used the last two
wild-goose feathers from the dozen someone gave me last year,” he says.
Bettelyoun has always liked drawing faces, which he put in many of his
two-dimensional works. As he matured and developed an interest in
performance, maskmaking came naturally. “I was, and still am, so amazed
at how much facial expressions can tell a story.”
George Bettelyoun’s work is featured at Two Rivers Gallery at the
Minneapolis American Indian Center. Details: 612/879-1780 or maicnet.org
zarco guerrero
The future looms bright for maskmaker Zarco Guerrero
(Juañeno/Acjachemem) of Mesa, Arizona. In September, he’s having a
one-man show at the Mesa Arts Center and he’s just released a DVD,
Caras y Máscaras, a 30-year retrospective of more than 200 works of art
and his mask performances.
Taking images of the past, Guerrero transforms ordinary paper and clay
into scowling visages of ancient gods. Many of his art masks are of
magnificently carved wood, including cypress, mahogany and cedar. The
Fariseo and Pascola masks of northwest Mexico’s Sonoran region, used in
traditional ceremonies, are his specialty. He credits his interest in
maskmaking to his childhood in southern Arizona, where he attended
Native ceremonies.
In high school, Guerrero began making masks in clay and ceramics. In
the 1970s he lived in Mexico, where we witnessed mask rituals and
ceremonies. “There I met many maskmakers who encouraged me to pursue
and continue with the ancient traditions,” he notes. He also studied
mask arts in Japan, working under a Noh mask master, and annually
presents solo and group mask theatrical performances to thousands of
schoolchildren.
The founder of Xicanindio Artes, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to Latino
and Native American arts, Guerrero was the subject of a 1984 PBS
documentary broadcast nationally. Earlier this year, his life-size
bronze sculpture of Cesar Chavez, the historic farm-worker advocate,
was unveiled in San Luis Rio Colorado, Arizona.
Next up on his agenda, Guerrero has his sights set on the learning trip
of a lifetime: an expedition to South America this summer. His wife and
three children—including his rising-star son, musician/dancer
Quetzal—will accompany him to meet his wife’s people, the Kamviva, an
Indigenous nation in northeastern Brazil. “While there, we’ll check out
the local maskmakers and we’ll probably collect a few examples,” says
Guerrero. “I also want to collect some wood for my masks and to seek
some inspiration for my work.”
Details: Zarco Guerrero, 551 N. Alma School Road, Mesa, AZ 85201; 480/834-5731 or zarkmask.com
Longtime freelance writer Minnie Two Shoes is from the Fort Peck
Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, Montana. A co-founder and present board
member of the Native American Journalists Association, she has worked
for many years in television and radio in Canada. She is also the proud
mother of five children and a grandmother of three.
Other Notable Maskmakers
Dolores Purdy Corcoran
Corcoran (Caddo) produces masks from her studio in Kansas based on
large gourds decorated with feathers, turquoise and other materials.
Many are inspired by masks recovered from various prehistoric Mound
Builder sites. Details: 785/478-4801 or dolorespurdycorcoran.com
David K. John
John’s rich imagery is inspired by his experiences growing up on a
remote sheep ranch on the Navajo Reservation near the tiny town of
Keams Canyon, Arizona. His grandfather, a Navajo medicine man, often
brought the young boy along to perform traditional ceremonies,
providing him with a lifetime of artistic material. He began his art
career making masks and has recently returned to them with a series of
cast glass works. Details: John’s masks and other art are carried by
Kiva Fine Arts, Santa Fe.
Fannie Loretto
At her house on the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, using clay
she gathers near her birthplace in New Mexico, Loretto (Jemez Pueblo)
creates mystic masks instilled with the spirits of sand, sky and
windswept mesas, aptly reflecting the time-old
heritage of her people. Be sure to stop and see
her works at the Santa Fe Indian Market this year.
Details: 520/560-3044
Merced Maldonado
Inspiration for the art of Maldonado (Yaqui), of Guadalupe, Arizona,
comes from his dreams, and his people’s history, art, philosophy,
religion and stories. He’s also an expert at creating traditional
Pascola masks for Yaqui dances. Using cottonwood root, elephant trunk
tree, horsehair, mesquite pitch, seeds, beans, shells, butterfly eggs,
cocoons and woodpecker feathers, his materials are as exotically lush
as his masks. Details: e-mail mercedmaldonado@yahoo.com
Glen Nipshank
Nipshank (Cree), raised in Alberta, Canada, is an accomplished potter
and sculptor. He’s branching out with a mask exhibit at the Gary Farmer
Galley in Santa Fe in August. Details: glennipshank.com
Ernest Whiteman
Whitman (Northern Arapaho) of Wyoming creates
fabulous iconic and contemporary masks from found objects, bronze and
steel. Details: Two Rivers Gallery at the Minneapolis American Indian
Center; 612/879-1780 or maicnet.org
Briefly Noted
Roger Cain (Cherokee), Oklahoma, cherokeebooger.com
Ken Decker (Tsimshian), Alaska, crazywolfstudio.com
Michael Dengali (Nisga’a/Tlingit/Tsimshian), British Columbia, 604/251-4844, ext. 352
Doug LaFortune (Tsawout First Nation), British Columbia, tsawout.ca
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