“I am a member of the Bitter Water Clan, born for the Salt, Many Goats, my maternal grandfather and Tsi’najinni’, my paternal grandfather.” This is how we begin a conversation. Soon the canyon walls will be echoing the sounds of revelry as we commence the ninth annual Shonto Rock the Canyon event in the canyon of my Arizona community of Shonto. This will...
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I dreamt again of a young boy cradled in the wings of angels, while ancestors moved gently into the light. In my recent ceremony of sound healing, I saw the boy again in my trance. It was a beautiful moment, a healing moment. As I went deeper into calmness, I heard the hum of the universe. It is this boy I traveled with in many dreams. Three-and-half years...
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Recently, I did a school visit with Ms. Julia’s second grade class in Cornville. As with most school visits, it was a treat and inspiring to see them. I drove through Oak Creek Canyon, through Sedona, and down into the expansive Verde Valley. Along the way, I pulled off the road a couple times to sit atop my camper shell and draw the beauty of the space....
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This is part two, continued from last week’s issue of Flagstaff Live.… The wind blew all through the cold night. The protective covering I rigged over our shared tent flapped frozen against the outside. I was too tired to even be bothered by it at all. I laid there hoping I didn’t have to go empty my bladder soon. Fortunately, the sleeping bag was...
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I went up to Standing Rock Reservation in Cannonball, N.D., to join in the alliance of Water Protectors, one more among thousands. We gathered here to protect the Missouri River from the Army Corps of Engineers, putting water in jeopardy for all downriver. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the “monster” whom we are here to defeat in peace. To speak for the...
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For days, Old Lady Smallcanyon complained of weakness. She had seen 84 winters without an illness. She had walked miles after her flock of sheep. She said her body ached and vision blurred. Medicine men were called upon and they came and went. “She has Lightning illness,” one proclaimed. Another diagnosed a Skinwalker witch infection. Finally, it was...
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Like drunkards we are, we staggered along in the rain-soaked clay. The rain continued steadily on, mocking our slow progress toward our goal: the teacher’s housing project in the distance. Alcohol and rain haze made it difficult to judge space and time. We slipped simultaneously and fell side-by-side in the mud; this was the fifth or sixth time. We...
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In the Diné world, this is the season of ceremonies, the time when the clans come together to heal collectively through summer N’daa ceremonies. N’daa, also called Enemy Way Ceremonies, is performed exclusively in the warmer seasons. Their announcement marks the first moaning of early summer thunder and the first lightning to the very first chill of fall....
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I go home often, out into the heart of the Diné country, out to the Shonto area to be specific. This is the land that carved features in my character. This land that gave to me lessons on life and how one should speak with her. Recently, I took my love to meet her as well. It is an amazing thing to experience the newness of this land through...
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I will be attending a wedding soon back East as a guest—something I know a few things about. It is always a journey of hope, promises and pitfalls. Rather than dwelling on the latter, let me just say that I am honored to be among the throngs of well-wishers and metaphorical breezes that launch this ship of dreams. I have attended many weddings out here in...
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I am nine years old. I am lying in our Hoghaan awake in the middle of the night. To my left and right my brothers and cousins are sleeping soundly beneath the blankets, dreaming dreams sheepskin bedding brings. I am awake to the full rhythmic snoring and occasional cough and sleep mumbles. I am trying to fall back asleep. My mind is full of terror and...
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The Viola Awards celebration is just around the corner and the excitement in the arts community here in Flagstaff and beyond is almost tangible. The nominations are out; I am sure many fingers are crossed. I wish all the nominees much luck and that the eyes of the judging panels are kind, and not as divisive as the Academy Awards. I believe I...
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As I peered past the hard rain against my windshield, I saw multiple shades of gray composing my new world in a wiggly abstract. The Sierra disappeared from my rearview mirror and was replaced by beacons of headlights urging me forth. Welcome to the Golden State for this dusty Rez boy. I was definitely in uncharted water and there was no turning back. The...
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It has been many years since I broke through the beauty that is the rainbow that surrounds our Dineh’ homeland. I exited innocence of all that I knew and loved, which sustained me, but the hunger of new places, people and experiences is too powerful a drive to let pass. Each time I have embraced newness, it was not without some cultural shock. Much of what...
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As late summer’s warmth relents to the early chills of autumn, I am reminded of how these changes affected my observation from the threshold of my mother’s hearth and home. From a very young age, when I first learned of the cycle of seasons, I learned to gauge those stages in the changes of the Earth’s tone. Before and aside from the intrusion of U.S....
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As the season changes in the waning year, I hear once again the voice of my elder as the story of the great legends of Creation is retold. When our animal family begin their slumber for the winter, it is deemed safe to settle around the hearth of the hogan to embark upon this journey, again. To the blazing wood fire of winter’s night, to the aroma of Navajo Tea and cedar smudging, we await on the first lines of our origin. “Aal,kiida’, Haaji’na’b’daa de’.”
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There are many mysteries I grew up with that remain a mystery. I welcome that. As in the new world I am thrust into, the mysteries of technologies and beliefs in guidance from different gods. I welcome that. I do not know how cell phones and computers work from such a small format. Halloween and Santa Claus: mysteries. I do not know much of what is in nature, such as what keeps millions of tons of moisture above our heads in these fantastic summer thunderheads. How nature works and all that maintains life has always been explained to me through the creation stories and through the voices, songs and the antics of animal kin. My forebears passed those on as tenets of living life as Dineh’.
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At the age of 15 I broke through the horizon of the familiar. From a remote sheep camp, with $5 in my pocket, I left home. I remember that day as I packed a few pieces of clothing and exited innocence. I offered a quick farewell to my family; leaving them thinking I was just going overnight at some distant relative’s place. A thick sheep camp...
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That late evening when the shadows blended thick I walked away from the festivity of lights and laughter into the night. I stepped beyond the perimeter of flashing lights and carnival barkers. Before me I see only the sweltering evening heat of the night. It held another population as I negotiated alleys. I walked deeper into the unlit city...
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As late spring rolls out its verdant carpet for summer’s entrance, I will once again step into its promise of the season’s fullness and festivities. This is the promise I yearned for as a child. It is called Shii’ in Navajo (Summer)—The Time When Late Snow Showers and Thunderstorms Mingle. The late storm we call Aye’he ne’dinni’yoodi (Chasing...
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This was my third Passover Seder/Shabbat observance. This year, I accompanied my girlfriend Tamar and my adopted son Daniel to this wonderful celebration of the shedding of the bondage of darkness in any form. It was the Navajo Moon of the Earth’s stirring. The moon was early full and all the hills, free of lights, showed its muted shine. The hills of the...
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“Drawing is more than a tool for rendering and capturing likeness. It is a language, with its own syntax, grammar, and urgency. Learning to draw is about learning to see. In this way; it is a metaphor for all art activity. Whatever its form, drawing transforms perception and thought into image and teaches us how to think with our eyes.” — Kit White, from...
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The headlights revealed only more sand ahead of us as we negotiated our way down the Mexican dirt road. As the passenger, my feet worked the phantom pedals. Tamar and I were both strangers here and we had no way of contacting our hosts somewhere there on the beach of the Sea of Cortez. The street we were on had no signs. It abruptly turned to dirt and...
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I had a brother once that I looked up to, to no end. I had a brother once that loved me through expressions of the face and words, and yet still he beat me up when I transgressed in my young boyhood as I learned to be a man. Nelson was two years older than me and my closest sibling. He was a charismatic child, and at an early age even the animals...
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As we enter another season of feasting, gift giving and love, I want to talk about what that is all about for me. I was always under an impression that a great prophet was born in the season and through him we are promised salvation. It is about saving lives and opening up heart and hearth. Our collective story of our vulnerability and our saviors come...
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I do dream my dreams dreaming me, where my reality conscience is folded onto itself. We all do. It’s the world we populate nearly half of our living and breathing state. A plane of conscience we give little credence to. A powerful place and space we all know too well. I visit that dimension each night where all my angst and triumph resides. Where I either...
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Once again, I am in the company of wonderfully talented landscape painters. I will spend this week here at the rim of the Grand Canyon trying to capture and interpret, in my own way, the grandness of the Canyon. As one of 20-some painters from all over the country, I am thrilled to be here among this inspirational throng, among peers, fellow visionaries...
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In many of my past writing journeys here, I speak much of growing up Dineh’—about the uniqueness of the culture I come from—about the sacredness of ceremonies and the brutality of the government boarding schools. I speak of life and living within the horizon that is my universe. I want to speak more on the beauty and the magic that makes my own life as an...
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Some months ago when the preparation for my new exhibition at the Museum of Northern Arizona was beginning, my friend and brother of a lighter shade, glassblower George Averbeck, approached me with the idea of collaborating on a piece for the museum gala auction. In our continuing support for this fine institution, I readily agreed. George has shown his...
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Once again, I am honored with a full show at the Museum of Northern Arizona. The show begins with a gala with all the trimmings on Summer Solstice. It is a place all artists sharing this universal language wish to be. I am humbled by this distinction and I know it is my stories of being an integral part of my land that brings me here. I gladly share these...
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Aaah, the rites of Spring! Yaa’ Daa’n. This is the time of year when smiling hearts blossom everywhere it seems. I used to see it in the early thunderheads looming high above the parched grounds of the government boarding school compound. There seemed to be newness even in the gray geometry we called home away from our sheep camp homes. Like the towering...
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They rode hard with intensity upon their Palomino steed. They sat in their saddles with confidence, synchronized as they moved through brushes and deadfalls. The Horse and his Cowboy. They were overwhelming there up on the movie screen. Their hats disturbed not in the slightest by the wind they often rode into. They squinted hard and narrow into the storm...
Read More“… aa’de’h, ha ho dil ya, bi’ daa de. Tsin, t’iis, noseel,i’ be’ ya’ bi’ne’ es tsi jinni’. Da’ hoodi dsi, da hodi’ zhoosh go’ da hode’ knii’de’e’ daa’ ho,l dziil’ jinni.” “… on the cusp of creation, trees, and all that takes root ties down the undulating restlessness of the Mother. stillness with prayers, that is the wisdom and strength of grandparents …”...
Read MoreCelebrations of the season began way before Christmas as I know it now. Before the lighted trees, gifts and Santa Claus. There were times remembered in events and emotions. There was a sense of holiness that comes with the hibernations of animals and the loss of warmth, as the world became more surreal suspended farther from the Sun. The short days and...
Read MoreSap oozes from a sweet vanilla pine. Its scent rides the morning current. Nectar of hummingbird plant, (Da’yii t,ii Daa’) still on my tongue and cliff roses fragrance in my senses. We ride the morning roads upon this land of many incredible moods, many fascinating plays of light and the space. It has its own vocabulary. The land of my ancestors once spoke...
Read MoreThe morning alarm goes off early, blaring harshly as we stumble out of our bunk beds at the boarding school. Another morning. The overseer swaggers in with his switch tapping his calves. He yells down the hallway echoing the unkind sound of the bell. We line up in our pajamas for inspection and a head count; 60 young boys in a wing of the massive...
Read MoreIt is often said that it takes a village to raise a child. I know that it takes an army of teachers to make that child a productive and giving member of society. I am such a child still. I can never say enough of my traditional Dineh elders who taught me before I stepped into a classroom. The elders still hold that position in our lives as we also take on...
Read More“How did you get to where you are now, and How can I get there?” I am often posed this question from young artists. Some days I do look about me and pose the same question. It seems like it was not that long ago that I was listening intently for sheep bells and nestled inside big sagebrushes with comic books. It seems only days ago I felt the hot wind on...
Read MoreIn the great story of Navajo Creation, the Hero twins are a constant presence of adventure in warring against the Monsters of the Fourth World. It is through the conquest of this world, this dimension, that we are allowed peace and prosperity in the present world. The “people” were forced to move from one world level to another for their own misdeeds and...
Read MoreThese days I pick up a hitchhiker alongside the roadways of the Navajo Rez. I find that familiar and safe as a former traveler of such. The onset of the spring in all its glory brings to mind such longings. Out there was another world awaiting. The deep turquoise sky, a background of towering cumulous clouds promising rain and more. Freedom was my horizon,...
Read MoreI have traveled this road many times. Too many to recount. I measure them by my adventures and misadventures upon this stretch of life line. The route is from the foot of the Sacred Mountain of the West to the California coast. I am once again riding the rhythms of the road west into the San Francisco Bay. I have no flower in my hair, just the West Coast...
Read MoreIn my life creating art, I am asked where my inspirations and images come from. My world of unconventional reality. Much of it does come from dreams dreamt at night. Dreams I can still recall from decades ago. Dreamscapes I walked among and participated in. Dreams that are coming to reality now. On canvas and in our shared reality. Dreams are the drivers...
Read MoreOur classroom was cramped; tiny and not designed for 30 students. It actually was an apartment for the overseer attached to the girls’ dormitory. We were the overflow at another government boarding school that ran out of space for us. While the new school was being constructed at Shonto for us, we were guests at Leupp School. That was a hard year. This was...
Read MoreIn these waning days of 2012, we have lost more than a few people who have touched us all collectively in the entertainment, political and sports worlds. With that consciousness, the past couple of months also found me saying goodbye to several close relatives as they journeyed into the Spirit world. Sadly, it is an all-too-common event these days,...
Read MoreThe wind, in the form of a dust devil, took my hat many years ago. I was 5 years old. I stepped out into the calm and warming day crowned by my new straw cowboy hat. I beamed beneath its brims as I showed it off to the daily gods. The mysteries. It took many days of piñon picking covered in tree pitch and aching knees to afford that fine hat from the local...
Read MoreAs another season of harvest and preparation for colder weather begins, my mind cannot help but wander back to the days of innocence lost, courtesy of my Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school experience. School resumed for another year and with it came the pained expectation of family separations and abuses at the hands of the B.I.A. officials and my...
Read MoreA colorfully dressed young cowboy with a slight limp shuffled past me. I stood with one hand on the railings of the rodeo corral. I had come to see a friend I haven’t seen since my boarding school days. Seven years? The drone of the announcer’s amplified voice wore on: “Now out of chute four, we have a cowboy from Red Lake, Arizona, ‘Ba ahii da’ had’. Clap...
Read MoreSunday past was Father’s Day, a day set aside to honor the adult man in our lives—the constant source of strength and wrath. Our fathers. Growing up on the Dineh’ land of the 1960s, I do not recall any celebration for these ties. Summer set in and the dry and dusty days multiplied as my father’s voice echoed throughout the sheep camp. He sang loudly as he...
Read MoreGazing across the vast and dusty Klethla Valley, my young eyes saw the boundaries of my world where the looming Black Mesa meets the sky, blue and eternal. The last stubborn remnant of snow patches hid away beneath the thick junipers. The sun traveled ever so slightly back towards the north; warming days reminded us that planting time was upon us soon. I...
Read MoreI have a view from here, “y’aa.” What a view. My three sisters, they shine in the distance. “Sis na Jinni’” (Mt. Blanco to the east), “So Dzil’ (Mt. Taylor to the south), “Di be’ N’tsaa” (Hesperus peak to the north). My view has clouds today, like cataracts outside of my eyes. Like clouds bearing no rain. It is hard to hold onto ice, onto “Ke’sh je’”...
Read MoreAt the young age of 8, I sat in awe as my elders hunched over a smooth bed of sand as the holy deities once again were given form. There on the hogan floor, to the low drone of an ancient chant, deft fingers gnarled by years of labor, drew fine lines of colored sand from their fingertips. As the son of a very important medicine man, I knew the significance...
Read MoreI am sitting across the booth from Tony Norris at Brandy’s restaurant. It is still early for breakfast, but late enough so we can talk without disturbing the patrons. Except for the clinkings of dishes and utensils, it is a good place for our hushed conversation. This is new for me. Usually I am the one being interviewed. This is also Tony’s brainstorm. He...
Read More“Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright …” The chorus rang off the canyon walls of my childhood at this time of the year. Beaming, hopeful and confused brown little faces sang heartily into the night so many years ago. There in the sandstone buildings, sitting on our knees, we were told about the reason for the season. Beneath an old grove of...
Read More“April gave us springtime, and the promise of the flowers … We knew no time for sadness, that’s the road we each had crossed. We were living a time meant for us, and even when it would rain, we would laugh it off. I’ve got pieces of April, I keep them in a memory bouquet. I’ve got pieces of April, it’s a morning in May.” –Dave Loggins’ “Pieces of April,”...
Read MoreWith messages against snow making written upon our faces, we stare out from alleys and street corners of Flagstaff. Like Maori warriors, we speak our ancestors’ prayers across our skin. When audible words no longer carry weight and pleas cast into the coming storm dissipate, we volunteered our faces to carry our messages. You have seen us, our mugs...
Read MoreIn 1862, my people were rounded up and forced to walk over 450 miles to Bosque Redondo, near Ft. Sumner, N.M. This was Manifest Destiny in its glorious and ugly expansion with no regard to the preceding culture. There were four different routes that brought 9,000 prisoners eventually. Hundreds died along the trail. In 1865, the Bosque was the most...
Read MoreNow that I have seen 57 winters, I know I have fewer winters to feel. I feel more connected than ever before to that ground that holds my umbilical cord, as well as my childrens’. I can never sever my tether there … and here. Every week I see my mother’s face, and upon her face, all will read clearly, “I am happy, my son, I am light of grief seeing you...
Read MoreOn that very hot and dusty summers day in 1972, I held out my thumb an willed and old Chevy truck to a stop. “Haa nizaa goh?” (How far?) “A’ayiddi ji’, Cowsprings Ji.” (A short way, just to Cowsprings.) It was a brief ride but it was progress nonetheless. I had walked out that morning from my sheepcamp four and a half miles off U.S. 160 that courses...
Read MoreIt has been over 10 years since I created a stir in my community with my art. I want to revisit this tempest not out of any residual angst, but to further educate the viewing public. Fortunately for me, most of my viewing public is made up of sophisticated consumers. But for those not familiar with this event, here it is … again. Three months into an...
Read MoreSpring is finally here again. The long winter’s slumber once again is awakened by squawking pinyon jays. The red earth once again dominates as winter’s lace of ice recedes. Sheepcamps are alive with bleatings of newborn lambs and kids. The moon of “the stirring of the seedlings” is steeped in Mother Earth. Cornfields are ready to receive this year’s crop....
Read MoreAs some of you may know by now, I was the featured artist at the Heard Museum a couple of weekends ago and therefore was not able to attend the third annual Viola Awards gala. I would like to congratulate all the recipients of the Viola awards. It truly is a blessing to be part of such a vibrant community of artists, to be part of a community that...
Read MoreIn spite of the extreme cold weather, I was glad to see many people out to hear Winona LaDuke at the Audrey Auditorium last Tuesday evening. It was good to see and hear her again. As a native woman, she holds a very sacred position as a messenger of humanity and Mother Earth. I believe it is always appropriate to begin in one’s own language. It is the...
Read MoreMay we all move forward into the New Year and decade with courage. This is written as a petition to God, to the Great Spirit and many more power names. Yet in the end it is into the great mystery, however we view it, whatever name we gave it. Our appeals for mercy and validation of our being remains always the truth. A common cry from a humble From the...
Read MoreI was recently asked what I enjoy listening to as an inspiration or background in my studio. Like most artists, I do not have a particular favorite in music makers nor genre. I take what I can synchronize my movements with, in body and spirit—sounds that amplify the depth of the colors and the sensuality of forms. I listen to music that creates for me an...
Read MoreAmong the many journeys I’ve taken, I have to say that being in the ranks of the National Park Service as a naturalist/ranger tops the list. In all, I spent 10 years in various parks in the American west. A stint in the Tetons in northwestern Wyoming was glorious and adventurous, as was my time on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in the late 1970s and...
Read MoreShe was born on the 10th of September at 4:30 a.m. PST in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is my newest granddaughter and the third blessed daughter of my eldest daughter, Enei and her husband, Evon. She joins a beautiful young family of four kids, the eldest being my grandson, Olav and his sisters Na NI eezh and Cheii lil. I have yet to greet her personally. With...
Read MoreAs the summer comes to an end again, I feel that slight tint of autumn waiting upon the late summer air, waiting to gather up the sounds and colors of the season’s excitement. There is a bit of residual sadness that I have learned to associate with this changing of season. For me, it has always been the time when you put away your carefree days and begin...
Read MoreThere is now a brand new piece of public art in Williams, Ariz., on the exterior wall of Native America gift store in the heart of downtown in this small town that I have come to enjoy. The image commands attention a block away in a gentle way, and I am proud to say that this latest piece is my creation—a gift I chose to give. On a chance lunch months ago...
Read MoreAlong with welcoming in the heat of summer after a very long and dramatic winter, we have much to hope for and celebrate. An event that holds the greatest hope for us is the graduation of our youths. I wish you all the best as you enter the “real” world, the world where you are the captain of your own ship. As you venture forth, just know whatever the...
Read MoreYa’ateeh’ Shi Ya azh, a’we’. “My beautiful baby, my child”—a loving greeting of a mother to her son. Blessedly, this is the line I know well. My mother and all mothers draped their child in these tender words of affection. Unconditionally. I glow in the knowledge that I have a mother that gently releases this truth. I was always told that we need to be...
Read MoreLast month I was given the honor of receiving the 2010 Viola Award for individual artist contributing to the aesthetic health and wealth of our community. I am truly humbled and grateful for the recognition. The capacity crowd filled the hall of the Radisson to celebrate the organizations and individuals picked for this year’s award ceremony. Familiar...
Read MoreWith the storm behind us and another birthday behind me, I feel the tinge of spring in the air. Soon the ice-sculpted curbs and alleyways of our town will be but a memory. Ahead is the lush carpet of wildflowers of spring, where a field of campaign signs are blooming. It’s late winter, a city council and mayoral campaign is under way, and a fresh crop of...
Read MoreBy the time you read this piece, we should know if all the hype of this week’s back-to-back snowstorms lived up to the expectation. Two to three feet we are told, and anything less will be a letdown. With natural emergency what it is today, we have to be extra careful and prepare for such ominous predictions. This elevated sense of danger and adventure...
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