From Headdress to Heads With Dresses..

Charlie Shepherd 

10/27/22 

Final Project

Art History 

Headdress to Heads with Dresses…

Native American culture nowadays is viewed with the eyes of pity. Descendents of these Natives are the people that endure suffering in these communities. From ancestors that respected the land to a spiritual level, now are looked at with pity eyes from the majority who live on the land. The original Native Americans wanted to live on through the beauty of the Earth, and how they interacted with it. Yet the eyes of pity fall on their ancestors now, and that is not how they wanted to be remembered. I guarantee that the natives want to be viewed as a sacred culture with humans interacting with their world we do not see nowadays. We stereotype the indigenous people by thinking they smoked a lot of tobacco in long pipes, and wore feathers on their head, yet the culture goes so much deeper than that. Each tribe was led by a chief who acted as a father figure to the whole tribe, and the people had security knowing this spiritual, experienced figure led the way. A painting from the Escalette Collection at Chapman University made all these ideas, and emotions arise within me while discovering art from the Natives. Their spirit lives through the family tree and the art their great-grandchildren create.  

River Garza, a Los Angeles native, and painter who has formed an art career that processes these strong feelings the natives still hold on too. River has strong ties to his ancestors, who identified with the Tongva Natives, which were a tribal group that traveled to Southern California way back and settled here as home. The Tongva was a very spiritual and religious group that had their own language and religion. Even though River never was able to see the ancestors or interact with the native land, his paintings are his tool to connect with his ancestors. He uses native American culture, graffiti, lyrics or sayings, and vibrant colors for his paintings. Paintings that speak to the soul of the audience. A particular piece that stood out to me in the Escalette Collection was titled, “Pow Wow Round 2.” Color patches overlap with each other to create a beautiful background. Orange playing on and with pink, as well as yellow and red playing off each other to create this beautiful mixture of shapes and colors. Then a red outline of a native American with a headdress on. The silhouette of feathers sticking out to the center of the canvas. The Native person is painted all white, but with one single tear rolling down their face. The subject in the painting is sad, and navigating through tough times, remarkably like the feelings of past natives. The artist really captures the emotions of this territory, and makes it reflect to the audience. What also really brings out the overwritten history of these tribes is the graffiti the artist incorporates in the painting. Graffiti is usually written all over overpopulated cities, and normally they paint over murals. Showing a lost art in history that gets overwritten with time. The history of the Natives has been skewed and rewritten by non-Natives. The layers and layers of a painting, parallel the layers and layers of history that get glossed over, never to understand something clearly at last again. You cannot help thinking about the tough times these people saw, and experienced when one looks deeply at this painting. 

When I was thinking about what I can do that will relate to Native American culture, but in modern times, I observed the space around us. We are living on the ground that once was inhabited by these natives, and their descendants still reside here. Southern California was a melting pot of multiple Native tribes that occupied Orange, and Southern California. Tongva tribes were more north of Orange, but the tribes that existed in Orange were the GABRIELEÑO and JUANEÑO tribes.  

I have a great friend here at Chapman, who is from Northern central California, and he has Native bloodlines within him. He is extremely interested in nature, skateboarding, and getting out into the world. I see many other descendants from Natives like him. Skating around campus or the orange circle, expressing themselves in any which way form they can. I see every one of these kids that are ancestors of these people riding skateboards around and enjoying the various parts of land. Seeing all the descendants, expressing them through skateboarding, in a much more unique way than their ancestors, shows me the loose connection to the freeing, and beautiful tradition that the Natives lived for. 

I gravitate towards acrylic paint, and that is what I used to do. I desired bright colors in the images, and when working on a wood surface, bright colors work well with the color of the wood. I selected a bright sky blue to give calmness to the background. Incorporating reds, whites, and greens to bring the image of America into the thoughts of the audience. I wanted to bring a calming connotation to it, because it feels we are so far removed from those ancient times, there is only forgetfulness. I put the headdress on rocks into a field because of the connection from modern society. When they teach Native history, or we think about Natives in our own time, there is dramatical stereotyping going on. I know for me, imagining Natives, the first image is a chief on a horse, with traditional headdress, and clothes on for the time. This image is not reality nowadays, and that is why I place the painting away, deep into the fields of forgotten history. I added caution tapes on the top of the canvas, to add a bit of watch where you step, which is ironic since it is a skateboard as a canvas. A device whose sole purpose is to be ridden and stepped on. A huge cloud shaped object sits in the sky trapping the center of the piece. The cloud can resemble a meteorite like the destruction a meteor can cause. I like how the two objects on either side trap the headdress in, as kind of a viewing party. The painting traps the audience's eyes, to focus on the headdress being the center of attention, yet the painting portrays a lost headdress. Is it worshiped? On a pedestal? Or is it abandoned?

The little things matter to the artists, and I added many aspects to the skateboard that cause deeper investigation. First, the center of the painting is spaced out, this is because of the huge time gap there is from the time the indigenous people roamed America, and now. The grass is overgrown, wild berries appear, and the wind is slowly picking away at the headdress. A scene of slow deaths are left out in the open, yet we step on it like a skateboard. Rich history left out to dry, and the artifacts that come with that history as well. The feathers being carried off the canvas to never be seen again by the audience. The black line is slowly tilted towards the bottom, which has an arrow. The bottom of the skateboard is trapped, with sharp angles, and an arrow commanding, ‘down.’ I did that on purpose, most people want us to look down, and keep going through life without truly knowing the history. With feathers on the end, which adds to the downwards spiral the indigenous were forced into. While the top of the skateboard is blue, and free, with more rounding turns and objects. And in the sky? Meteor? Spaceship? Cloud? The object in the sky is exactly what the observer interprets, but symbolies the space, the freedom there is in the sky. Everything symbolizes the freedom of space, and how we can flourish upwards rather than downwards. Yet with winds blowing in each scene, symbolizing the obstacles in life. Material obstacles or mental blocks, they happen to everybody, and that is the precise reason I chose a skateboard as the canvas. The skateboard overcomes obstacles on a daily basis, conscious and unconscious obstacles, yet it stays the path that is desired. 

Garza, River. “About - River Garza.” River Garza Art, River Garza, 2020, https://www.rivergarza.com/about.  

Park, Jean. “River Garza - Expressing the Intersectionality of Identities through Visual Imagery.” Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University, Chapman University, 14 Sep. 2022, https://blogs.chapman.edu/collections/2022/09/14/river-garza/.  

California, State of. “California Indian History.” California Indian History – Californianative Native American Heritage Commission, California Government, 2022, https://nahc.ca.gov/resources/california-indian-history/.