KUSA – Tesoro’s annual Indian Market & Powwow features premier Native American artists from all over the country, primarily with roots in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
The 15th annual Indian Market & Powwow is on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17, 2015 on the grounds of The Fort at 19192 Highway 8 in Morrison.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features American Indian art, cuisine, dance, music and hands-on educational activities for kids.
Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students with a valid ID. Seniors, Tesoro members and children under 12 are free.
This year’s Indian Market & Powwow will feature the art of:
• Pahponee – Woodlands-style traditional and contemporary pottery
• Eddie Morrison – contemporary wood and stone sculptures
• Nelson Garcia – hand-designed and handmade jewelry
• Carol Snow – pen and ink, watercolor and oil paintings
• Lynn Burnette Sr. – watercolor, oil and acrylic paintings, bronze sculptures and more
New artists include Karen-Lyne Hill of the Onondaga Nation Snipe Clan, who is skilled in the traditional form of Iroquois raised bead work and Ronnie-Leigh Goeman. Goeman grew up on the Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy located in Upstate New York. She began making baskets as a teenager and, as she grew older, many traditional Iroquois women taught her the importance of balancing old traditions with individuality.
Over 50 inter-tribal American Indian dancers and drum groups will share their heritage through traditional dance and regalia.
Alongside celebrations of art, dance and other cultural heritage, Tesoro’s Indian Market & Powwow honors outstanding American Indian Veterans each year. This year’s honoree is Bob Iron, Pawnee-Crow. Iron served in the United States Army, SP4, from 1968 to 1971 and is a Vietnam combat veteran. He is a treasured member of the Indian Market & Powwow family – his family drum group, Pawnee Spotted Horse, has performed at Indian Market & Powwow for many years. Iron will be honored for his service and sacrifice in a ceremony during Sunday’s festivities.
Cheyenne Brady, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of North Dakota, was crowned Miss Indian World 2015 at the 32nd Gathering of Nations, held in Albuquerque this past weekend. (Photo Courtesy of Gathering of Nations)
Cheyenne Brady, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of North Dakota, was crowned Miss Indian World 2015 at the 32nd Gathering of Nations, which concluded Saturday night.
The annual powwow is the largest event of its kind in the world, attracting more than 3,000 Native American and indigenous dancers from 700 tribes across the country, Canada and Mexico. The event also draws more about 100,000 spectators and nearly 800 Native American and indigenous artists and artisans.
Judges selected Brady, 22, from a field of 21 Native American women who competed in such categories as tribal knowledge, dancing ability, public speaking and personality.
Brady, a student at North Dakota State University, will travel around the world during the next year educating people about tribal culture and religion, as well as serve as a role model and ambassador of good will on behalf of all Native Americans.
Ashley Pino, 25, from Acoma, N.M., a student at the University of California, Berkeley, was named first runner-up. She is a member of the Acoma, Santo Domingo and Northern Cheyenne tribes.
The second runner-up was 25-year-old Baillie Redfern, from Ontario, Canada, a member of the Métis Nation and a student at the University of British Columbia.
Approximately a dozen Native actors and actresses, as well as the Native cultural advisor, left the set of Adam Sandler’s newest film production, The Ridiculous Six, on Wednesday. The actors, who were primarily from the Navajo nation, left the set after the satirical western’s script repeatedly insulted native women and elders and grossly misrepresented Apache culture.
The examples of disrespect included Native women’s names such as Beaver’s Breath and No Bra, an actress portraying an Apache woman squatting and urinating while smoking a peace pipe, and feathers inappropriately positioned on a teepee.
The film, which is said to be a spoof of The Magnificent Seven and was written by Adam Sandler and his frequent collaborator Tim Herlihy, is currently under production by Happy Madison Productions for a Netflix-only release. The movie will star Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte, Steve Buscemi, Dan Aykroyd, Jon Lovitz and Vanilla Ice.
Among the actors who walked off the set were Navajo Nation tribal members Loren Anthony, who is also the lead singer of the metal band Bloodline, and film student Allison Young. Anthony says that though he understands the movie is a comedy, the portrayal of the Apache was severely negligent and the insults to women were more than enough reason to walk off the set.
“There were about a dozen of us who walked off the set,” said Anthony, who told ICTMN he had initially refused to do the movie. He then agreed to take the job when producers informed him they had hired a cultural consultant and efforts would be made for tasteful representation of Natives.
“I was asked a long time ago to do some work on this and I wasn’t down for it. Then they told me it was going to be a comedy, but it would not be racist. So I agreed to it but on Monday things started getting weird on the set,” he said.
Actor Loren Anthony stands next to a seated Adam Sandler on the set of ‘Ridiculous Six.’ Photo source: instagram.com/lorenanthony
Anthony says he was first insulted that the movie costumes that were supposed to portray Apache were significantly incorrect and that the jokes seemed to get progressively worse.
“We were supposed to be Apache, but it was really stereotypical and we did not look Apache at all. We looked more like Comanche,” he said. “One thing that really offended a lot of people was that there was a female character called Beaver’s breath. One character says ‘Hey, Beaver’s Breath.’ And the Native woman says, ‘How did you know my name?'”
“They just treated us as if we should just be on the side. When we did speak with the main director, he was trying to say the disrespect was not intentional and this was a comedy.”
“The producers just told us, ‘If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.'” —Alison Young
Allison Young, Navajo, a former film student from Dartmouth, was also offended by the stereotypes portrayed and the outright disrespect paid to her and others by the director and producers.
“When I began doing this film, I had an uneasy feeling inside of me and I felt so conflicted,” she said. “I talked to a former instructor at Dartmouth and he told me to take this as finally experiencing stereotyping first hand. We talked to the producers about our concerns. They just told us, ‘If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.’ I was just standing there and got emotional and teary-eyed. I didn’t want to cry but the feeling just came over me. This is supposed to be a comedy that makes you laugh. A film like this should not make someone feel this way.”
Actor Loren Anthony gears up for a fight scene with Nick Nolte, who is visible over his shoulder, on the set of ‘Ridiculous Six.’ Photo source: Image source: instagram.com/lorenanthony
“Nothing has changed,” said Young. “We are still just Hollywood Indians.”
Goldie Tom also shared her frustrations with ICTMN. “I felt this was all really disrespectful,” she said. “Our costumes did not portray Apache people. The consultant, Bruce spoke to the crew and told them we should not have braids and chokers and he was very disappointed. He asked to speak with Adam Sandler. We talked to the producers about other things in the script and they said ‘It’s in the script and we are not going to change it.’ Overall, we were just treated disrespectfully, the spoke down to us and treated everyone with strong tones.”
74-year old David Hill, Choctaw, a member of the American Indian Movement, also left the set. “They were being disrespectful,” he said. “They were bringing up those same old arguments that Dan Snyder uses in defending the Redskins. But let me tell you, our dignity is not for sale. It is a real shame because a lot of people probably stay because they need a job.”
Hill also mentioned that the producers called back the consultant as well as other native actors to their departure from the set on Wednesday.
“I hope they will listen to us,” Hill said. “We understand this is a comedy, we understand this is humor, but we won’t tolerate disrespect. I told the director if he had talked to a native woman the way they were talked to in this movie—I said I would knock his ass out.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, if someone doesn’t speak up, no one will.”
Neither Adam Sandler nor anyone for Happy Madison Productions responded to our attempts in reaching out to them for comment.
DENVER, April 23, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The American Indian College Fund (the College Fund) has signed Jim Belushi and The Sacred Hearts to perform live at its 25th Anniversary Gala, to be held Friday, May 8 from 6:30-10:30 p.m. at the legendary Drake Hotel. The formal fundraising event will benefit Native American higher education and celebrate the College Fund’s mission to provide access to higher education for all Native people.
VIP ticket-holders will enjoy a special reception and the opportunity to meet Jim Belushi.
A silent auction featuring Native art and unique items will also be held at the event. In addition, the College Fund will be accepting bids for a guest to perform the song “Soul Man” with Jim Belushi and The Sacred Hearts that evening.
All VIP packages, tickets, individual tickets, tables, and sponsorships are available for purchase now. Visit collegefund.org/gala to learn more or call 303-426-8900.
25th Anniversary event sponsors include Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc.; Comcast NBCUNIVERSAL; Wieden+Kennedy; Ford Foundation; San Manuel Band of Mission Indians; The Walt Disney Company; AT&T; and McDonald’s Corporation.
Cover art for Turnin Padez, courtesy of Saykred Thoughtz
By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
Saykred Thoughtz is a product of Derek Prather. Derek Prather is a product of Tulalip. Therefore it isn’t so much a matter of simple logic, but homegrown necessity when Saykred emphatically states, “I do it for the rez!” on the chorus of his most popular YouTube music video The Rez.
Prather, who’s music stage name is Saykred Thoughtz, is a twenty-four year old American hip hop artist born and raised within the boundaries of the Tulalip Reservation. He is an enrolled tribal member, while also being a member of the hip hop group Native Instinct with his cousins Komplex Kai (Kisar Jones-Fryberg) and Hapalo (Chuckie Jones). Most importantly, he is a proud father of four beautiful children, Tessa, Kaden, Maia and recent addition Alissa Mae. “I love my kids more than anything in the world. They are my inspiration to do better at everything,” says Prather.
Prather with his children, Tessa, Kaden and Maia. Photo courtesy of Saykred Thoughtz
It is often the case that those who grow up on Native American reservations are exposed to much of what the outside world only experiences indirectly, through mediums like television or literature. For Prather it started when he was born submerged in poverty and the beda?chelh system, continuing into his teenage years when he was ditching school and committing juvenile crimes, and peaking when he found himself as a father dealing with domestic disputes in a co-destructive relationship, all the while battling the nightmare that is addiction.
The seemingly never-ending cycle of self-destructive behaviors came to an abrupt halt when he “hit rock bottom”, as Prather describes it like only a hip hop poet can, “when this life makes you mad enough to kill, when you want something bad enough to steal, when you feel like you had it up to here cause you mad enough to scream, but you sad enough to tear…that’s rock bottom.”
Prather hit rock bottom three years ago when being on the losing side of his battle with addiction, self-medicating with prescription medication and alcohol, ultimately led to him having his children taken from his custody. It was at that moment that Prather made the choice to better his life, both for himself and his children, once and for all. He voluntarily went to treatment at Valley General to get clean and has remained clean for nearly three years now. He came out of treatment with a renewed sense of purpose as a man and father. Prather got his job back in Tulalip Construction Housing as a laborer, got a house and car, everything your supposed to have as the man of a household. It didn’t take long for him to have his custody case dropped and be reunited with his children.
“Battling my demon of addiction was the hardest thing that I’ve had to do. You go through struggles emotionally when learning how to be a man in life and taking care of your own,” says Prather. “For me, my kids are everything. They were my reason to get clean. Being a father to them every day, seeing their smiling faces every day is what keeps me going. They are my inspiration and motivation to be the best father and man that I can be.”
The renewed sense of purpose that came from getting clean was compounded when he regained custody of children. Prather realized his dream of being clean and having his kids back had come true. If he could overcome such trying tribulations as those then he could do anything he put his mind to. Prather chose to go all in on the dream of becoming a successful music artist.
“I realized music had always been there. During my highest of highs and my lowest of lows, music was always with me. Since I was a little kid I’ve always been intrigued by music. I started in guitar lessons and piano lessons as a kid and from that point I learned to love and appreciate music in all its forms,” Prather says while reminiscing about how he fell in love with music as an art form. “It evolved from there. In sixth grade I was playing the drums and just trying to be in some kind of music. Then when I was thirteen, my older cousin Komplex Kai created his first rap album. I was able to witness that whole process from beginning to end. That intrigued me to start writing and soon after I started going to Kai’s studio and never stopped.
“Every life experience inspires an artist. Everything that you go through that pisses you off or makes you happy or turns you around is supposed to make an artist think differently about his music. Everything that happened to me and that I went through, afterwards I chose to go home and write about it. My music tells my story. If you were to go back and listen to all my music from when I first began to now, it would be like listening to an audio book of all the stages of my life. From my dad going in and out of prison, to my mom doing stupid stuff, and me being taken away from my parents and getting arrested about something dumb. I would write about all that until I learned how to turn those words on paper into musical inspiration. I made it relatable, so that someone going through those same experience can hear my music and know I’m real, that I actually went through the same things they are.”
In 2013, Prather started working on his first professionally produced and mastered hip hop album, titled Turnin Pagez that will be released Friday, May 1. He invested in himself, spending every spare dollar he had on studio time at Dark Room Productions, a local independent studio in Everett. Paying between $50-$100/hour to make music at the highest possible quality is what separates the professional from the amateur.
“It’s easy for people to make music from their house, but it shows how serious you are as an artist when you’re willing to pay for studio time and leasing rights,” Prather explains. “As an artist, it’s exciting to say that I have leasing rights to everything on my upcoming album. That’s a hard thing to achieve for independents. Because I’m not signed to a label that makes me an independent artist, so I’ve learned how to independently market my music and myself. Showing people how serious I am as an artist paves the way and opens doors.”
The upcoming release of the album Turnin Pagez has multiple meanings for Prather. First, it shows what is possible with a dollar and dream. Second, this project has been two years in the making, it’s been so much of an investment, financially and emotionally, and most importantly it demonstrates the personal growth that Prather has gone through.
“There’s a lot of truth to this album, a lot of things that I’ve went through personally and saw firsthand coming up,” explains Prather. “There’s a song on there about the way a person that’s battling addiction thinks of the world and sees the world. How that person thinks about people seeing them at their worst, how people think about them. Basically, it’s putting myself in a perspective of a person that’s at rock bottom and has nothing. I’ve been there, I know what rock bottom looks like, but I’ve also made it through.
“This album is special. I tried my hardest to push myself out of my comfort zone to make every different kind of music that I can create in order to broaden my audience. Any person who likes hip hop just a little bit will find a few tracks they’ll really enjoy. It has a song for everyone basically. There’s a lot of culture in it, too. Anyone from Tulalip, anyone from Indian country who has grown up on a reservation will be able to relate to this album.”
Turnin Pagez is a collection of Prather’s thoughts obsessively turned over and milled into substance, and that is its strongest point. He captures the struggle of addiction so concisely. A former product of that, Prather delivers an album that pushes aside all his many past battles. The psycho-analysis is public, it’s honest and it’s executed through the best writing and rapping of his career.
“I called the album Turnin Pagez because I have filled so many notebooks with lyrics, rhymes, and my thoughts. When I flip through those notebooks I’ve realized it’s symbolic. This album, for me, means I’m turning a different direction in life. I’m turning to a new chapter in life. From the things I talk about in this album, like my battle with addiction and domestic issues that I went through in the past four years, I’m turning the page and moving on to a healthy and brighter future for me and my kids. This album symbolizes that.”
Regardless of where his career in the hip hop industry takes him, Prather has enjoyed the journey and looks forward to what the future has to offer. Even though he has lofty expectations for himself as a hip hop artist, Prather says he owes everything to his cousins, Komplex Kai and Hapalo, and the Tulalip community for bringing him up in the hip hop game. “They are what got me to where I am at today with my music. Our studio was at aunt Uppy’s house. It was like our crew studio; every day and every night we were there making music. It was cool though man, it was a good environment to grow up in with our music.
“I’ve come a long way since those early days of aunt Uppy’s music sessions. The basics of the hip hop business is shaking hands and meeting people and showing people that you are serious about your craft. I was determined to show everyone how serious I was. I was fortunate to land D-Sane, who ended up mastering my album. He mastered a lot of music for Macklemore, so that’s a really big deal for me to have someone on his level be a part of my album. Plus, he got me a Crooked-I feature on my album. He’s a huge West Cost hip hop artist and to have him on my album is so amazing.”
His battle to overcome life’s trials, however righteous, has now translated musically. Fans of Prather’s music will be able to identify with his wounds, hurts and unpleasantries. From a personal vacation from stress, to the remorseful father who once lost his children, to past beefs with his girl, Prather unleashes his truth with no filter. While this is an exciting, polished album, Turnin Pagez accompanying music marks Prather’s independent arrival. He has released a candid and thought provoking piece of work. It’s something that many will find refreshing.
Prather’s album, or more accurately Saykred Thoughtz album Turnin Pagez comes out Friday, May 1. To commemorate his achievement there will be an album release concert held at Tony Vs Garage on Hewitt Ave in Everett on May 1. Doors open at 9:00 p.m. and admission is free, with a $5 voluntary donation being accepted to support the artists. Local fans will see Tulalip rappers Komplex Kai and Hapalo open the show before Prather performs the entire Turnin Pagez album.
Hard copies of the Turnin Pagez will be available for only $10 beginning May 1 at Priest Point Grocery (aka Chris’s Store) in Tulalip. For the digitally inclined, the Turnin Pagez album will be online at the iTunes store, Amazon, CD Baby, and SoundCloud websites the following week.
You can sample some of Saykred Thoughtz music on youtube:
reat Mom to a Sublime Brunch and Visit to the T Spa
Source: Press Release Tulalip Resort Casino
Tulalip, Washington — After treating the kinsfolk to amazing meals all year long, it’s time to turn the tables. On Sunday, May 10, the whole family can honor the special women in their lives at a sublime brunch in the Tulalip Resort Casino Orca Ballroom, with seating at 10:30am and 1:00pm.
Every matriarch will feel like a queen dining her way through an opulent array of tempting breakfast and lunch dishes, including Omelet and Egg, Carving, Pasta, and French Toast/Waffle stations. If Mom loves her salads, she can select among six – from Panache of Fresh Fruit and Vegetarian Soba to Citrus Shrimp Caesar. Hot entrees cover all the bases from Thick Cut Bacon & Grilled Chicken Sausage Patties to Apple Walnut Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with herb cider glaze, and Crab Asparagus and Mushroom Crepes covered with Asiago Mornay Sauce. Assorted breakfast pastries — such as muffins, croissants, and mini Danish — accompany the menu.
If Mom has a big sweet tooth…she may spend the entire day at the dessert buffet sampling the Lemon Meringue Tartlets, Berry Breton Tarts, New York Cheese Cake with berries, French Macaroons Whole Chocolate Cakes, and Assorted Scones with Devonshire cream, raspberry jam, and lemon curd.
For the youngsters, there is a knee-high buffet featuring kid favorites, such as Chicken Strips with Honey Mustard and Ranch Dressing, Macaroni and Cheese Bites, Mini Pepperoni Pizzas, and Pigs in a Blanket.
Celebrate Mom in the royal style she deserves at Tulalip Resort. Mother’s Day brunch, including a welcome Mimosa, is priced at $42 inclusive for adults. Children 4 to 12 are $22. For reservations* call 360-716-6888.
Looking for that special gift for Mom? Treat her like the star that she is at Tulalip Resort’s 14,000 square foot T Spa, by giving her a “Red Carpet Facial,” which all the celebrities have before stepping foot on the red carpet. This unique facial process comes from the land down under. It utilizes the Intraceuticals Oxygen treatment, which combines the extraordinary benefits of refined Hyperbaric Oxygen. She will leave with beautiful, refreshed, plump skin. For reservations and additional information, call (360) 716-6350.
*Note: All reservations will have pre-assigned tables; each reservation will require pre-payment at time of booking and is non-refundable; parties of 10 or more will be placed within close proximity of each other.
The mask in on display at Seattle’s Burke Museum through July 27, 2015. Photo/Micheal Rios
by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
Everyone in the Pacific Northwest is a Seattle Seahawks fan these days. And why shouldn’t they be? The Seahawks (11-5) took the NFL by surprise in 2012 with their rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, beating Washington in the Wild Card Playoffs, and narrowly losing to Atlanta on a last second field goal. In 2013, the Seahawks (13-3) rampaged through the NFL enroute to a dominating Super Bowl Championship over Denver. The 2014 Seahawks (12-4), again finishing as the #1 seed in the NFC, made it back to the Super Bowl after the miracle comeback against Green Bay. In the Super Bowl, Seattle coach Pete Carrol unleashed the beast Marshawn Lynch on 2nd and goal from the 1 yard line….oh, wait. Well, we all know what happened. But do you know the origin of the Seahawk’s logo?
In case you weren’t aware, there is actually no such thing as a seahawk. Ornithology experts, people who study birds, theorize the term ‘seahawk’ refers to a combination of an osprey, which is a bird of prey native to coastal North America, and a skua, which in our area we normally call a seagull. So if there isn’t an actual ‘seahawk’ found in nature, then where did the inspiration for the Seattle Seahawks’ logo come from?
The general consensus is that in 1976 the NFL commissioned a logo for the newly-formed Seattle Seahawks. The designers were inspired by Northwest Coastal art, specifically something known as a Kwakwaka’wakw (pronounced: KWA-kwuh-kyuh-wakw), also called a transformation mask depicting an eagle in its closed form with a human face inside. They found an image of this mask published in Robert Inverarity’s Art of the Northwest Coast Indians.
According to curators at the Burke Museum, long before the Seahawks took the field at the old Kingdome, this mask played an important role among the Kwakwaka’wakw of Vancouver Island. Transformation masks like this one represented rights owned by individual chiefs, often depicting origin stories of an individual family or an ancestor’s super-natural encounters. When this mask is danced in ceremony, a pivotal moment in the song calls for the mask to be opened, revealing the face of a man inside.
Carved in the late 19th century, the mask was purchased by Fred Harvey Company before 1910 and later came into the collection of Max Ernst. Ernst, Picasso, and other Surrealist artists were fascinated by the aesthetic power of Northwest Coast masks, which they saw as direct expressions of human instinct and unconscious thought. After Ernst’s death in 1976, the mask was acquired by a private collector, William P. Palmer III. Eventually the Palmer collection came to be displayed in Maine’s Hudson Museum in 1982.
The mask had been on exhibit in past years, but had always been shown in the open position, so its similarity to the Seahawks logo was concealed. It wasn’t until early 2014 that the mask’s whereabouts even came to the attention of Seattle’s Burke Museum, located on the University of Washington campus. In September 2014, the Burke launched an online fundraising campaign to bring the mask to Seattle. It didn’t take long to raise the money needed to conserve, insure and ship the mask across the country. Today, the mask is on loan to the Burke Museum as part of its newest exhibit, “Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired”. You can see the mask that inspired the original Seahawks logo while it’s on display through July 27, 2015.
A little more about the Seahawks mask, as explained in a Burke Museum news release:
Scuffs and scratches on the mask show it was used in ceremonies before it was sold. … A dancer would enter the longhouse, hunched low with the mask on his back, firelight reflecting in the mask’s mirrored eyes. As the drum beat grew stronger, the dancer would spin rapidly, whipping open the mask to reveal the face inside. The face represents the eagle — or Thunderbird — coming to earth to take human form.
A tag in the mask dated 1910 includes a catalog number from the Fred Harvey Company, which operated hotels, restaurants and Indian marketplaces throughout the southwestern U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company’s collectors traveled throughout the southwest, California and along the Colorado River buying art for the marketplaces. They also collected objects from Plains and Alaskan tribes, which offers a possible explanation for how the mask came to be part of the company collection.
“We knew it was made on Vancouver Island in the 19th century, but we didn’t know anything else until it came into the Max Ernst collection,” said Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, assistant director of the Burke Museum’s Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art. Ernst lived in Sedona, Arizona, in the 1940s — suggesting an opportunity for his acquisition of the mask. “Now we are filling in the gaps in the mask’s history.”
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was most frequently ‘challenged’ book in US libraries in 2014
Anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence’ … Sherman Alexie. Photograph: Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns
Sherman Alexie’s award-winning young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tops a list of the books readers tried hardest to remove from the shelves of America’s libraries last year.
Announcing the top 10 titles most frequently “challenged” in the US in 2014, the American Libraries Association said that it had been “tracking a significant number of challenges to diverse titles”, and that “authors of colour, as well as books with diverse content, are disproportionately challenged and banned”.
Winner of the National Book Award in 2007, the Native American writer Alexie’s semi-autobiographical tale was removed from the curriculum in Idaho schools last year. According to the Idaho Statesman, this story of a boy who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to go to an all-white high school was criticised by one local for containing words “we do not speak in our home”, and because it makes “reference to masturbation, contains profanity and has been viewed by many as anti-Christian”.
Alexie said at the time that “book banners want to control debate and limit the imagination. I encourage debate and celebrate imagination.” The ALA said his novel was challenged for reasons ranging from being “sexually explicit”, to its “depictions of bullying”. It takes the top spot from Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series, which was 2013’s most challenged book over its “offensive language [and] violence”.
Eight of 2014’s top 10 challenged books include “diverse content”, said the ALA. Second-placed was Marjane Satrapi’s acclaimed graphic novel Persepolis, about growing up during the Iranian revolution, cited for being “politically, racially, and socially offensive”.
Third was Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s picture book about two male penguins who rear a chick together, And Tango Makes Three, and fourth was Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, about a black girl who prays to have blue eyes like her classmates.
The ALA pointed to the author Malinda Lo’s analysis of its top 10 banned books over the last decade. Writing last autumn, Lo found that 52% of the books challenged or banned in the 10-year period included “diverse” content. “Books that fall outside the white, straight, abled mainstream are challenged more often than books that do not destabilise the status quo,” she wrote.
“This isn’t surprising, but the extent to which diverse books are represented on these lists – as a majority – is quite disheartening. Diversity is slim throughout all genres of books and across all age groups – except when it comes to book challenges. The message this sends is loud and clear: diversity is actually under attack. Minority perspectives are being silenced every year.”
The ALA’s office for intellectual freedom received 311 reports about “attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves” in 2014. The number is equivalent to the 307 challenges recorded in 2013, and significantly down from 464 in 2012. Most challenges – 35% – came from parents in 2014, with the sexually explicit nature of a text the most cited (34%) reason for a challenge.
The top 10 also features Robie Harris’s guide to puberty and sexual health, It’s Perfectly Normal, in fifth place. The book, revealed the ALA, was challenged for containing nudity, and for covering “sex education”, for being “sexually explicit”, and “unsuited to age group”. It was also, said the libraries organisation, alleged to contain “child pornography”.
The list is completed with Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Jaycee Dugard’s A Stolen Life and Raina Telgemeier’s Drama.
The 2014 Top 10 Frequently Challenged Books
1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying.”
2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Reasons: gambling, offensive language, political viewpoint. Additional reasons: “politically, racially, and socially offensive,” “graphic depictions”.
3. And Tango Makes Three Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-family, homosexuality, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “promotes the homosexual agenda”
4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “contains controversial issues”
5. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Reasons: Nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group. Additional reasons: “alleged child pornography”
6. Saga by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Reasons: Anti-Family, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited to age group, violence
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “date rape and masturbation”
9. A Stolen Life Jaycee Dugard
Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group
10. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
Reasons: sexually explicit
Over the weekend of March 27-29, the University of Washington held ArtTalk: Conversations on Northwest Native Art. The event was free for all to attend and join leading scholars and Native American/First Nations artists as they presented and discussed current trends and recent research on the distinctive art traditions of our region. They examined the last fifty years of Northwest Coast art, as marked by the 50th anniversary volume of Bill Holm’s influential book, Northwest Coast Indian Art: Analysis of Form, and look forward to the next fifty years in an art form that is just as thriving and innovative as the cultures it stems from.
So what’s the point of studying all the northwest coast styles? Most objects were removed from their sources and were not well documented. They often reside in museum collections with little to no documentation, or documentation that is misleading or incorrect. The pure analysis of forms of objects that have been removed from their cultural context is precisely so that these objects can be reconnected with their cultures. By studying styles it’s possible to determine where on the coast an object originated. Sometimes being able to determine with some certainty who the artist was and what their names were even when documentation is missing or incorrect.
The symposium began on Friday, March 27 at 7:00 p.m. with a keynote program by Dr. Robin Wright and artists Qwalsius Shaun Peterson (Puyallup/Tulalip) and David R. Boxley (Tsimshian) discussing the past 50 years of Northwest Coast Native art, including the impact of Bill Holm’s influential book.
Boxley has spent his life researching and practicing northern Northwest Coast style, the Tsimshian language and dance, and in particular the subtleties and variations of the Tsimshian art style he has come to master. Boxley just returned from Juneau, Alaska where he and his father, David A. Boxley, have installed the first fully carved and painted Tsimshian house-front in modern time. It is one of the largest, if not the largest, carved-and-painted Tsimshian house front in the world.
“If the art is going to move forward then we have to get back to where it was when it got stuck,” says Boxley, referring to the period that Native American culture was banned when the missionaries and boarding schools took root. “Once we can understand, to the best of our abilities, how things went together before that era then whatever comes next will be the natural progression. So the art, this very visual thing that our people could grab onto and be proud of, is what led to the revival of our culture. Now that the art has reached the point where quality is really being pushed, maintaining a certain quality that the collections market pushed to create, we’ve really been able to bring a lot of our culture back.
“The thing for us now is to make sure it’s attached to what we are doing culturally. Because the art nearly preceded our modern cultural practices, we now have to assign meaning and the depth of it all into our everyday lives. It’s been a really long journey and something I am very honored to be a part of it. We all find reasons to do what we do. There’s the pride we feel in reclaiming what belongs to us, and then there’s the simple things like knowing if we work hard our ancestors will be proud of us.”
Shaun Peterson Photo nativex.com.
Peterson is a Puyallup and Tulalip artist who carves, paints and works in many forms in digital media. Peterson is a pivotal figure in contemporary Coast Salish art traditions, and has major installations throughout the Northwest, ranging from works created in wood, glass and metal. Just last month Peterson was chosen by Seattle Office of Arts & Culture for the tribal commission on the new Seattle waterfront. Peterson is also a founding member of the Bill Holm Center’s advisory board and in 2014 published an essay titled Coast Salish Design: an anticipated southern analysis.
“I’ve studied Salish artwork very intently now for twenty years, and having these intense conversations with masters of their craft. It’s through those conversations, the oral tradition of our culture, looking at things and observing these things that have been so important in sustaining and advancing our culture,” Peterson says of stretching the limits of styles and breaking out of limitations and expectations while honoring our ancestors. “Our culture reflects and informs what we make. There are fewer examples of southern Northwest Coast work because for a very long time our art was strictly created for ceremony and inner-tribal use, not for collecting and public consumption. What’s changed in the last fifteen to twenty years is that our people are more free to create work in the public realm and as more artists master their craft the boundaries of what we know to be traditional guidelines will continue to be pushed.”
To see the stunning visual displays that these two well renowned Native American artists, please visit their websites:
The ‘Welcome Figure,’ spuy’elepebS near Tollefson Plaza, Tacoma, Washington, created by Shaun Peterson.
Indian Country Today
Shaun Peterson, Puyallup, has been selected for a commission on the Seattle Waterfront. Peterson’s art is a showcase of Coast Salish traditions for the modern world, and he’s experienced in creating public installations. After the announcement, he took to his blog at Qwalsius.com:
I wouldn’t have foreseen this coming if you had asked me but it is here and it is now. I hope to make the most of this opportunity and showcase that Coast Salish culture is alive and well. That it is deserving of the land on which it comes from and that it will, as all art does, adapt to the world around it and will continue to thrive as long as the people exist in its region. As Chief Sealth once said long, when people believe our people have vanished we will be among you… something like that, I’m paraphrasing of course but the gist is, my art and others of Coast Salish heritage are making public works that will continue to be standing long after we have gone, and there is something to say for that. Today, I am overjoyed with the task ahead of me.
Below are a video portrait of Peterson, examples of his public art, and the full press release from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture:
Salmon Continuum Bus Shelter, Tacoma Washington, by Shaun Peterson
Welcome Figure, spuy’elepebS near Tollefson Plaza, Tacoma, Washington, by Shaun Peterson.
Welcome Figure (night), spuy’elepebS near Tollefson Plaza, Tacoma, Washington, by Shaun Peterson.
Killer Whale (Aluminum), Puyallup Tribal Health Authority, Tacoma, Washington, by Shaun Peterson.
From the Natural World, Puyallup Tribe Elders Building, Tacoma, Washingto, by Shaun Peterson.
SEATTLE (March 25, 2015) — The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture is pleased to announce that artist Shaun Peterson, of Milton, WA, has been selected for a commission on the Seattle Waterfront. Peterson is a pivotal figure in contemporary Coast Salish art traditions, and is a member of the Puyallup tribe. He has major installations throughout the Northwest, ranging from works created in wood, glass and metal.
“This is an historic opportunity to have an artwork by a Native artist on our Waterfront,” says Mayor Murray. “Peterson’s artwork will be a tribute to the cultural significance of the waterfront to the Coast Salish first peoples and our city. The waterfront will finally reflect the origins of our vibrant City and also the many peoples who made this region what it is today—one of the fastest growing in the nation.”
This commission, undertaken in partnership with the Office of the Waterfront and Seattle Department of Transportation, sought an artist to create an artwork that recognizes the tribal peoples of this regionfor Seattle’s Central Waterfront project. Peterson will work with the city and its design team to develop a site-specific artwork or artist designed space that reflects the Coast Salish tribes that have a historic connection to this territory. The budget for the project, inclusive of artist fees, is $250,000.
“Seattle is named after our Coast Salish Chief, and in honor of that I hope that my work will demonstrate that Native art is not static,” says Peterson. “Our people are part of this land and its history, but most importantly we are part of the present. The art I create will aim to communicate that, and in the process, create space for dialogue.”
“Shaun’s work embraces new interpretations of traditional designs, and his facility in blending both the traditional tribal art forms along with contemporary elements and materials makes him the ideal artist to envision the Coast Salish presence on the waterfront,” says Ruri Yampolsky, Public Art Program Director. “We are incredibly excited to have Peterson create a permanent artwork that will be reflective of the Coast Salish peoples and the region.”
Waterfront Seattle is the large-scale project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with 26 acres of new public space, streets, parks, and buildings. The public piers will be rebuilt as part of the Seawall Bond passed by voters in 2012. Peterson’s first major public installation was a 37 foot story pole for Chief Leschi School in 1996; it was quickly followed by commissions in Tacoma and Seattle, Washington. He continues to explore the future possibilities of indigenous art traditions.
Peterson joins artists Cedric Bomford, Ann Hamilton, Norie Sato, Buster Simpson, Oscar Tuazon and Stephen Vitiello in creating a permanent artwork which will transform the waterfront. This roster of diverse artists will help to create a sense of place on the renewed waterfront that will act as an invitation to residents and visitors alike.
About Shaun Peterson
Shaun Peterson is a pivotal figure in the revival of Coast Salish art traditions. An enrolled member of the Puyallup tribe, and also affiliated with the Tulalip tribe, Peterson carries the name Qwalsius, originally carried by his great grandfather, Lawrence Williams. The name has been translated in two possible meanings as the Lushootseed language spoken by many Western Washington tribes has become scarce. The first translation is “Painted Face” and the second is “Traveling to the face of Enlightenment.”
Peterson is a Native American artist producing work that is a continuation of the ancient art of the Northwest Coast first peoples. While knowledgeable and invested in diverse tribal styles and applications, his focus and expertise is the art of the Southern regions that encompass the many tribes of Western Washington and Southern British Columbia known as Salish territory. Shaun’s artistic career began under the guidance of key mentors in the field of Northwest Coast art including master artists Steve Brown, Greg Colfax (Makah), George David (Nuu-chah-nulth), and Loren White.
Selection panel members and advisors:
Panelists
Tina Jackson, Cultural Activities Coordinator/ Kate Ahvakana, Suquamish Tribe
Barbara Brotherton, curator of Native American Art, Seattle Art Museum
Patti Gobin, Tulalip Tribes
Candice Hopkins, curator, University of New Mexico, Carcross/Tagish
Warren KingGeorge, historian, Muckleshoot Tribe
Cary Moon, urban designer
Eric Robertson, artist, Métis/Gitksan
Advisors
Heather Johnson-Jock, artist and Tribal Council Secretary, S’Klallam Tribe
Guy Michaelson, Berger Partnership
Steve Pearce, Office of the Waterfront
Tracy Rector, Seattle Art Commission
Denise Stiffarm, Urban Indians, Gros Ventre (A’aninin/White Clay)
Ken Workman, Duwamish Tribe
Nicole Willis, Tribal Relations Director, Office of Intergovernmental Relations
