Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[singing]
[Ute language] I am a member of the Southern Ute people of the Los Pinos Valley.
My name is Nathan Strong Elk the actin director of the Southern Ute Cultural
Center and Museum
located in Ignacio, Colorado
I'd like to introduce you to Honorable Chairman Jimmy R. Newton, Jr.
who will tell you more about he Southern Ute Tribal people.
Colorado has two federally recognized tribes, the Southern Ute Indian tribe, of course.
Ute Mountain Ute tribe. In Utah they have the Uintah Ouray Reservation
tribe, but they are now the Ute tribe. For Utes or as Natives, art is just a way
of life. I think that with any museum is, of course,
survival - knowing that recession has hit all of us
and we are not immune from that, but also, again, the cultural preservation in knowing
that that is housed within our beautiful facility over there in the many artifacts.
We demonstrate and show the rest of the world that Southern Ute people are still here and
living through the teachings of our Elders and the culture and the traditions our youth
and the next generation and the rest of the world that our way of life will continue forever.
Thank you. The Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum participated in the National Museum
of the American Indian Artist Leadership Program in 2013. Five local artists participated in
the Artist Leadership Program at the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum to share their
community art experience with youth and elders. Here are their stories.
We live on the most beautiful reservation, and I'm always amazed by the beauty of the
Pine River Valley. Artists, we see things differently. We appreciate all the environment.
They (students) think that watercolor is so difficult and that they can't do it. So, when
you have that mind set, that is exactly what's going to happen. So I try to help them to
see that those colors are so important, that they work together. I'm not so much for realistic
art, except for the Bear Dance.
I wanted to show the students a more contemporary, modern medium that is used in everyday life.
I'm really big on the aspect of the youth and community. If we can build a stronger
foundation for them to experience different things within their own community, to where
they won't be too shy or scared to venture out on something new that they want to try,
then that could build a stronger foundation for the next generation and keeping jobs here,
and just growing not only the tribe but the community as well.
I am a support analyst, and in my job I have to create training materials. So her class
will help me get ideas on how I communicate to my audience.
My grandfather, he went to school to become an artist, and my brother went to school to
become a graphic designer, so it's just in my blood.
The world, in terms of Naive art, is changing, and I think that there are more working artists
who are Native American who are working with contemporary medium. What I see, a lot of
young tribal people focusing on and stumbling with, is their value in terms of education.
How they are valued as tribal people, perspectives, world views, contributions--the whole gamut--and
how can they validate it, because currently it isn't validated. And so part of that journey
really focuses on looking back at archival photos and studying the historical context
around those photos. How they were created and why they were created and for what audience.
So in our workshop, we focused on creating a self-portrait. The students get to chose
how they are presented to whatever audience they would like, and accompanying the portrait
is a small piece of writing. It could be a poem. It can be a memoir. It can also be an
alternate version of history. Part of it is to examine our own role and connection with
this idea of colonization, ideas of sovereignty, ideas of cultural identity. How does that
relate to the lives we live in the 21st century?
I'm an established artist, and I want to share with others how not to do things the hard way
in order to just get to the point where a person can create a maser piece of artwork
without the limitation of a material. And that was my main goal of sharing the knowledge
of beadwork. Art is very precious to me. Beadwork should be touched. Beadwork should be worn.
It should be alive, and a lot of times a lot of our beadwork went into the ground with
our loved ones. The reason I'll pull out photos is to share with that knowledge that I have
about things, that we don't just come from an idea or an item. We are human beings. We are transitioning,
living beings that have a place in time. And they did. They had their whole... They integrated
modern things, They expressed themselves in an enormously infinite variety of life, and
to them the most important thing was to live and to be, and I share that in the photos that
I bring or look for, to find them, because they're gone. To see them and the way they were. And
they're there. I don't like to look at them and see their items. I like to see them.
When someone knows the old way of dying wool with natural plants, or native plants, I think
it brings memories back to the people that their grandmothers, or grandfathers, or great-grandfathers
and mothers had done this before. How they kept all this precious knowledge of preserving
cultural materials through the work of art. I try to present this to my students when
I teach classes, because it's very important to understand where we came from as people,
how our elders have suffered in the past due to a lot of issues, through the United States
government, but we managed to survive. We hung on to our cultural beliefs, our arts
and crafts, and our philosophy. I love dying wool. It's a natural process for me, experiencing
the variety of colors that each plant can give. I like to see them progress in the future
to where they will know the business of art. This is very crucial in becoming an artist,
and documenting your work, knowing the business aspect of it, knowing the wheeling and dealing,
marketing, business plan, selling. You need to know that in the world today. If you combine
technology and computers with the old way, I think the youth will be very interested
in experiencing these new passed down methods of arts and crafts.
I'd like to thank each of you for sharing your experience on our journey here at the
Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum.