Blackfeet Ghost Story: Heavy Collar and the Ghost Woman

This is a ghost story from the Blackfeet/Blackfoot people, called "Heavy Collar and the Ghost Woman." I used to tell this story to may little sister, and to the Bear Comes Out kids. It was a favorite. There's not a lot of flash in this...it is straight-out storytelling old-school style...no sound effects or music. The story is in two parts. Just turn the lights down low, lay back and get comfortable, and listen to an old-style Indian ghost story.

Two Flowers Standing Woman

I just finished this painting today, a commissioned work. It was begun back in 1984, three years after I left art school in Santa Fe.

It has often been a struggle to paint certain paintings. Some seem to be missing something, and then you put it on the back burner, never knowing exactly what was wrong. The back burner, way way way in the back. Behind the stove in fact.

I started this with the title as "Promise of Spring," with the Girl representing the Innocence of Spring and the meadowlark representing Truth. In a way, she represented a daughter I never had. The Girl's features and the painting style was inspired by Gauguin's work in the South Pacific. I was really into Gauguin and the Fauves at the time.

But there was something missing, and though several people expressed an interest in buying her, I would not part with her. I didn't want her to go with them. She was not complete, not yet ready to go into the world.

Flash forward to this last year, 2007. I had been asked about doing a commissioned work for a dear friend of mine several years ago (so many years ago, it was embarrassing). It was to be called "Two Flowers Standing Woman." I just couldn't get things together. I had done several sketches, and nothing was working. I asked my friend what kind of flowers, hoping that would get me moving. He said "Sunflowers." And something stirred in my mind and I could not remember what.

And then this fall, on my return to Montana, I found the Girl waiting for me. And it clicked. She even was holding her hands crossed upon her breast in a perfect way to hold the flowers. Sunflowers. Which clicked with the meadowlark and brought everything together. The girl was reborn and now she had a name: "Two Flowers Standing Woman." And she told me she was ready to travel onward. So I must release my little daughter. And now, 24 years later, the Girl is a Woman.

People often ask artists how long it takes them to paint a painting, somehow wanting to value a painting based on how long it takes to paint it. Well, this one took me from 1984 until 2008, 24 years, if that means anything. To an artist though, time has little meaning. A painting is ready when it is ready. This painting is alive and it is ready.

Tomah I (Myrna Loy Center Show): The Guardian

[Label:] Many cultures believe that powerful, even frightening, images of angels and deities serve as protectors and guardians of holy places. On one side, there is an approaching summer thunderstorm (protection of the sacred) with the eagle, and on the other is the night sky of winter (purification).

[Media: Acrylic on canvas]


[Additional information: I painted this large painting when I was about 20 years old, while going to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some spooky things had been going on in my dorm room, sounds when I was not there: a sound as of someone getting up off the bed, then footsteps to the door, and then a doorknob jiggling from inside. But all the students knew the Old North Dorm was haunted. Sounds of crying in the night, people walking in and out of walls, and lights turned on and off. So I painted this, based on the Lakota warrior "Low Dog" or "He Dog", who had fought against Custer at the Little Bighorn. I put a lot of different power symbols in the painting, both embedded and evident. And it worked. At least my room was quieted of activity. It might sound a little weird to some folks, but for us Indians and for us artists, the spiritual world is not that strange. Doubly so if you are an Indian artist!

Then my dad took "The Guardian" with him while he worked on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and hung it on his apartment wall, which you could see from the outside street. He said sometimes he looked outside at night, and saw Cheyennes sitting in their car in the dark, looking at the painting. This painting has the definite "presence" of a guardian spirit. He is truly part of my family; "someone" lives in this painting. He will never be sold, and he lives with my mother and father now. If you click the video of me with "The Guardian" on the right side of this blog, you can hear me talk a little about it (It's from my YouTube site. If you are into spooky stuff, check out my Paranormal Montana blog.]

Tomah I (Myrna Loy Center Show): Genius Loci

[Label:] Against the cold mountains stands a Genius Loci, a spirit of place. Transformation of the self is a big theme in our self-centered society. But what about transformation of society, and even of the land itself? We see this transformation every day, of natural places into a commodity to be bought and sold, as commerce is the true god of our society. The land offers an alternative. Can we transform, can we heal, and provide new life to the land? The Genius Loci waits to transform us and to be transformed in turn, like the butterflies on his hat.

[Media: Acrylic on canvas]

Tomah I (Myrna Loy Center Show): Pages from the Helena Landscape Notebook

[Label:]My current work, supported by the Myrna Loy grant I received this year, is focused on the sacred landscape of Helena.

All over the world, landscapes are marked by sacred mountains, springs, and caves. As seen in Native American traditions and stories, and in such cultural traditions as Chinese Taoist Feng Shui, the land has a life-energy of its own. We can add to this also military and historical sites, family camping, ranching, and hunting memories and traditions, Christian and Buddhist ways of living, and conservation of our natural resources. Everyone has a special place that is sacred to them, whether it is a special place in nature or the old family place. And if that place is destroyed by the unthinking, the wounds go deep and may never be healed.

On the left is a microcosm, a model of the Helena Valley as the central place in our world as Helenans, marked out by the circumference of mountains and other features. There are multiple landscapes, each with their own center or heart. On the right, there is one of these sacred landscapes, in this case the Catholic landscape, with the St. Helena Cathedral as the heart of that sacred landscape. Besides the Catholic landscape layer seen here, there are many other significant sacred and mysterious landscape layers in and around Helena, such as that of military shrines and graves, of freemasonry, of Native American traditions and archaeological sites of the Blackfeet (Piegan), Flathead (Salish), Kootenai, Shoshone, and others.

[Media: pen/ink, pencil on paper]

Tomah I (Myrna Loy Center Show): Ishjinki Vincent Itaro Waduje wok’un ke

[Label:] Ishjinki Vincent Itaro Waduje wok’un ke (Trickster gave his friend Vincent an ear of corn)

In western society, the artist is thought of as a marginal figure, and in the worst cases, prone to eccentricity and even madness. In traditional societies, the artist is an integral part of social life, expressing the inherent values of the society. The Trickster is an ambivalent figure, but one of the good things that he does is cure madness. In this painting, we see what might have happened if the quintessential “mad artist” Vincent Van Gogh would have had the friendship of Trickster. After Vincent cuts off his own ear, Trickster offers him the replacement ear…of corn. And a happy and healed Vincent teases him back, with the rabbit ear sign behind his head and tsk-tsking him for the joke. And in the background, the crows of madness fly away to the sunflower/sun under the framework of the world.

[Media: Acrylic on canvas]

Tomah I (Myrna Loy Center Show): Nothing will end until it ends

[Label:] Helena has been “discovered” by people looking for a good place to live, just as they have in so many areas in Montana and the West have in years past. Now the new gold rush of development is on, and just as in the last one, the land is impacted. Even the guardian sacred mountain Mt. Helena, which stands as our city’s symbol, is not immune from the ambition and greed of those few who measure all values by the amount in their bank account and the praise of their fellows. The difference between “needs” and “wants” is that “needs” have limits, while “wants” have none.

[Media: Ink and Charcoal on Paper]