“BEFORE”: Ernest and June Siva, leaders of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, at the Center’s San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Gathering Hall in Banning, with John Fleeman of the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at California State University, San Bernardino.
The Center of the Center
Wild horses by Billy War Soldier Soza
Art at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center has always given everyone more than a beautiful backdrop. We aren’t a museum. Instead, our Center is a community centerpoint where Southern California Native American cultures are alive, vibrant, saved, and shared in respect.
The paintings, sculptures, and other artwork aren’t simply objects on display. The focus instead is on our relationship with the art. While lectures and other events help us connect with Native American cultures with our minds, the art helps open our hearts to discover and explore deeper meanings.
Bird Singers Ernest Siva (left), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, and Bill Madrigal (right) singing and dancing with others near the blanket painting in the Learning Center’s Gathering Hall. (Carlos Puma Photo)
For example, when bird singers and dancers sing and dance in the Gathering Hall, their traditional music embraces art by Gerald Clarke, our 2022 Dragonfly Award winner, under his “blanket painting” that celebrates the revival and renaissance in recent years of those timeless songs. Or people sing and dance near his painting of a gourd rattle. The art helps affirm the beauty and history of our region’s living Native American cultures. It helps everyone, no matter one’s age or background, connect through intuition, emotions, all senses.
Each of the paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of artwork in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, part of the Ernest and June Siva collection, tells a story. And now, some of those stories are traveling with selected artwork to California State University, San Bernardino’s Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art.
“Through Their Eyes”
DETAILS: Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art
Cal State University, San Bernardino
5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407
Opening reception: Saturday, September 10, 5 pm to 7 pm
On Display: September 12-December 3, 2022
This week, John Fleeman and Mike Beckley from the museum came and packed up most of the hall’s artwork.
(Pat Murkland Photos)
AFTER: And now, the Center Gathering Hall looks like this …
We are looking forward to sharing our heart with you all in San Bernardino!
See you there!
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, a 501c3 nonprofit led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), saves and shares Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history and traditional arts. Thanks from News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center and Editor Pat Murkland, Aug. 24, 2022. Subscribe, it’s free!