The Cahuilla Creation story tells how Moon, Ménil, gave the people rules for living and marrying, rules for cleanliness, and other gifts such as games — and art. Today we’re exploring Native American sovereignty expressed in art, in two short stories:
1. The Basket.
We discovered during our last full “Supermoon” in June how the sacred plant of native tobacco, Pivat in Cahuilla, can be seen in full beauty under the full, brilliant light of Ménil. (The next full Supermoon peaks on July 13, 2022.)
Pivat, one of the first plants created by Creator Mukat, and used in old times in sacred ceremonies, blooms only at night.
A night view of native tobacco also blooms throughout time in traditional patterns of basketry art.
Nickolasa Patencio, before 1920, Tray with floral tobacco design, Palm Springs Art Museum, A88-1974.
For example, the tobacco flower blooms on this historic tray by Nickolasa Patencio, woven before 1920. This historic basket in the collection of the Palm Springs Art Museum measures more than 11 inches in diameter and was woven with sumac, natural and dyed juncus over a deergrass foundation. 1
Dona Tortes, Tray with bat designs, c. 1901-1925. Palm Springs Art Museum, gift to the museum of Cornelia B. White from the Marjorie Rose Dougan collection. A78-1974.
Images of the night — flying bats — also are evoked in this historic tray by Dona Tortes, dating around 1901-1925, woven from sumac, and natural and dyed juncus on a grass-bundle foundation.
Inspired by these traditional motifs, in 2018, Cahuilla artist Gerald Clarke arranged 1,884 aluminum soda and beer cans into the huge “Continuum Basket: Pivat.” 2
“Described by the artist as having a nocturnal theme, the basket is dominated at the center by the night-blooming tobacco flower, while the bat motifs and the alternating dark blue triangular forms at the outer edge of the basket represent the night sky.” 3
“Continuum Basket: Pivat” is shown in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s flyer for the Center’s July 11, 2022, Dragonfly Lecture and in-person Cultural Gathering, “Exploring Native American Art with Gerald Clarke.” (Thanks to Palm Springs Art Museum for the photo.)
Creating and Creation
The artist says: “Within the Cahuilla community, as in the world at large, I’ve seen how certain people are naturally drawn toward fulfilling the roles of healer, leader, teacher, and activist, among other roles. 4
“I feel that an artist plays a role in vital communities as well. For many Indigenous cultures, including the Cahuilla, the world did not suddenly exist, but was created by a Creator entity. Creation is special and sacred. To create anything, including art, is to mirror the sacred art of the original creation.
“The language, purpose, and forms of the contemporary art world are new to my people,” he says. “While my work may not appear ‘traditional,’ it is part of the ongoing creative responses to the world that the Cahuilla have exercised since ancient times.”
“Basket Exploration: The Heart is Fire,” is now on display at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center as part of the Siva Family Art Collection. Photo courtesy of Palm Springs Art Museum.
Participants in the Center’s July 11, 2022, Dragonfly Lecture and cultural gathering will be able to see another in a similar series, “The Heart is Fire,” recently added on display in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Gathering Hall.
A resin mold of a plastic electrical conduit in a basket form holds a cast human heart in the center. (“The land is close to the people because, as old man [shaman Pedro] Chino used to say, ‘This land is alive. It is alive,’” the late Cahuilla Elder Alvino Siva once remembered.5 “In Cahuilla, what he was saying to me is that the heart is fire, the heart of the land. He said, ‘That is why you can see where it breathes.’ Like in Montana where that steam comes out. ‘If it doesn’t,’ he said, ‘it will blow up.’ It had to breathe, the earth.” )
“While honoring the legacy of Cahuilla basket makers who gather natural materials from their environment,” Falling Rock explains, “Clarke injects a contemporary approach by utilizing recycled aluminum cans that we see littering the same lands today. This series addresses the disengagement with the destruction of Indigenous land, while the beer and soda cans reflect the disproportionately high rates of alcoholism and diabetes in Native communities.”6
2. When an Artist Hangs His Own Artwork
New-to-us artwork from Gerald Clarke’s 2009 “One Tract Mind” series is scheduled to be on display in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Gathering Hall in time for the artist’s July 11, 2022, lecture.
Learning Center leaders June and Ernest Siva with Faith Raiguel (right) and her donation of “One Tract Mind: Motifs” to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center.
Donor Faith Raiguel, a longtime board member of Idyllwild Arts, writes:
“I met Ernest [Siva] in the 60s when he was a vocal section leader in ISOMATA’s (now Idyllwild Arts) Festival Choir. I was a high school student.
“I met Gerald [Clarke] when he was on the faculty of Idyllwild Arts and I was Chair of IA’s board. I fell in love with this work when he gave a lecture on his work to the board, about eight years ago.
“I had the perfect spot in my Idyllwild home to showcase this work. Gerald graciously came to my home, mounted it on a frame, and climbed the ladder to hang it.
“As I’m selling my Idyllwild home, I no longer have a perfect place for the work. My feeling is that I’ve been custodian of this piece, enjoying its company, and it’s time for another custodian to treasure it. That means donating it and not selling it.
“In contacting Gerald to get his recommendation, he immediately suggested the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. I’m so pleased especially with my early connection with Ernie, reconnecting my acquaintance with Ernie and June, and knowing it will be seen more widely in its new home.”
“One Tract Mind,” according to the Falling Rock exhibition catalog, “explores the effects of tract housing on Native communities, water rights, and sacred sites. Conceived in reaction to the housing crisis of 2008, the images depict Temecula, California (historically Luiseño territory), yet the generic appearance of the buildings could be anywhere in the United States.
“The condensed, overlapping patterns of the tile roofs evoke designs found in Cahuilla basketry, as illustrated in ‘Motifs’ [the artwork donated by Faith Raiguel].”
“As you view my work,” Gerald Clarke says, “I ask that you don’t simply compare or contrast it to ‘traditional Native American art,’ but that you understand my work exists within a spectrum of Indigenous expression that is simultaneously ancient and contemporary. I am not simply a contemporary artist that happens to be Indian. I am a Native American artist. I am a Cahuilla artist.” 7
Come see “Motifs,” “The Heart is Fire,” and other artwork by Gerald Clarke, during the cultural gathering and his lecture from 6 to 8 p.m. July 11, 2022. (Come early, 5 p.m., to shop and socialize!) Your $10 will help the nonprofit Center save and share Native American cultures. And come to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Gala on Aug. 13, 2022, for a celebration of Native American cultures and art, when Gerald Clarke is scheduled to receive the Dragonfly Award.
Sovereignty
“I can’t speak for everyone,” author and artist Gordon Johnson (Cahuilla-Cupeño) of Pala Reservation says, “… But I think Native art is an expression of cultural sovereignty, which, in the biggest picture, is the ability of Native people to determine who they are.”8
Thank you!
The Center, a 501c3 nonprofit led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), saves and shares Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and arts. Thank you for your support in subscribing, reading, and sharing News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. Editor Pat Murkland, July 6, 2022.
Thanks to Palm Springs Art Museum for permission to share images of both the Nickolasa Patencio and Dona Tortes baskets, as seen in Gerald Clarke: Falling Rock, the catalog of his “Falling Rock” 2020 exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum, curator, Christine Giles; editors, David Evans Frantz and Christine Giles; publishers, Palm Springs Art Museum and Hirmer Verlag, p. 67.
The work was commissioned by Palm Springs Art Museum for the 2020 exhibition, “Gerald Clarke: Falling Rock,” which brought together three decades of his art.
Cahuilla Elder Alvino Siva discussion in The Heart is Fire: The World of the Cahuilla Indians of Southern California, by Deborah Dozier, © 1998 Deborah Dozier, Heyday Books, Berkeley, California, p. 56.