Creating While Finding Connections
I think of myself as many things, but the most prominent is a creator, and connector to empathy. I make art, I learn about history, and I work to connect people with lost things, places, people, ideas, and ways of being. I've found art to be deeply healing and, in my process, I'm always asking; how can I rebuild connections that were once severed? What can I do to help? Can what I learn help others to connect?
I often listen to audio books and podcasts about history and restorative social justice as I paint. The time I spend painting teaches me many things and helps deepen my empathy and commitment to diverse voices. This helps me educate my community and work to heal and restore power to those who have been systematically oppressed.
It is my hope that artists across the U.S. and the world will do their part to learn about their histories, their family's histories, and work to heal the trauma they and their ancestors have caused and or suffered. It is my hope that those who have privilege give back to those who have been historically oppressed. Who I am today is a result of decades of self-work and awareness, and I hope to continue growing and sharing as I do so.
I think of myself as many things, but the most prominent is a creator, and connector to empathy. I make art, I learn about history, and I work to connect people with lost things, places, people, ideas, and ways of being. I've found art to be deeply healing and, in my process, I'm always asking; how can I rebuild connections that were once severed? What can I do to help? Can what I learn help others to connect?
I often listen to audio books and podcasts about history and restorative social justice as I paint. The time I spend painting teaches me many things and helps deepen my empathy and commitment to diverse voices. This helps me educate my community and work to heal and restore power to those who have been systematically oppressed.
It is my hope that artists across the U.S. and the world will do their part to learn about their histories, their family's histories, and work to heal the trauma they and their ancestors have caused and or suffered. It is my hope that those who have privilege give back to those who have been historically oppressed. Who I am today is a result of decades of self-work and awareness, and I hope to continue growing and sharing as I do so.
Little Cloud Horse Over Oklahoma - 8x8 Oil Painting
|
Sometimes You Feel How the Past Looks
Sometimes artists see beyond what is in front of them; visions from the past, feelings of those no longer with us, a longing for somewhere they've never been. This was the case when I decided to paint my grandmother's horse above the clouds, of the tiny dustbowl home she grew up in. My grandmother was a bit of a tomboy, who had a lifelong love for horses. She rode and spent time with them whenever she could. She had horses right up until she could no longer safely ride. In her eighties, when I was a little girl, she often told me of a recuring dream: "Some day I'll be going down the road, and see a little horse tied to a fence, that someone has left there, with a sign that just says, A Pony for Doris." Her eyes would light up when she said this. " Wouldn't that be so nice?" I knew my grandmother had been in her early twenties in 1945, when her mother and siblings had to leave the farm in Oklahoma. I knew her beloved father had recently died, and the family wanted to move to California, where there was more opportunity. I knew that losing her father and leaving Oklahoma broke my grandmother's heart. When she was alive, she often told me of how she missed her daddy and how good of a man he had been. She often helped him outside with the horses, and preferred it to the indoor tasks women often did. I think she felt a strong connection between leaving Oklahoma and the horses and losing her father in the same year. When I first saw the small black and white printed photograph from 1945 of that Oklahoma house, I felt like I knew it, even though I had never been to Oklahoma and was sitting in my own home in Washington state, a good 72 years in the future. I eventually decided to paint this place in honor of my grandmother, but I didn't have much to go by for a reference photograph. The photo was in black and white, and I wanted to experience the color of the place for the painting I had in mind. I imagined a wide landscape, with fields, and a distant horizon where the small home stood. I imagined a deep blue sky, white bright clouds. The air was clear, and the weather had just changed. The clouds were growing. In the clouds, I saw my grandmother's horse. And out of these thoughts and feelings, I felt I could see what my grandmother felt back in 1945, and that is what I brought to my painting. The Painting Turned Out to Be More Accurate Than I Thought I had noticed a small handwritten note in my grandmother's scrapbook above the 1945 photo that indicated the home was leased from someone named Peter Birdchief. I began searching for this name and uncovered a history I had previously been unaware of. I eventually learned, with more accuracy where that home had been, located along Turtle Creek in what is now Clinton Oklahoma. I sent what I had learned, as well as the 1945 photos to the University of Oklahoma's Western History Department, who had a digitized 1968 interview with Peter Birdchief, and also to members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma. I was also able to talk with a tribal member who helped me connect some of the historic pieces I had questions about. The above picture of my grandmother is of her and a "beautiful and good horse" that her neighbor, Mr. Dean Welbourne, brought for her to ride, in the days her daddy was so ill, and as he was dying. I know she loved that horse. Dean Welbourne, I am told, is the grandfather of Mr. Charlie Welbourne, who is now CEO of Lucky Star Casino in El Reno Oklahoma. |
Doris Hull, Clinton Oklahoma, 1945
The back of the above photo.
My grandmother's father in the 1940s.
|
What I referenced for the painting: Peter Birdchief's House, Clinton Oklahoma, 1945
|
What I found AFTER I finished the painting: Screenshot via Google Earth of a country road along Turtle Creek, within a mile or so of where my grandmother grew up.
|
Connecting With the History of a Place
The history of the land in Clinton Oklahoma led me to learn more about the forced displacement and cultural genocide the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people experienced. What follows is a summary of what I learned while painting. Please know this is a personal summary, and while I do my best to cover the basics, I am not an expert on history, and you are encouraged to study this on your own if you want to know more.
The Cheyenne people were told to leave the Black Hills, for Oklahoma. They were told that they could go back to the Black Hills if they did not like the reservation in Oklahoma. It took about three months for them to make the trip. When they arrived, they saw that the land was not very good, and they saw how other tribes had been treated poorly by the government; how their hunting grounds had been occupied and taken, and how rations from the government were intermittent and of poor quality. They told the white people in charge of relocation that they did not want to live on the land they had been promised in Oklahoma, and they intended to return to their home in the Black Hills. But they were told they were not allowed to return and that they should wait a year. However, they could not wait a year or their people would starve and many would die. There were not sufficient animals to hunt, and the government did not supply food as they had promised. What followed were several actions in which many of them attempted to return to the Black Hills. Some fled to other reservations.
I also learned about the Washita massacre in Oklahoma, led by Lt. Col. George Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry. I learned about Chief Black Kettel, who wanted peace, and I learned about his people, and how the U.S. soldiers attacked a winter camp of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people along the Washita River. I learned how the soldiers slaughtered people at the camp and took women and children hostage and used them as human shields. It was a cruel act of genocide. Custer's soldiers also slaughtered about 675 ponies and horses at the camp. Peter Birdchief had family whose ancestors survived the Washita Massacre. Additional accounts can be read here.
For further reading, please consider: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, which has chapters specifically dedicated to this history.
The history of the land in Clinton Oklahoma led me to learn more about the forced displacement and cultural genocide the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people experienced. What follows is a summary of what I learned while painting. Please know this is a personal summary, and while I do my best to cover the basics, I am not an expert on history, and you are encouraged to study this on your own if you want to know more.
The Cheyenne people were told to leave the Black Hills, for Oklahoma. They were told that they could go back to the Black Hills if they did not like the reservation in Oklahoma. It took about three months for them to make the trip. When they arrived, they saw that the land was not very good, and they saw how other tribes had been treated poorly by the government; how their hunting grounds had been occupied and taken, and how rations from the government were intermittent and of poor quality. They told the white people in charge of relocation that they did not want to live on the land they had been promised in Oklahoma, and they intended to return to their home in the Black Hills. But they were told they were not allowed to return and that they should wait a year. However, they could not wait a year or their people would starve and many would die. There were not sufficient animals to hunt, and the government did not supply food as they had promised. What followed were several actions in which many of them attempted to return to the Black Hills. Some fled to other reservations.
I also learned about the Washita massacre in Oklahoma, led by Lt. Col. George Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry. I learned about Chief Black Kettel, who wanted peace, and I learned about his people, and how the U.S. soldiers attacked a winter camp of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people along the Washita River. I learned how the soldiers slaughtered people at the camp and took women and children hostage and used them as human shields. It was a cruel act of genocide. Custer's soldiers also slaughtered about 675 ponies and horses at the camp. Peter Birdchief had family whose ancestors survived the Washita Massacre. Additional accounts can be read here.
For further reading, please consider: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, which has chapters specifically dedicated to this history.