It’s been a very long time since I worked in Navajo country. The last couple years I’ve made a point to take Miladydebennet through a lot of my old haunts, and this summer that meant a trip through the Navajo Nation. It was great to see some of the old sights again, and to see them a little bit through the new eyes of my girlfriend. It was also great to see some new things in the old places. One of my favorite new things (new to me anyway) is the addition of street art all around the rez. These had me smiling all the way from Page to Santa Fe. I had even more reason to smile when I learned one of my former students had been involved in painting one of these murals.
It seems that these have been part of an ongoing project, called Paint the Desert initiated by a doctor who goes by the name, Jetsonorama. You can find a few articles on his project here and here, here, and here. I’ve previously posted some of the murals from along Highway 89, so I was very happy to catch some more this summer.
As always, you may click to embiggen. (In fact, I highly recommend it.)
These paintings were all at the Crossroads Trading Post.
Crossroads Trading Post
CTP Love
Well-Painted Mutton Stand
CTP
Corn
Water Rights
Saw this somewhere along the road from Kayenta down to Chinle.
Windmill
Found this piece on the road between Many Farms and Chinle.
Brotherhood
Backside
Abalone Road
Windmill between Many Farms and Fort Defiance
These (and many more) were all painted along a wall in Fort Defiance. It would have been walking distance from my home for a few years. Kind of a surreal experience to get a soda from the old convenience store and walk around checking this out. Surreal, and very cool.
So, I was in Rapid City recently. I was there to attend a convention of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. It’s a great conference and a great organization. So, I was enjoying myself a great deal, already, when a thought occurred to me. I wonder if there is any street art in Rapid City?
Surely, I thought, there must be a mural or two, maybe not even a great one, but I’ll bet there is something.
Turns out the answer is ‘yes’. There is definitely street art in Rapid City. In fact, the city has an entire alley devoted to it.
(Click to embiggen!)
Monster
A violet Rose?
Green
No DAPL!
Lotsa coolness
Foremen
Blue CHild
Lil’ Guy
Downtown mural
Dragonish
Art Stares back at you
Opening of the Alley
The Bun breaks the frame
CLose-up of a Utility Box
This was on the wall of a non-participating business.
But when you come to this image, the immersion takes on a different significance. Suddenly, it becomes clear why all the solders seem to be facing us. The Navajo figures simply plod along, mostly looking in other directions, but the soldiers, they look right at us as we stand in that hallway.
It’s an interesting effect to begin with, but when you walk down that hallway, at some point that soldier’s rifle is pointed at you. The soldier in that painting doesn’t care who you are, what your ethnicity is. He doesn’t even care what your plans are later in the day. And as my girlfriend pointed out, his rifle seems to follow your movements a bit, at least for a step or two. (I swear it does!) It’s a rather brilliant move on Begay’s part, because it places his viewers in the scene more effectively than anything else. More than placing the viewers in the scene, it confers a specific role on the viewer, as one of those forced along the walk.
It’s just art of course. We will at some point walk on to other parts of the exhibit, and many of us will no doubt shake off the effect of the image a bit quicker than those whose family histories include stories of those lost along the way. Still it’s an interesting contrast with the many times non-natives have chosen ourselves to assume some aspect of a native identity. Whether playing Indian as school-children, wearing a headdress at some music festival, or aping the Tonto-speak of Indian characters in countless westerns, many of us have done it at one time or another. Hell, some people have made a life out of it! Countless non-Indian actors have played Indian on screen, and countless non-Indian characters have become Indians in the story-arc of a common movie theme. And of course there is the Washington football team! What all of these other examples have in common, is a choice to assume some part of native identity, if only for a moment. They also have in common that the identity assumed is positive. When we non-natives play at being Indian, we get something out of it. It may not be much, often little more than a momentary source of amusement, but the choice is ours, and when choose it, we do so to our own advantage.
That’s the genius of this particular image. It forces that same transformation on anyone walking through the memorial. For just a moment, it makes us play Indian, and to do so on terms we didn’t choose for ourselves. On terms no-one would choose for themselves! We will survive that moment of course, perhaps even without really learning much from it. Still, it’s an interesting twist in the narrative.
That moment, when the business end of a rifle points you right into the story.
***
Here are a few more images from the mural (click to embiggen)!
So, it occurs to me that I’ve actually got quite a backlog of street art pics from Vegas. I’ve been collecting them for a couple years now without really doing a specific blog post on the topic. I’ve posted street art from Vegas before; here, here, here, and here. Oh, and here (a ways down the post)! I also included some murals in my original posts on the Erotic Heritage Center. but I notice some of those murals are covered now. In any event, I think it’s well past time for an update.
If there is any difference between this stuff and the murals I posted a couple years ago, I would say that I am seeing more large projects done by some well known artists these days. I’m still a fan of the lesser-known words tucked away in corners here and there, but it’s interesting to see the paintings moving closer to downtown and onto bigger buildings.
Anyway, here tis!
(Click to embiggen!)
Fear and Street Painting
As I took a picture of this a guy came up and asked if it was legal. …Heh!
Bunny-Fangs!
Evil in her Ear
Just Cool
Moar Coolness
A Dash of Color
Looking UP
Sadly, this has been painted over.
WIde-angle
Seen this on a few blogs
Serene
Street Cartography? 2 points!
Hm…
Diamonds Escape!
You can see this one at the beginning of a tour in the Neon Museum. It’s on a neighbors wall, visible from within the Neon Museum itself.
Part of a Big Mural
Catching Water
Gasmask
Concentric Ecothemed Mural
Back of the beauty bar. This replaced an earlier portrait of a young woman.
Ladder
Sideways is artways
I have a feeling, I should know the sub-reference here.
Eyes
Horns
Colorful
Reclining With Stars
Creepy Birds
This one cracks me up.
A day in bed with the bunnies. …out on the street.
Just drove north of Flagstaff along Highway 89 up to Kanab. I used to commute from Flagstaff up to Tuba City for work, so a stretch of this was very familiar to me. I was pleasantly surprised to see one new element along the road, a certain amount of street art.
The subject matter is rather distinctive, but I can’t help thinking one of the best things about this material is the background.
An elderly Navajo working one of the craft stands told me there were a couple different people in the area putting these up. I don’t know much more.
Thought I’d share.
(Click to embiggen!)
Red backgrouind
“Off the goat” reads a popular T-Shirt (in part).
Stencil
Backside
Nuther Look
Love this one
Under a Navajo Nation Flag
First one I saw
Pink
Dimples
P.S. My girlfriend tells me I’m not supposed to include the pictures of the child and a goat on account of she accidentally picked up a black ant taking pictures of those herself. We ejected the hitchhiker on the outskirts of Page. A little Hydrocortisol and a couple Advil had us on our way. The cycle of pain may continue once she realizes what I did here. I’m not a praying man, but your kind thoughts would be appreciated.
One of the things I like most about street art is the way it interacts with the environment. Case in point, this wire in front of this mural in the Vegas Art District irritated me at first. Then I came to see it as a sort of design feature.
I’m not sure who first decided utility boxes would make a good canvas for local artists, or what city first tested this theory, but I like it. Happily, Las Vegas Has seen at least one such project, Zap 7, resulting in a number of wonderful paintings along Maryland Parkway and the general vicinity of UNLV.
My friend Moni and I first discovered a few of these murals while puttering about Vegas earlier this summer. One day with a little more time on my hands, I headed down Maryland Parkway with a camera. In time, a few specific artists seemed to jump out at me, but I really enjoyed the lot of the work here.
I always hesitate a little before doing these posts, both because art ain’t really my area, and because I always miss stuff. …and then of course I can’t include everything anyway. I have to leave out some of the stuff I did find. So, I’m just posting as a fan, and feeling like a guilty fan for not fanatizing enough about this stuff.
Yeah, that’s right. I said ‘Fanatizing’. Deal with it!
So, let’s just start this one off with a few random pieces.
(Click to embiggen! …you know you want to.)
Rebel wolf!
Evel Knievel
Mariachis
Bluebird
Lady n Blue
Stylish Dragon
Of course!
Digging the eye.
I have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s kinda cool.
Kinda posty!
Holly Rae Vaughn did this one. (See the videos.)
Pixilated Bunny
Tatiana Hantig choose to focus on local varieties of endangered plants and animals. These are just a few of the pieces she put up.
Greater Sage Grouse
Moapa Dace
Steamboat Buckwheat
Grey Wolf
Nanda Sharifpour’s personal website painted this whimsical set of murals. I’m kicking myself for not coming back when the shadows have moved on, but hopefully her work can overcome my laziness. I seriously loved this set.
Big and Orange
Tall and Blue
Back of the big orange piece.
Nanda’s Sig.
Close Up
Su Limbert produced a number of small creatures, many of which seem to be a little on the odd side.
…metaphysically speaking, I mean.
Gotta watch them coyotes!
Tiny Utility
Cute Little Buggers
Fractured Bunny
These little fellows look almost normal.
Odd Rabbit and some friends.
Su Sig!
Adolfo R. Gonzalez did a number of colorful paintings, one of which is located at UNLV, just outside of the Humanities building,
Since I seem to be sharing dumpster art these days, I thought I’d post some pictures from a trip to the village of Atqasuk. I spent some time there last April, I think. It’s a small village of a little over 200 people located on the Meade River.
Naturally, their dumpster graffiti features prominently in my pictures from that trip. This community appears to be a little more interested in public service announcements than artsy murals, but some of the announcements have an artsy side of their own.
I’ve said it before, I know. What do you mean, you don’t remember? Well I have
(And I’m deeply hurt that some of y’all don’t remember this thing that I once said before.)
…I think.
Anyway, it remains just as true now as whenever it was that I said it before; Barrow has the best dumpsters! Yes, it does. Here are a couple new ones, and one that I think I somehow missed a ways back.
And yes, that’s it, just a brief moment to indulge in a little dumpster-based jingoism, and with that I’m outta here.
…actually, I am literally outta here. Time to fly South for a little time away from the frozen North.
This was a beautiful but rather surreal experience for a number of reasons. First and most obvious, the muggy heat of Oahu was a bit much for me after a winter in the arctic. …not so much that I wouldn’t want to go again, but, yes there was a day or two that had me longing for the air conditioning of my room. Second, I haven’t attended many academic conferences for some time. So, it felt odd to be back in that mix and listening to the sort of papers I remember from days long past and ambitions long since set aside. As usual, the panels were a fair mix of dull to amazing with plenty of kinda-both happening as well, which is exactly as I would expect it to be.
I remember sitting in one of the conference panels and thinking something about the whole conference really bothered me. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but then I realized how much of a hassle it had been moving from one panel to the next. Everyone had been rushing around pretty quickly. They were not quite pushy, but folks had definitely been moving with a purpose, …almost a vengeance. It wasn’t just that this was unpleasant, which would make it a lot like a lot of other conferences. What bothered me was just how uncharacteristic it felt, given the participants. What had bothered me, I realized, was that I wasn’t really accustomed to seeing indigenous people proceeding with such reckless abandon through a schedule. That’s when it donned on me that we were not on Indian time. We weren’t even close. The panels for this conference had been scheduled so tight, you had to leave early or arrive late to a panel in most cases. Being good scholars, people were getting the job done, but the end result was an indigenous gathering with a sense of time better suited to caricatures of German culture than Native anything. This is what had seemed incongruous to me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle when I realized it.
Hell, in Barrow, we don’t even think of it as a native thing, because the rest of us are the same way. What sociolinguists call “Indian time”, we would call “Barrow Time” up here. If an event begins at 8, that’s means 9ish, and even then, don’t be surprised if things actually start around 10. But Barrow Time isn’t just a sense that start times are iffy; it’s also a sense that the people present count more than the clocks. Events proceed when a certain critical mass of people have arrived, said their greetings and settled in comfortably.
…and that’s when we’re in a hurry.
The bottom line is that this conference did NOT have the usual leisurely pace that I’ve grown to expect from indigenous communities. I suppose this could have been a reflection of the limited samples I’ve experienced in my own lifetime. I still think it far more likely that the difference in behavior could be attributed the conference schedule. Left to their own devices, I can’t help thinking some of these folks would have proceeded much more slowly, a lot more deliberately, and in the process gotten to know each other a bit better.
It was outside on the campus of the college where the tone of the conference seemed most fitting, what with people milling around, chatting, and taking in the entertainment. This is where each of the communities present really represented themselves best. At one point, there was a mini-powwow out on the grass, and of course the Maori kept storming the stage to perform a haka. A Sami lady sang a lovely song in the opening ceremonies, but I’m a right bastard for leaving my camera in its case at that particular moment. Ainu held a wonderful round dance toward the end of the conference, and you can almost tell how great it was from the film. …almost.
At some point I snuck downtown to capture some of the street art. A trip to Punahou School and a visit with a friend out on the coast rounded out he trip nicely. Anyway, here are some photos and videos.
Unfortunately, I only captured a small portion of the performances. A lot of coolness just didn’t quite make it through my lens. I thought I’d share what I can here now, because some of it really was kind of fun.
(You may click to embiggen)
Let’s start with a few general pictures.
random Bird
Unfortunate Eel (Lucky Fisherman Not Pictured)
Sunset II
Sunset
A Small Selection of Performers.
A Sami Guy taking a picture
Hawaiian Dancers III
Hawaiian Dancers
I can’t remember the island these guys are from. Their dance was really cool.
Unidentified Dancer
Ainu
Hawaiian Dancers II
Hawaiian Dancer IV
Australian Youth Group
Street Art!
Mural
Mural II
Close-Up
Close-Up II
Mural III
Mural IV
Mural V
Mural VI
Cloe-Up III
Close-Up V
Mural VII
Mural VIII
Mural IX
Mural X
Mural XI
Mural XII
Mural XIII
Close-Up VI
Close-Up VII
Maori Haka
A Youth group from Australia. (As I recall this dance had to do with the introduction of European honey-bees into Australia. …the most salient difference between them and the local variety being the presence of a barbed stinger.)
Hula Dancers.
Let’s finish it off with that round dance I mentioned earlier.
To the left is one of my favorite images from a 
So, it occurs to me that I’ve actually got quite a backlog of street art pics from Vegas. I’ve been collecting them for a couple years now without really doing a specific blog post on the topic. I’ve posted street art from Vegas before; 
One of the things I like most about street art is the way it interacts with the environment. Case in point, this wire in front of this mural in the Vegas Art District irritated me at first. Then I came to see it as a sort of design feature.
