radically alter

An amazing animation of a specific Leukocyte inflammation reaction. What is particularly amazing is the easily anthropomorphized motor-proteins in the cell, trudging along with their "vesicle" burdens.
You'll see what I mean.



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Sometimes I get an urge to radically alter a painting.
Usually it's a good idea... that takes a little time to coalesce.
Sometimes, though... It seems like a monstrous error, accompanied by a moment of delicious panic.
I had one of those moments, a couple weeks ago, when I decided to put a "halo" around the Nanabush figure in the Miss Loontrout... painting.
The results were not what I had anticipated. Maybe I shouldn't have used spray paint.
Anyways; the moment passed and I resolved to work through the new transition.
Process, process, process.
(Pics click to enlarge.)

Immediately "before":


Immediately "after":


Reclaim the "door" and some black line:


More black line and the "metallic amethyst" of Miss Loontrout, herself:


Current incarnation,"ring" of new green added:


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Art revives native culture

Download Miro. Free, open source media player, formerly known as "Democracy Player".

"As always, we are a non-profit organization and we build this software because we think there’s a chance to bring television online in a way that’s more open and accessible than ever. Companies are battling desperately to control video, monopolize users, and build proprietary distribution systems. It’s a dangerous direction for the future of media.

Miro is built to be as open as possible– open source, open-standards, compatible with any host that provides video rss, open to alternate channel guides, and able to search multiple video sites. We want there to a be minimum of gatekeepers and a maximum of choice for creators and viewers. The future of online video is being defined right now. We need your help to make sure that the open approach is as strong as possible."

Manitoba First Nation launches lawsuit to reopen century-old land treaty

"... signed more than a century ago, provided the band with one quarter section of land, or 64 hectares, for every family of five. It's the same deal other Treaty Five bands received.
But many Manitoba First Nations received a better deal — as much as four times more..."

Five Nations Energy (Hudson Bay coast, Ontario) has a Cree version (syllabics) of their website.

Metis Media Fest

"No Submission Fees - Deadline AUG15, 2007
This is a call for all forms of media work - including digital photographs, videos, radio plays, web sites in a variety of styles from documentary to experimental in common digital formats such as JPEGs, MP3s, AVIs, MOVs, DVDs and Audio CDs. "

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How the CIA got busted, for kidnapping in Italy.

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Native youth team up on HIV film project

Eagle poachers get sentenced.


Tim Giago article; Two Volumes of Indian Heroes and Legends.

"I followed a career in journalism because of the example set for me by two of my own heroes. The first was a Fort McDowell Apache man named Carlos Montezuma. His Indian name was Wassaja. He began publishing a small newspaper in Arizona in the early 1900s that took on the bureaucratic establishment that had been the bane of Indian rights. His forthright and fearless criticism of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and of the Department of the Interior made him an instant enemy of the federal government."

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beaded cola

Images and Peyote songs of the Native American Church



Brief History of Peyote.

"... Success in spreading the new Peyote cult resulted in strong opposition to its practice from missionary and local governmental groups. The ferocity of this opposition often led local governments to enact repressive legislation, in spite of overwhelming scientific opinion that Indians should be permitted to use Peyote in religious practices. In an attempt to protect their rights to free religious activity, American Indians organised the Peyote cult into a legally recognised religious group, the Native American Church. This religious movement, unknown in the United States before 1885, numbered 13,300 members in 1922. Membership of the Native American Church at the present time is claimed to be a quarter of a million Indians..."

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Native Artstuff:

NEW AWARDS ANNOUNCED FOR FIRST NATIONS ART(British Columbia, Canada)

Natve blog; NAMoments

"Native American Aboriginal links and info on News, Art, Crafts, Music, Stories and Culture."

A good article about Tlingit-Nishga artist, Da-ka-xeen Mehner

"Mehner's inventions with camera and Photoshop aren't his only signature. He has also designed a series of sculptures informed by a Tlingit carving aesthetic and mask tradition but formed with construction materials, including cast concrete and rusty metal.
Most recently, he's taken on woodcarving. There are eight birch and yellow cedar masks displayed in his Out North exhibit. He gave two weighty reasons why they're marked "NFS" -- not for sale.
It's unsettling to him that ceremonial objects have become part of the tourist economy.
"I don't want to make cultural objects into commodities. That's not appropriate for me," he said.
Also, Mehner said, in college he often read anthropological texts referring to the wealth of Tlingit material culture.
"Growing up in a Native home, that wasn't what I experienced," he said. "We lived in small apartments in Spenard and were just getting by. I look at pictures of these historical objects and wonder where they are, because they're not in the possession of the families."

RedwayBC News Ezine

"Harnessing Technology to Honour, Inform and Connect Urban Aboriginal Youth to Services, Opportunities, the Community and Each Other"

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New beaded bottles, in progress (pics click to enlarge):











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Random resources, news and stuff:



A new CBC webpage dedicated to aboriginal issues and news.

"This season, one focal point in CBC Television's diversity plan is a web platform that will serve to showcase stories and programs on Aboriginal life, issues, and artistic expression that have been produced by, or in association with CBC Television and Radio.

Our goal is to provide better access to the volume of programming produced by the CBC which relates to Aboriginal life in Canada, creating a resource tool for schools, the larger community as a whole and Aboriginal communities in particular. It is our intention to develop internships related to the site that will provide budding web developers with an opportunity to get to know the CBC, and our content, a little better. We also hope that the website acts as connective fibre for other CBC initiatives that look to improve our capacity to connect with, and reflect Canada's Aboriginal people. "

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Arizona Native Net

"ArizonaNativeNet is a virtual university outreach and distance learning telecommunications center devoted to the higher educational needs of Native Nations in Arizona, the United States and the world through the utilization of the worldwide web and the knowledge-based and technical resources and expertise of the University of Arizona. It is a vital resource for Native Nations seeking to strengthen their nation-building efforts through telecommunications-based higher education, leadership and management training, and distance learning programs offered through ArizonaNativeNet by the University of Arizona."

Vine Deloria flash lecture; Northwest Indian Fisheries Treaties, at Arizona Native Net.

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Aboriginal women protest Ottawa's refusal to back UN declaration.

"Aboriginal women from across North and South America marched through the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal on Friday to protest against Ottawa's refusal to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples...
Only one other country, Russia, has refused to support it at the Human Rights Council."

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Tags: beadwork, beaded bottlles, ojibway art, native art, native american church, peyote, cbc, vine deloria, Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog, pics

paraskavedekatriaphobia

Canada has been getting slagged pretty heavily, lately, for our "piratical" urges.
Perhaps things are not quite as bad as the wailing would suggest.



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Native Artstuff:

Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination. National Museum of the American Indian; Through September 3.

You lucky ducks down in the Mini-Apple... Puppet Rampage 2007! Twin Cities, July 17-22.

A new photo exhibit at the Allan Houser Gallery in Downtown Santa Fe.

"The Allan Houser organization has announced that is hosting an exhibit of noted photographer Lee Marmon’s photo session with Allan Houser from early 1991. Marmon, one of America’s best known and acclaimed Native American photographers spent a day with Houser following the sculpture and painting master’s process. The result is a unique portrait of a one of the world’s best known artists at ease with his work and with the photographer."

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I knocked-over the Bass Trickster sculpture and had to repair it, so I have started to make some major additions, as well. Pics click to enlarge:











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Latest incarnation of Krustayn Versus Mecha Sasquatch:



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Random News, resources and stuff:

If you have a favourite internet radio station, you may want to contact your political reps to help save it. Save Net Radio

Eastern tribes investing in Lacrosse.

Standing Silent Nation PBS look at South Dakotan Sioux farmer trying to get out of poverty by farming industrial h3mp, under the assumption of tribal sovereignty, and the government crackdown that followed.

An Obit for Manitoba Native activist, Dave Brophy

"I bring terrible news that Dave Brophy, member of the Winnipeg Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement, member of the New Socialist Group, and dear friend, has suddenly died. I first met Dave at a political study group in Winnipeg in the summer of 2004. He had been a supporter of the blockade against clearcutting in Grassy Narrows territory since its inception in December 2002. He was clearly outraged by injustices that he had witnessed in building solidarity with the Anishinaabe people of Grassy Narrows, and was struggling to come to grips with what history and theory can teach about strategies for social change that could address oppression and environmental destruction. He came to the conclusion that the system of profit and competition that is capitalism is the root of these destructive forms. His knowledge of indigenous communal traditions inspired him to fight for an alternative society..."

3'rd century salt miner found preserved, in Iranian salt mine.

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Tags: dave brophy, standing silent nation, save net radio, papier mache, sculpture, acrylic painting, native art, puppet rampage, Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog, pics

ants and us

Dan Dennet lecture found at TED Talks.

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Native Artstuff:

Benjamin Trueblood makes music by listening to his surroundings. (Mp3 sample at site.)

"...the dreamlike state of close observation, the rapid juxtapositions between the natural and the manmade, and the cyclical elegance of decay—could just as easily describe the sound art that Trueblood creates as Feltbattery as it does our morning in the woods.

Feltbattery's most recent album, It Had Wings, draws heavily upon field-recorded birdsong to inform minimalist collage patterns. Trueblood blends his field recordings with sparse instrumentation (including flute and charango) to create layered, hypnotic loops..."

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DrawnOnRock, a blog from folks trekking through the southwest petroglyph area.

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Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers


Red medium buffalo pipe with pine stem by B. Bryant

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My mom's favourite powwow to visit, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Wacipi. We'll be going down to camp, hang out and reconnect; August 17-19, 2007, Prior Lake, MN. Maybe play a little bingo.
;-)

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(Old) Winnipeg Bingorage pics; winter 2005-2006:















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Random news resources and stuff:

D1ck Ch3n3y Leaves no tracks. An article discussing the vice's negative influence on the environment.

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IndigenousPortal is looking for editors (document download).

"The Indigenous Portal is an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS . WSIS was a two-phase series, United Nations (UN) sponsored summit about information and communication. The Geneva Summit in December 2003 laid the foundations with a Declaration of Principles and a plan of action. The Tunis Summit aimed to monitor and evaluate progress on the action plan and devise an agenda that will target goals for achievement by 2015. From these events came the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action, as well as the Declaration and Plan of Action of the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society. "

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International Indian Treaty Council Myspace page.

"OBJECTIVES

* To seek, promote and build official participation of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations and its specialized agencies, as well as other international forums.

* To seek international recognition for Treaties and Agreements between Indigenous Peoples and Nation-States.

* To support the human rights, self-determination and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples; to oppose colonialism in all its forms, and its effects upon Indigenous Peoples.

* To build solidarity and relationships of mutual support among Indigenous Peoples of the world.

* To disseminate information about Indigenous Peoples’ human rights issues, struggles, concerns and perspectives.

* To establish and maintain one or more organizational offices to carry out IITC’s information dissemination, networking and human rights programs."

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Indigenous Mapping Network.

"The Indigenous Mapping Network, an affiliate of the Seventh Generation Fund, is an organization set up to help empower native communities by giving them tools they need to protect, preserve, and enhance their way of life within their aboriginal territories. We also are designed to be a conduit for native individuals and groups to meet each other in order to build relationships and assist one another in accomplishing sovereign goals. The current leaders of the network are fluent in modern mapping technologies and are concerned about how native groups approach, and are approached by, modern mapping ways and how they differ from traditional "mapping" ways of explaining one's relation to place and space. It is our interest to bridge the gap between modern mapping technologies and traditional "mapping" practices by training indigenous groups in modern mapping ways as well as encouraging traditional "mapping" practices. It has been noted that more land has been taken away from native people by maps than by weapons. So often native lands have been and are manipulated based on an outsider’s view of where those lands "should" be and as a result the land base of an indigenous community is altered. It is our goal to let outsiders know that when it comes to learning where indigenous people’s lands are, they should let those people do the mapping, no matter how rudimentary the mapping is perceived. The IMN will lead the effort in being advocates for indigenous people and the mapping issues that take place on native lands by governments, academics, scholarly societies, and the technological world."

This view is particularly of importance in the land-claim history, since "administrative" reduction of native lands is often a "fait accompli" in distant offices resulting in multiple tribes being forced off their treaty lands and forced to live on others treaty lands; like what happened to the Rainy River First Nations and some Northwest Angle First Nations at the turn of the twentieth century.


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What was I doing on 777?

Howdy Bingoragers.
I just got back from a weekend in Orr, MN. I participated in the "Art in the Park" arts and crafts sale that was part of their centennial celebration. I met some great artists and crafters from the area and enjoyed the local camping.

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Bassy stuff (pics click to enlarge):

Bass and top hat.


I wanted to repaint this papier mache Smallmouth Bass relief (entitled: The One That Got Away), in order to brighten it up.



















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Random news, resources and stuff:

An interesting Northwest Coast styled artist, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, uses colouring pencil and watercolour to achieve a softer look than the "traditional" solid colour and hard line look of NWCoast stuff. Thanks to Pam at the Fort Frances Museum (newly renovated!), for the link.

I've got the Acrylic on papier-mache piece, "The Last Tasty Bit", on display at the museum, in the CRY OF THE LOON show, until September 30.



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Nine Nations: The Longhouse. A good read; part three of a series.

Reddnation. First Nations hiphop.

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Art From Scratch. Visit to Squaxin Island

Squaxin Island homepage.

Squaxin Island Museum

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Anishinabek of the Gitchi Gami Podcasts



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National day of protest unofficial toll funds dispersed.

"Just over $250 was collected last Friday when several protesters from the Mi'Kmaq Warrior Society stopped traffic and demanded a $1 donation to let cars through on Highway 102 near Enfield, said protest organizer James Pictou."

Another pedophile priest; this one specialised in Cree and Ojibway children.

"KENORA, Ont. — After a day long hearing in Superior Court in this northwestern Ontario city, a former Anglican minister was found guilty Friday of sexually abusing boys and sentenced to three years in prison.

Ralph Rowe, 67, of Surrey B.C., was sentenced on counts of sexual abuse and sexual indecency involving three boys from northern Ontario First Nations during the 1970s and 1980s."

NativeFilm.Com

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