By Wil Phinney
Thelissa Red Hawk's "Celebration Down by the River," one of several works of art on display at Tamastslikt Cultural Institute on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, represents her lifelong journey across the changing landscape of Eastern Oregon.
Red Hawk's 2003 acrylic on paper is among paintings, sculptures and traditional objects in an exhibit titled "Reflecting on Lewis and Clark: Contemporary American Indian Viewpoints" that runs through April 28 at Tamastslikt.
Curated by Pat Courtney-Gold of the Wasco Nation of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, the exhibition includes work of Red Hawk (Cayuse-Walla Walla) and 11 others - Maynard White Owl Lavadour (Cayuse-Nez Perce), Miles Miller (Yakama-Nez Perce), Apolonia Susana Santos (Tygh-Yakama), B.K. Courtney (Wasco-Tlingit), Vivian Adams (Yakama), Chuck Williams (Cascade-Grand Ronde), Tonya A. Johnson (Chinook), Tony Johnson (Chinook), Lillian Pitt (Wasco-Yakama), Elizabeth Woody (Yakama-Warm Springs-Navajo) and Joe Feddersen (Colville).
For Red Hawk, "Celebration Down by the River" at once reflects on the past and looks to the future. She uses linear patterns - cottonwoods to frame a rising moon that casts a solarizing halo around "healthy" salmon swimming upriver and six Indians that represent members of her family.
In each of the exhibits pieces, the artists contemplate the 1803-06 Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery, now being commemorated during its bicentennial.
But for Red Hawk, her painting may best represent a person expedition.
"Before Lewis and Clark came here, Indians had rivers and mountains as boundaries but now, whenever I travel, I see sacred landscapes disappearing," she said, noting the loss of Celilo Falls when the John Day Dam was built on the Columbia River.
"I wanted to show that salmon are at the heart of our people and when the falls disappeared it changed our way of life."
Red Hawk said she prefers painting what she calls "sacred landscapes" that usually include "our people."
In "Celebration Down by the River," six people - two women and four men - stand at the forefront of the piece. Four of the people are facing away, one faces the viewer and another looks to the west.
"That person facing the viewer, I tried and tried to make that person not face the viewer but it just kept ending up that way and I realized that he was the beginning of a friendship circle dance and I let that happen," Red Hawk explained.
The women are wearing her grandmother's dresses - one decorated with dentalium and the other with elk teeth.
All the people wear dark clothing but are highlighted by an aura of red and white. Red Hawk said she chose black and cobalt blue as a positive statement in contrast to current standards in which "black today is associated with something negative."
The contemporary art contemplate the 1903-06 Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, now being commemorated during its bicentennial. Many of the artists belong to tribes met by the Expedition's members 200 years ago.
"Reflecting on Lewis and Clark: Contemporary American Indian Viewpoints" was originally presented at the Maryhill Museum of Art near Goldendale, Wash.
"This exhibit is special in a number of ways," said Courtney Gold. "Maryhill Museum is located in the middle of the Columbia River Nations and my ancestral home. These nations were here for more than 10,000 years when Lewis and Clark first met them in 1805-06 ... During the Lewis and Clark commemoration period, this exhibit provides an opportunity for these 13 Columbia River artists to express their viewpoints on Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. This exhibit honors all the Columbia River people."
Courtney Gold, a fiber artist whose work is in the exhibit, was invited by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian to help curate an exhibition of basketry in the fall of 2003. Her work can be found in many museums in the United States and Canada.
Tamastslikt is located at Wildhorse Resort & Casino, just off Interstate 84 at Exit 216, about four miles east of Pendleton, Oregon. The museum is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition to exhibits, Tamastslkit includes a museum store and Kinship Café.
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