Saturday, January 30, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave

In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawn Woman

Thursday, January 28, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave

In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawn Woman

Friday, January 22, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Monday, January 18, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave

In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawn Woman

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave

In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO! 
Dawn Woman

Monday, January 11, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave
In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawn Woman

Friday, January 8, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Winter Vision Quest Cave

Winter Vision Quest Cave
In this season, many inner compasses will begin turning toward seeking, creating and crawling into the blessed peace of the seasonal vision quest cave.

Inside, a deep breast of the resting Mother Earth, is where the Medicine Wheel slowly turns in an earthly circumambulation of all seed dreams, penetrated by fiery shafts of our Father Sky Sun into the mind, heart, body and Spirit of individual inner pools of quiet.

Here, ones bones can and may be deeply CLEANED: healed and loosened from the labors, challenges, cares, aspirations and fulfillments of the previous season, then slowly put back together as an honoring dream dance echo of all the ancestral journeys made before ours and those yet to come. The womb quest awaits. Draw aside a veil of the great mystery, breathe your name, make an offering and ask permission to replicate and renew the journey that all beings have made, do make and will make..from earth to sky ... breath into clay ... so we are made and so we reenact the sacred moves, as we see them.

For, we are the new myth makers. Many dreams and messages have been brought forward, by ourselves and others … accept these offerings, feast upon the tears of bitterness and gratitude from which they were born and prepare to embark upon making the new myths and creation stories … OUR new myths drawn from a place where our sacred beingness meets with and is fused with mysterious elements emanating from an indivisible and indestructible connection with divine consciousness and personal discernment.

This is how we stay alive and keep the world alive. This then, is our Sacred Charge. Where we will feel most alive and know who we are.

Many are the ways of personal, creative ceremony ... Now, it is time to smudge off, pray for the highest good for all concerned and ask that bravery, wisdom, willingness and endurance walk with us.

Know that one may emerge, or come and go, from the cave at any time and trust that commitments and responsibilities in the outside world reside on physical and mental arms of the Medicine Wheel and will not suffer from ‘medicine’ attention directed elsewhere.

When ones visit to the cave is accomplished there will be a natural and unremarkable reunification of elements. The shifts and gifts will be ours for life. Do not speak of these things too soon but hold them close to mature and unfold. Journaling is a creative thing to do as many of the realizations, visitations or visions will be of an ephemeral nature. Do not censor or process the writing, that can be done later.

May we be eternally rich in Spirit, have good minds and strong bodies. May we know no fear and may we have hearts filled with love..now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawn Woman

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk'

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

This beautiful creation of Mother Earth and Father Sky-Sun offers each of us an opportunity to walk, always, in balance and harmony by remembering them as our elemental parents. We remember … we have access to an orderly and supportive life view within the context of the Sun, Moon, seasons, the natural world, and the elementals of wind, earth, fire, water and the directions of the Medicine Wheel … Universally, the traditional view of life is one of a sacred nature. Myriad helpers and companions accompany each person, and these helpers may be recognized through vision, dream, inspiration, or experience. Vision, dream, and inspiration are personal and vital connections to enhanced understanding, experience and attunement with the Spirit World. In this way, we honor ourselves as Sacred Beings and begin, or continue, to participate as co-creators in a living world. And so, we move in wholeness and beauty.

May we have a strong body
May we have a good mind
May we have a heart full of love
And know no fear.
Aho!
-- Minisa Crumbo

Of all the paths and choices and histories, the energetic pathways of the directions and elementals are the most real and vital … I think they are only found by mind-oriented persons who comprehend the true energetic, light components of the Medicine Wheel … fuse, merge, again and again with the strips, rays, fibers, and channels of light … Find places of being that are lighter and broader … just make sure that once the light paths open up, and you know it, that some mental program stores it 24-7, making awareness and experience of the light never far from surface consciousness, making the full experience known, close and available, as soon as possible. Form new habits of association … linking the moments like beads on a string until they can be slipped over the head and worn … Our thoughts are our reality. We must think better, smarter, longer, and deeper about ourselves, our world, and what we really want that to look, feel, and be like. Be it. Do it. Don’t let up.

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: A Conversation (SAAM)

Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (SAAM)


'Hunting the Spirit Buffalo' by Woody Crumbo (1930s)   

Crumbo was born in Lexington, Oklahoma, the son of an Indian mother and a French father. He attended government schools as a child and showed such promise that he received a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita for his last two years of high school. While at the Institute, he became interested in expressing Indian tradition and culture through his art. After three years at the University of Wichita he transferred to the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Oscar B. Jacobson. At the early age of 21, Crumbo was appointed Director of Indian Art at Bacone College, the only institute of higher learning exclusively for Indians. Bacone offered Crumbo the unique opportunity to familiarize himself with his heritage and to instill in him cultural pride. At that time he conducted research into Indian design and revived ancient techniques of silverwork, vegetable dying, and weaving.

Crumbo’s career has been diverse; known also as a musician and Indian ceremonial dancer, Crumbo played the cedar wood flute and danced with Thurlow Lieurance’s symphony in Wichita. He also worked as a designer with the Douglas Corporation, with the Gilcrease Collection in Tulsa, and from 1960 to 1968 as curator of the El Paso Museum of Art.

A Pottawatomie Indian, Crumbo explores in his art the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe as well as those of the Creek, Sioux, and Kiowa nations, and says of his work, ​I have always painted with the desire of developing Indian art so that it may be judged on art standards rather on its value as a curio—I am attempting to record Indian customs and legends now, while they are alive, to make them a part of the great American culture before these, too, become lost, only to be fragmentarily pieced together by fact and supposition.

Crumbo works in oil and egg tempera, as well as in watercolor, sculpture, stained glass, and silkscreen. Under the guidance of Olle Nordmark, he also learned etching. The largest collection of Crumbo’s work, about 175 paintings, is owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, although his work has been exhibited in many museums throughout the United States.

Virginia Mecklenburg The Public as Patron: A History of the Treasury Department Mural Program (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, n.d.)