Jaune Quick to See Smith: I'm Still HERE!

Introduction

0:00Please enjoy this ringback tone while your podcast is reached.

0:11This is Raquel and Chelsea, and you're listening to Baroque Bitches. Welcome to Baroque Bitches, your art and art history gossip podcast.

Host Introduction

0:39I'm Raquel. I'm Chelsea. We have another fun week. We're giving you the lowbrow tea on the highbrow art. Oh, my gosh. We're in November. It's happening. Thanksgiving is soon. It's happening. It's happening. It's literally tomorrow. Oh, no. I'm going to try. I think this will be out tomorrow in celebration of Native American Heritage Month. Yes. Only.

1:09Only. We are going to be getting some wonderful artists, contemporary nations artists on our Patreon. There's a lot. Check that out. I mean, in doing the research for this episode, there's like so many contemporary artists that we just haven't dove into yet. And I feel like we also need to do some potters, like ceramics and pottery.

1:40We need to get into some ceramics. We're going to get to all of it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yes. We're going to get to every single artist on this panel. Don't worry, guys. Every single artist. We're never going to run out of material. Do this for a hundred years. Keep going. Keep going.

Thanksgiving Drama

1:57Keep going.

Thanksgiving Drama

1:57So, are you during the turkey this year? Are you during? So, this is actually, this is some Thanksgiving drama.

2:07It's not that serious, but it's just like kind of funny. So, my stepmom had shoulder surgery recently. So, I offered to do like hosting. My brother and my sister-in-law are coming to town. So, I was like, no problem. You've got one arm. I will take this on. And so, I plan the menu. I ask everybody what they want. They all request different pies. So, I'm making like three different pies and three different. Now, you're making them. Yes. Well, don't tell anybody, but I bought.

2:40You bought the crust. I bought the crust. That's fine. But I bought the kind that you roll out. So, that'll look amazing. None of them listen to this. Who's going to know? So, because I just like, I'm stressing on time. But so, I plan the menu. I involve my dad and my stepmom in like, this is what we're going to do. What do you want? Blah, blah, blah. And yesterday, they were like, oh, we're going to smoke a turkey. And I'm like, wait, there's six of us.

3:13There's six adults and two kids. So, I'm making a whole turkey and then you are smoking a whole turkey. Like, it's crazy. And I'm like, okay. Okay. Like, no problem. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. But then, my stepmom was like, oh, and I'm making a pumpkin cheesecake. And I'm like, wait, but I already told you I'm making pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and banoffee pie. So, we have four desserts. We have four desserts. Like, this is insane. This is going to be.

3:43So, it's just, I guess the theme is going to be gluttony this year. We're like, absolutely out of control of how much food we're going to have. And, like, you know what? I was like, I could get all, like, weird about this and offended or annoyed. But I'm just going to roll with it. Like, sure. Choose your battles. Bring a whole other turkey. You guys need to come up this holiday, these holidays, choosing your battles. Yeah, choosing your battles. But I just thought it was so funny. So, we're going to have just, like, an obnoxious amount of food.

4:16Because they didn't even tell me until after I'd already bought everything. So, I'm going to, you know, go forth and conquer. Totally. I mean, I don't think that. I think the problem would be not enough pie. But your problem will be too much pie. Too much pie. So, you'll have a ton of leftovers. Good. Maybe we'll take it to our neighbors or something. I don't know. Take it to a shelter or something.

Adopt a Family

4:40Like that.

Adopt a Family

4:40So, I think we're going to do, not for Thanksgiving, but for next month, we're going to do adoptive family. And I'm excited about that this year. What is that? It's like where you adopt a family and you, like, they give you a Christmas wish list or a holiday wish list. And you, like, get everything on their list. Yes. And you can donate. We used to do it with, like, Girl Scouts growing up. But we're just going to do it. You know, anybody can do it. So, I'll see if I can find the link. I'll put it in the Instagram. That sounds so good.

5:11I just want to adopt a fan. That sounds so good. Instead of buying a shit ton of fucking shit down from Amazon you don't need. We don't need it. Maybe going for charity this year would be good. No more debt. No more debt. You got this, you guys. Dude, you guys. Christmas is coming up. Hanukkah is coming up. The holidays. It's here. And we're not going to stress out. We might even cancel it. That's fine, too. Yeah. So, don't freak out.

5:42Don't freak out. You got this. You got this. You got this. Bye.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

5:48So, I'm really excited for this one today. Should we do it? Let's go. Let's visualize.

6:03I am the land. Yes, that land. The one that they keep trying to trademark as if creation itself needs a fucking copyright. I am the land your eyes have never truly seen. I am widest breath, older than memory, carrying horizons in my ribs and rivers in my veins. I am the quiet cathedral of plains and mountains, stone and wind, fire and rainfall. Every hill is a heartbeat. Every canyon is a story. Every grain of earth holds the echo of ancestors whose footsteps still hum beneath the surface.

6:37They have been here longer than their flags, fences, and fragile egos. I am thunder wearing a horizon for a spine. I am older than their gods and more honest than their history books. I was born for this life and I belong to it completely. Then they came. Oh, they came like hyperactive raccoons with mining permits, digging, drilling, and clawing, convinced the earth was some kind of pinata that would rain gold if they hit it hard enough. They stripped the hills, carved the plains, and acted shocked, shocked when the land bled.

7:12And the final insult? They took the people who belonged to me, the ones who carry my memory and flattened their image into a goddamn keychain, a mascot, a logo, a foam finger with fucking feathers, as if 500 nations of living, breathing cultures could be boiled down to a cartoon swinging a tomahawk at halftime, the audacity, the bargain bin mythology, the creative bankruptcy of a society that looks at millennia of survival and says, yeah, slap that on a water bottle for $8.99.

7:46They believed they could shrink me. They believed they could shrink us. They thought if they bulldozed enough, drilled enough, rebranded enough, the land would forget. The people would fade. The story would end. All land has a memory, but mine has teeth. My stories run deeper than their pipelines, wider than their property lines, louder than their stadiums. They can scratch at my surface, but they cannot touch the wildfire beneath it. I am not scenery. I am not resource. I am not their marketing concept in a faux fucking buckskin font.

8:20I am a force, feral, ancient, and bending. I rise in spite of them. I am eternal. I am the land that will outlast every empire they can imagine. I am the world they tried to overwrite. And I am still here. So, welcome to Jaune's Quick to See Smith.

Artist Biography

8:58I am still here. Good one. Oh, my God. Rip R.I.P. to this amazing lady. She literally died at the beginning of 2025. Kicking off what has been one of the most challenging years we have ever known in the history of our time. I mean, I'm watching Mad Men, so it does appear that times used to be much worse. But 2025 is a rough year for losing cool ladies.

9:28Diane Keaton just died. Devastating. Oh, yes. Yeah. 2025. We're in the final stretch. Quit taking the people we love. Yes. Yeah. Okay, but this bitch was super important and amazing and iconic. And I'm so happy to get to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, which is this D-I-V-A. Let's kick this shit off. Let's get into it. Yes.

9:59Who are you? Who's this bitch? A-S-L-H. Sex. Location. H. Location.

Early Life and Context

10:09Okay, okay, okay. So we're going in 1940, and we're going to the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. But before we get into, you know, the early life, the childhood, the rents, let's get into the context of this fucking place because it's important for the story. Yes. Where are we? what are you doing here what happened who hurt you white people colonizers so the flathead indian reservation was home to the confederated salish and

10:46cutanay tribes sorry i'm trying i'm butchering that and i mean montana it's fucking gorgina 3000 like the most beautiful place i mean have you seen a river runs through it oh my god no my dad got back from montana he loved montana but there wasn't a he said he's like it's beautiful not a lot of restaurants remote it's very little to do but that's like what you want out of nature

11:18right you want it to be like untapped you don't want it to have like a taco bell logo on it you want yeah you want to be off the grid that's what you go to montana for totally but for what montana has in beauty it has equally if not greater than fucking sadness rooted everywhere so yeah the native tribes were fate like here face centuries of forced treaties land seizures and assimilation policies imposed by the u.s government in 1855 the hellgate treaty carved up

11:52ancestral lands setting aside the reservation as like a tiny remnant it's literally called the hellgate the hellgate treaty so i mean yeah you know but for centuries we're like building up to this moment of pushing these people out of their land and this treaty is the one that like carved the shit out of it and just was like here you can have here you go little here you go you know here's this sliver of the thousands of my you mean what do you mean you used to have 900 000 acres okay we'll

12:29give you you know a hundred and space yeah i mean basically the history we already know like when you first meet a toxic toxic boyfriend and everything sounds too good to be true and then they slowly get annoyed with you hanging out with your friends and then they hate when you go to your mom for advice and inch by inch they take away your entire life until all that's left is a remnant of what was before oh i mean okay that's like i might be getting a little personal with that analogy uh but we love a trauma bond here are all the same here right

13:04you guys can relate i mean that's like that times eight eight million thousand eight million thousand a real number obviously so anyway you know the shitty ass colonizers come in and they're like you can have this little piece of land but they also they didn't stop there they also slowly picked away at the local cultures banning them and forcing assimilation so by the time quick to see smith was born in 1940 uh the community was still grappling with generational trauma from boarding schools

13:38restricted hunting and fishing rights and systemic pressures to abandon language art and ceremony yeah but but and this is important the reservation was also a hub of resilience cultural preservation creativities families were like now we're not giving up that you're tripping you're tripping oh you don't even know you don't even go here okay yeah i'm not gonna speak the language right and then they go home and they speak it you know

14:11amongst their families sure and in secret i mean all of this would have had to be in secret so it's like a hush hush tradition of storytelling doing beadwork weaving and painting they these weren't just art this wasn't just art it's acts of resistance a way for saying fuck you to the man by finding ways of keeping identity alive when the world try to flatten it and this is like the driving theme of our story so yes mom mom mom mom

14:45so mom is hazel wickson and we're complicated with mom we're conflicted so records indicate that mom was only 14 by the time she had two children so that means like we're looking at probably 12 for that initial pregnancy which is just like oh honey no no mom hazel no what the fuck we don't love

15:19that for mom no um and so now traumatized okay traumatized so we're conflicted on mom because mom when june is two years old decides not for me leaves okay okay leaves the kids to be with dad to be raised by dad which like okay i hate dad but like ew all right okay so we're all which brings us to also being conflicted about dad because it's like

15:49come on man okay so dad is arthur albert smith oh daddy is a member of the confederated salish and kuntanay tribes of the flathead nation okay daddy is the fucking patriarch and matriarch combined because of you know hazel leaving yeah and yeah still not feeling great about dad either for that reason he didn't so but june is born january 15th so june means yellow in french because mom

16:24is of french creed descent um you know through all this like intermingling of cultures that happens between that that treaty and up to you know present time when we're at their birth um so june is so she is she's born into a situation yeah she's okay this is toxic this is also toxic not great situation yeah shit yeah no not not the best uh situation we're walking into uh but she is you know born

17:03january 15th 1940 making her a spicy capricorn happy and she is such a capricorn oh god okay she's judging us she's judging us we're not where we should be we're not where we get it we get it we get it we get it capricorns are super judgmental but and they're born with this cosmic mandate to outwork outlast and out stubborn absolutely everyone with a to-do list and a huge

17:37amount of judgment of inefficient people so where other sides chase vibes capricorns chase impact legacy and satisfaction of proving the world wrong with receipts so just like a little taste of where we're gonna what we're gonna see tea too yeah no totally june and her sister ended up being raised by their dad and he was a horse trader and as you can imagine in order to trade horses you need to travel around to like go you know sell your horses so the girl spent childhood ricocheting across

18:13the northwest in california with him uh and because times were rough they were expected to also pitch in so they would work doing migrant farm work or cannery jobs no frills no stability again not loving this for her yeah damn but then they do have a home base at the saint ignatius mission in montana okay so let's get into saint ignatius so this is not montana live laugh landscape this is growing up growing up around saint ignatius in the 40s men june was surrounded by a world that was

Growing Up on the Reservation

18:51beautiful but also fucking brutal and i don't want to give the impression that the reservation was some sort of like tragic backdrop it was alive it would have been noisy with cousins horses church bells you know kids running around everywhere grandma's running the universe and the land like as a beautiful backdrop but it was also filled with contradictions that june observed and became acutely aware of at a young age because it was also filled with the chaos of people constantly adapting to systems that were not built for them so i'm sure you can guess what that system was driven by

19:26religion yeah the big one the big g upstairs at least the mask of religion right yeah saint ignatius had the mission and it's just like picturing a big tall intimidating colonial structure plopped right in the middle of this like beautiful landscape like what are you doing yes christians are supposed to be humble so she's been she's seeing this like on one side there's catholic murals staring down at

19:59you with european cheekbones and on the other side there's like all of her family the living world the stories the language and the resistant heartbeat of her people so the dissonance is not subtle for her and it was very formative so even with even though this ugly ass out of place church like is plopped in the middle and trying to rule everything around it that she's still learning lessons of cultural identity the mountains taught you that some things don't bow the creeks taught you to live that listening's a skill

20:33animals taught you to observe before speaking and the community taught you resilience humor and how to keep going even when the world tries to shrink you into a fucking mascot oh my gosh so much more valuable than the bible oh my god like appreciating the land like yeah no that's good life lessons i like that the other stuff i'm not really so little june is a sharp-eyed capricorn she's absorbing all this like a sponge so much to the point

21:08where grandma names her quick to see because it is evident from her early on years that she fucking gets what is happening here she understands how fucked up this is yeah you're not gonna ask no capricorn to follow whatever they fuck they don't want to follow no you're tripping you're tripping okay i'll do it but like i know what's going on here i know it's wrong i love it i mean it wasn't easy not by a stretch and we have to remember that missing her mother created a lack

21:42of self-understanding that she's also trying to fill but the land and the community filled in some of that space with their own grounding presence think landscape as a parent elders as a compass humorous survival and art as a weapon oh fuck yeah yes i seen ignatius by saint ignatius do the name anyway yeah i feel like she's like at this point storing all of this for later and she's like oh i will

22:15absolutely be using this later bitches noted just noted noted noted that's like their slogan yeah and then writing in a notepad like literally i will be writing this down you know those videos of like tutorial videos where the person does is only looking at the camera but they're like mixing a bowl or something i feel like capricorns writing notes and glaring yeah yeah totally judging you i'm gonna analyze this later

22:45yes so it becomes very evident even as a kid that june had a secret weapon art and while money

Art Education and Career

22:56and stability and toys were always in permanent shortage paints and paper somehow always slipped in like contraband magic around the age eight she first dipped into tempera paints and later describes it as explosions going off in my head and body she's like instantly like oh okay that's what i'm supposed to do this is for me um and uh sorry so let's talk about this so the art world

23:30though let's talk about what she's running into because it's not like it's exactly waiting for her in open with open arms this was the late 20th century a landscape dominated by white male east coast gatekeepers where native art quote-unquote was often confined to gift shops ethnographic exhibitions or pigeonholed as quote-unquote craft rather than serious contemporary practice or like a straight-up history which is not accurate no it's not history if i'm doing it right now it's not yeah exactly yeah

24:06yeah and then on top of that you layer in being a woman yeah so forget it like june's tribe gender and geographic isolation made it like a very very difficult feat in front of her and teachers tried to clip that spark baby like native people don't go to college women aren't artists and june would just smile you know that like toothy smile when you're pissed off as you and you want to say something in between your teeth like just huck and watch me bitch yeah or i will won't be sad if you got

24:43hit by a bus right now that one that one i do for um like bad customer service situations i i will imagine just a bus like like in mean girls where it's just like whoa so you don't see any of the actual trauma but there's a theatrical like symbolic right now symbolic bus yeah yeah that's always a good one of as soon as you leave here you're gonna

25:15i definitely think that's like what's going on in her head all the all the interviews that she has are very like comedic but like sharp witty and like fuck you as an overall overarching theme it just feels like she's quick she's funny she's like the grandma wearing the you know don't fucking talk to me t-shirt at thanksgiving i love her um yeah and she brings that energy into the next stages of her life so

25:45june lands at olympic college in bremerton washington in 1958 and she's like already overqualified for a normal college experience i feel like you know she um but she does attend and gets her um what do you call it under not undergrad associate degree in art okay um and then by 1960 that she the next stop is university of washington in seattle so she takes more classes learning

26:18contemporary techniques soaking in the art theory and constantly sharpening her toolbox except you gotta fucking pay your rent so yeah she's not the type of lady to just go to a sugar daddy or have a trust fund readily available right she's waiting tables she's hustling she's teaching at head start which means a lot to me because my i've you know my children have been part of a head start program uh she labors in factories she cleans houses she works as a librarian a janitor a vet assistant a

26:52secretary oh my god uh basically like settle down you're making us all look bad i feel like this actually is like you having four jobs in one year she's a barista now she's a nurse that's more of my that's more of my commitment renaissance lady no no we're rebranding we're rebranding actually i have a whole new identity

27:22now i i don't know if you know i reject that it's rooted in indecision i i accept that it's rooted in uh always being curious remain curiosity to try something new and learn new skills yeah that's what you're doing bored at one place yeah no that's true pay me more i won't leave okay so fast forward in 1976 and she finally gets her her ba in art education at framington state college

27:57in massachusetts but she's not done here she's like a lifelong learner so she then goes to albuquerque new mexico drawn by the university of new mexico's native american studies program hell yeah dude but here's the fucking thing she gets turned down three times new mexico ew you're totally in her vibe what the fuck like come on she's like a perfect fit but nah they're not gonna do it um so but that doesn't

28:33stop her she keeps taking classes and making art anyway and persistence my friend it becomes a strategy she doesn't wait for permission she earns attention the way she always earned everything by refusing to disappear so then boom cornblee gallery in new york city picks up her work and art in america reviews it and suddenly the world's paying attention so the university of mexico then takes notice and they're like oh i'm sorry can you we okay we'll take you oh my god no

29:05way no way no way oh my god you guys are so shitty but you know what it's like going out for your for grad school it's brutal times so she finally gets accepted and by 1980 she graduates with the master with her masters so it's like over 20 years of time of yeah that's a lot yeah pursuing pursuing education but yeah but i love that i mean i'd love

29:39i love i love a growth mentality not to sound all corporate business circle back so the formal education she receives introduce her to the classics of course a european and american traditions theory history but she's not just a student she's a synthesizer she's building bridges between what the art world says is legitimate and what she knows is alive she's taking abstract expressionism collage lithography mixed media and layering it with

30:13ancestral memory reservation landscapes and political fire so she's crafting art that's she's trying to break away from that concept that native american art is just craft and decorative and trying to narrate you know more of a message of a conceptual message of survival presence like persistence all of these things so she says my art my life experience and my tribal ties are totally enmeshed i go from one community

30:47with messages to the other and i try to enlighten people so that's like her mission statement she's not just trying to make art like she's trying to educate others on like you might not have thought of it this way well i mean let me explain it to you it makes sense too because she has this background in art education so it's like i mean and you did everything to get that degree everything in the world to get that and yeah your art is also going to be educational if that's something that

31:20if that's something that's kind of in you to be a to be a teacher well she and she's part of our you know current understanding today of like what this story is right and and looking at uh history from a different perspective rather than like raw raw yay america yay colonization she's like wait a minute wait yeah wait a second this was a this was a weird time too because she's going through started starting off in the 40s getting into the 50s this is the big man rothko fucking pollock

31:59pollock era cocooning of these like european dudes coming here and doing stuff in new york and she's like well there's a whole other american experience that you guys are totally missing yeah or either you're missing or you are uninformed when you do see or um you're uninformed right and you're not taking it seriously and she's like you're gonna take me seriously because i'm gonna figure it out i'm

32:30gonna figure out how to get to you and that's exactly what she's playing the game fucking everywhere yeah she's working in the shadows and then like slam dunking them in the fucking gallery bitch oh just wait we're about to get into the art okay yeah we haven't even looked at her shit i know i know

Artistic Style and Themes

32:51we're going to we're going to i promise i promise i promise so her early pieces were often tempera and watercolors on paper and we don't like have any of these so you're just gonna have to trust me on this because that's all i can do um but they're like landscapes and exploring cultural memory and one reoccurring theme is the tipi a symbol of continuity and presence even if no single early painting title is document critics noted that we have this from the critics that her early works

33:22reflected a tension between beauty and urgency calm and chaos it's like you know that's kind of the dichotomy of her growing up in montana and this pretty exactly quiet spot but also all of the inner turmoil that her and her family and her people have to deal with yeah yeah yeah yeah she's like oh my god a plus yeah no exactly they weren't doing it you're doing it you're doing the thing um but at that in her early stages it was often dismissed as folk art or primitive by some

33:58critics uh labels she shrugged off quietly and powerlessly like took with her to redefine yeah i thought you were gonna say that so i was prepared for that i knew you were gonna say that so it's when she gets to college and you know she's getting this art education that her work becomes increasingly layered with politics humor and mythology so she's addressing land dispossession

34:30broken treaties cultural appropriation blending abstract expressionism collage and narrative imagery so her brush becomes like that tool of observation and critique and strategy so everything that's going on in her brain is figuring out how to wait make its way out of her and onto a canvas so one of the key themes involved in mythological tricksters is the coyote a figure from salish storytelling so while no painting titled while no painting was documented we do know of a painting

35:08called coyote's ledger and numerous works reference the coyote as a symbol of resilience cunning and survival so like this is the sneaky bitch like hey this is us in the shadows like we're working in the shadow keeping our culture alive yeah and these trickster moves through fractured landscapes interacting with humans animals and objects embody both playfulness and protest so she you'll and you'll see the colors that she uses are like red ochre often evoking the land's wounds like a blood

35:40you know that like saturated blood bloody color yeah and then that you know other yellow ochres and things like that well that's the fun thing too is that like red ochre yellow ochre umber all of these like kind of neutral colors come from the ground yeah that comes from literal dirt yeah no then the symbolism is not lost on me yeah that makes sense of like no no no no no no no this is my dirt absolutely that's not your dirt this is my dirt my dirt my family's dirt okay okay okay so this is a

36:15big one this is a big one so look up icy red indian map 1992 so by the early 90s her work had matured into large-scale multi-layered collages that blended personal political and historical narratives so this is like the most the famous one and it's two panels roughly five by eight feet canvas there's paint newspaper clippings fragments of maps and fabric and at first glance the piece appears to be pretty

36:49chaotic there's like a lot of reds yellows blacks erupting across the surface and this is so deliberate it's a map not of geography but of history and memory and resistance so she dismantles the colonial grid layering newspapers and pop culture imagery and marks borders with x's and arrows creating a visual argument this land has stories and indigenous people are here to tell them so yeah i mean i think this too

37:23is we're figuring out what what is land to you it does land something you own and you put lines on or is it not at all what you're supposed to do to that right we're supposed to always we're always moving and transforming with the land so this is why you guys have made the fucking dust bowl because you're not good at this land management shit i mean we just we talked about it when we talked

37:54about ansel adams and the history of yosemite of like yeah we were preventing the fires and then as soon as you guys came in you guys don't know shit about land management now we have to reteach you about the shit the fucking land you just took from us bitches well absolutely and this brings up this brings up almost the land as like its own character of like being its own thing as a witness to everything that's being done to it um like everything being alive and having a memory and a

38:29history so i look at the layers yeah yeah being like you're layering on top of this thing that's like not yours it's just there and it's witnessing you do all this shit to it yeah you guys didn't find this pristine place that's untouched like we've been here yeah and doing this shit for a really long time before you guys got here and started making borders and stuff yeah absolutely destroying it and making a fucking mess out of it absolutely it already had all of this story and layers and

39:04different peoples coming through and moving around on it before you started putting up fucking states in this bitch yeah and and just deciding what the history and what the messaging is and trying to re-message these awful things into like a rebranding moment like in mad men they say if you don't like what it's being said change the conversation okay sorry i'm going to stop but it's like that's what they're doing right they don't want mad men mad men needs to fucking sponsor us i don't know who

39:39they're on but like whatever production company needs to sponsor us i need to stop we're almost done with watching it guys so i'm sorry we'll get on a new in the near future and then you'll have to hear about like love is blind or something um but yeah so critics like fucking get it um art in america god it's another moment it's another moment where they're getting it they're getting it so critics recognized its impact art in america described it

40:11as violent beautiful critique that forces the viewer to confront history memory and the ongoing presence of native peoples we're here bitch we're not going anywhere yes yes yes uh another reviewer noted indian map confronts the fallacy of neutrality you cannot look at these lines without acknowledging the lives they erased and the cultures they tried to simplify so smith herself says maps can tell stories they are not innocent they are a language of power and i am speaking back like you drew this

40:48map it doesn't mean anything to us yeah yes and now we have to deal with this map and all these borders that you put up even though they're not really real i'm getting pissed for you quick to see yes well so but this painting it marks like a turning point in her career so this is like the moment where she's like figured out the kind of abstract expressionist aesthetic and how to assemble the

41:21imagery and messaging into it in a way that viewers can you know have a conversation about and understand and not write it off so this is her like bitch look at me mic drop totally yeah i get your fucking painterly shit i know how to splatter paint on a painting i could do that shit too and say a more political message and this is but this is by now the 90s and i feel like it's updating

Notable Works and Legacy

41:52we're updating right yes so then let's look at another fucking mic dropper target in 1991 so at first glance it's a dartboard a classic game of throw step and hope you hit something okay cute right except this is june so cute is code for the entire history of conquest and cultural appropriation you ignored in school now in technicolor bitch yeah the dartboard isn't just

42:26hanging on a wall for giggles it's a middle finger aimed at centuries of colonism colonialism government oversight and a casual way society treats indigenous people like practice targets so wow and then it sits on top of this painting right that has all of her signature moves her visual language at this point torn newspaper clippings you could interpret that as like you know the news is

42:57not to be trusted uh check pop culture mascots lurking like cockroaches are on there check abstract brushstrokes that somehow feel like montana e yeah yeah yeah yeah it's got the neutrals we've got the neutrals of it's it's giving it's giving we're taking this paint from the earth oh i have like so much to say but i'm like i'm trying to figure out yeah this is i mean we're going to where she's clearly like

43:33we've got this kind of um raushenberg-y like jasper johnsy situation like she's like i learned about these guys like i know so i know how to combine jasper jaws and raushenberg and create so much of a funner story uh create so much more of a statement of okay these guys really weren't sure what they were talking about i'm definitely sure of what i want to portray with some of these like abstraction tropes

44:08that she's using and like playing with it so you've got the you've got the darts the dart board on top of these like it looks like a diptych i think these two paintings yeah it's two of its it's like it looks like a figure and then the dart board has the darts like around as kind of like a war bonnet or something like that like like a headdress and damn yeah i mean and there's there's and there's all kinds

44:41of like like the layering of the newspapers also has like comic strips from the new york times of these images that america tried to create of native americans as being like dumb or you know the butt of the joke you know the redskins washington logo how many times have you heard like white upset over having to rename their sports teams and it's like yeah but but like redskins like really that that is

45:11so fucking mean you guys like you guys don't know how racist that sounds just because if you're and i have no sympathy for sports so i don't give a fuck about your stupid pride and your dumb team that you just live there you just live there i never understand i don't understand it so maybe maybe if we have i'm preaching to the choir right now but maybe we have listeners that understand that of i'm not going to root for somebody just because i live there i'm not going to root for the dodgers

45:44because their stadium is next to me like i don't care i don't care at all about that and if you are tripping so hard about your your team changing their name because an entire group of people think that it is insensitive then you are fucking tripping yeah you are so stupid get out of your head it's i mean it's literally like it's been a racial slur to for for as long like why would you

46:17want to keep upholding that no because they're racist because they're racist because they're racist that is that is the end of the day anybody that says i don't want to change my sport team because i like my sports well and and i feel like you're racist you're racist but i mean and but i feel like those people like naming the sports teams these you know derogatory things was intentional to erase a culture and and give people who didn't understand the horrible history behind these

46:53racial slurs like ammunition to rethink about instead of thinking about like oh we've totally overtaken and like tried to decimate tribes and cultures and and rich history and and let's rebrand it into this other thing so you don't think about that right i didn't even think of this but like and i'm like i'm sure so many of our like nation's listeners are like yeah that's part of it yeah my whiteness i haven't thought about it because of my privilege but like i i i'm thinking

47:27too of like when you see sports teams like trojans or like fucking celtics or some shit like that like you're also talking about the past yeah of like so you know okay first of all you're you're calling us a slur second of all you're putting us in line with other sports teams that are talking about these great warriors from the past yeah of like well that's not we're not in the past we're here that's

48:00not accurate yeah of like oh oh she's i like her so much i know she i like her so much i love her very impacted by this work right now i love her so i mean humor is where she really flexes she embeds these tiny absurdities into the collage a character caricature of a politician who thought all is well quote unquote while lands were literally disappearing or a foam feathered mascot staring blankly like it just

48:34realized there's zero cultural competence it's funny enough to make you like laugh a little bit but then it also is like well fuck this look ow this is horrible yeah we fucked up yeah absolutely yeah critics totally get it oh my god 91 91 we have we do have to we're we're getting into it in the 90s at least i hope a little bit yeah i know we're getting we're progressing we're getting there so one reviewer

49:07writes target is deceptively playful but each dart hits like a history lesson you didn't know you signed up for um another critic says force forces viewers to reckon with how we treat cultures as a game a board game all while laughing nervously at our own complicity i agree yeah agree agree these critics i'm agreeing with the critics yes this is revolutionary up here i'm agreeing with them so and so and she says

49:38humor is my scalpel it draws you in and then i cut i love that okay yeah i'm just picturing her with like an exacto knife like yeah okay um but yeah it's not just wit it's straight up artistry she turns the polite expectations of the art world into confetti and then tosses it back in their faces so nice fucking love it yes yes yes yes yes and now the galleries that once labeled her folk quote unquote suddenly had to invent a new category visionaries hilarious will make you feel guilty for

50:13your ancestors so this is not just a painting this is like again promote like that conversation starter for we gotta take this bitch seriously yeah after decades of smashing expectations bending media and turning every gallery visit into a subtle lesson in history she didn't retire she like leveled up so in the 2000 and 2010s collage become remains her weapon of choice but she continues to weave sly

50:43references to pop culture politics and ongoing colonial absurdities um and then she sorry sorry and she also becomes like a bridge and i really view her as this between generations because now we're like way far removed from the 40s tech technology wise history wise like things are just it's a completely different generational landscape of culture and i feel like she becomes

51:18this influence for younger generations to model themselves afterward after of like yeah we are still here and she validates their existence and their experience um like and so she doesn't just sell art she also makes space for others she curates more than throughout her life more than 30 exhibitions showcasing indigenous artists um and curating one of her final curatorial projects was indigenous identities here

51:51now and always at the zimmerly art museum rutgers university and that actually opened this year like literally a week after she died oh my god she was curating up until the end she was like an advocate and just like helping to um continue the conversation and make sure making sure she's positioning other artists in a way that like keeps the perpetuates what perpetuates what she's wanting to do this isn't just about art it's about creating

52:24space for indigenous peoples for generations to come and she pours decades of energy into making sure native art couldn't be pigeonholed as craft and instead she like so you know makes these spaces so it can be taken seriously um so this year on january 24th at 85 in her home of the day corrales new mexico after a battle with pancreatic cancer she and according to her obit she was in her studio making work up until she died pretty much hell yeah

53:01yeah capricorn i will yeah i will keep going yeah she didn't just break into the art world she tore down the doors rearranged the furniture wrote reserved for native artists over the welcome mat and then invited everyone in to sit down and listen hell yeah i love her it's so good person at the party who is she okay so uh i this is i mean this from like an art

53:33perspective so i feel like she'd basically be like jordan peele um okay he all takes comedy horror didn't they go to art school i think both of them like got mfas or something like that i'm sure art school they have because he's so conceptual like all his movies are so conceptual good one and he takes like comedy and horror and pop culture yeah and like shakes them up and serves them as this like no nonsense commentary on race history and power and she so

54:06they're doing the same sort of thing with their art um it's just he's doing it with film and she's doing it with like tempura pain right and yeah she made people laugh and squirm and think hard about uncomfortable truths and every time i watch a jordan peele film i leave just feeling so icky yeah and i mean that's the best way possible good one good guy at the party i mean like i remember he i've seen a couple of his movies and they're i love all of them they're hard to watch

54:39and they're so weird yeah they're so like funny and get out like destroyed me i was like what is going on like i was good i think too um that he i'm i appreciate him putting people of color specifically black people in horror movies yeah and making them the protagonist of like why why don't black people have a space in horror of like he's he's making space for like hello we can

55:10be scary too like we can be scared of a guy coming into the house like yeah like our history is terrifying yeah and it's still present and this is the show was like iconic so funny if you haven't seen like early i don't think it's early maybe early 2010s of key and peel episodes yes god when he plays the girl i still say some of those things oh my god that's my i feel like his girl is my voice

55:45i'm like did you get my jacket and then the guy the guy the other one plays the guy of like what what is she got just call just call just call make it make it your jacket your jacket get away get away i'm fine i'm fine

56:15yeah his girl is my voice oh my god so good i completely forgot about that show oh my god dude yeah i'm gonna go like re-watch some of those because those are so fucking funny oh my god good one oh my gosh yes dude native american heritage month is popping off right now i am so stoked i had to okay so a little tea on patreon later on we're gonna get into some more

56:51indigent contemporary indigenous artists i was just gonna do a little like let's do a little episode featuring a couple no i can't it's gonna have to be a series there's like it's totally gonna have to be a series yeah absolutely there was a couple of contemporary indigenous artists that i that i knew of that i'm like i want to talk about i want to talk about you know wendy red star and like stuff like that and i'm like wait there's so much that i don't even know shit yeah we're gonna have so much i don't know this is going to you're going to watch us continue to learn and understand

57:26to get into together some of these nations artists are so badass like the i love the pettiness i love the revenge core revenge core yeah i love the anger of like i'm literally feeding off of it and i'm like listen we're gonna do so we're calling it inspiration nations and inspiration nations series is gonna be on patreon so get into it i'm gonna try to i'm gonna try to put up this one

57:57hopefully hopefully within american native american heritage month but it might be in december which is so we need to also remember in december too it's yeah we can carry it on uh the video so if you guys are patrons who watch the videos which by the way thank you patrons we love you so much thanks for joining um we've had so much fun we're getting into dante we got a guest speaker for our last dante episode it really helps us keep going when you guys yes thank you join the patreon

58:32comment like subscribe like five star reviews only i'm don't want any one star reviews i don't want any bullshit but if you can't do any of totally chill fine fine fine it's okay it's okay it's okay yes we'll be right back we'll be right back bye

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