Older available work:
Totem Teddies - 1989 - 1999, mixed media, varied dimensions
Totem Teddies was my first exploration with mixed media assemblage as an undergraduate student at Cal State Long Beach. When I first created The Totem Teddies, my goal was to reclaim the dignity and power of the bear, a common totem symbol for numerous indigenous peoples. I felt that Western consumer culture had castrated the power of the bear (as well as other spiritual/natural symbols), transforming it into a cute cuddly and harmless commodity. I chose to present the teddies as spiritual products that, once purchased by the consumer, demanded constant appeasement and attention in order to ward off bad luck. If the consumer unwittingly offends their teddy, a handy spinning oracle (sold separately) can be consulted for suggestions on how to re-harmonize oneself with their offended teddy. Each teddy also comes with an instruction manual containing suggested ritual dance steps and chants. Sadly, only these eight bears exist. A ninth was stolen in 1997. The remaining bears still long for their lost comrade.
Sucre-ment - 2005/7, 2 channel video installation with sugar, variable dimensions.
Sucre-ment is a video/audio installation. In front of the projection is a pedestal with a mound of white sugar positioned at the center of the room. A video loop of swarming red ants is projected onto the sugar mound.
Video for Sucre-ment
Ants projection
Sucre-ment was filmed on my family's land in Northern New Mexico. I had carried the idea around with me for a couple of years, but it took on a greater urgency following my mother's death in 2005. It is a ritual of desperation, doomed to fail, yet an effort at combining some sense of traditional Native ideas with contemporary concerns. The video shows me pouring sugar in human form around a red anthill as both an offering and sacrament. The piece is informed by the high diabetes rate among Native Americans. Sucre-ment is not intended as some “new age” feel-good ritual. Instead, it is a way of conveying a sense of desperation that exists, not only amongst many Indigenous Americans, but within the larger non-native population as well. Much of my work is concerned with how globalization and capitalism might influence the development of new mythologies, and whether this possibility is a plausible strategy for cultural survival, or another step towards cultural genocide.
Forest At Night - 1994, installation with video and sound, variable dimensions.
