My study site

I most admire Mark Dion and Joseph Beuys, though they are seemingly talking about different spheres within their work - Dion and his natural history inspired collections, Beuys and his post-war shamanism - I thought it would be interesting to discuss man and nature as a theme. Dion has a reverent and calculated way of categorizing animals, in his taxidermied exhibits, one presenting a wolf on a cart with complimentary habitat - the "Mobile Wilderness Unit" shows mankind has manipulated the wild to displacement, and even if it exists, it is to suit our own machinations, not for the integrity of the 'wild' and the 'wild things' themselves.

Putting the words of other critics aside, I think Beuys' "I like America and America likes me" betrays Beuys' search for the human psyche. The man was locked away with a wild coyote for a day, in America, a country he didn't meet until the day of the installation. He purposefully allows himself to be the passive character, and to be so powerless that it necessitates his transformation into another being to survive. Cloaked in felt and moving with his shepherd's crook, Beuys becomes an archetype for a man, a hermet, a shaman, he is equally as wild as the animal trapped with him, but  you sense the artifice of the entire procedure, of placing a wild coyote and a man in a room, but the presence of the coyote itself has changed the entire dynamics of this 'show'. It heightens Beuys' presence into the realm of the mystical, he is not himself, and neither is the coyote, who also attains his former status - symbolic in the America's as a trickster spirit, creator, and healer, he is now the manipulator of forces.

Joseph Beuys "I like America and America likes me", 1974

It is Beuys imagery which resonates with me the most. For my own installation, I have chosen to work from the wild and out. I chose Frontier Park by old Fort Hays in Hays Kansas, as a my staging area. The old fort represents the last frontier, that last wild place, as the soldiers stationed here were also here to protect settlers, and to wage war against the native peoples they would ultimately displace.

I am part of the native American and the western version of American history, my ancestry is imprecise, with Northern Paiute, Apache, Hungarian, Lakota and German, as well as other unknown lineages - telling of migrations, transatlantic and intercultural marriages of my family.  My pedigree appears balanced and universal, but I feel I am part of a dying culture, or several, and being unable to communicate this loss without appearing cliche is an ever present concern for me as an art maker.

My great grandmother, Angelina Jacinto

 We visit the ruins of southwestern native American peoples who have lived in their adobe and cave dwellings and we forget that some just ‘vanished’, what about the European settlers on Roanoke Island - supposedly gone without a trace?  We think of extinction strictly in terms of animals, again, to the powerless ‘wild things’, and we forget  our modern societies are also adherent to this rule of eventually diminishing. Can people completely disappear? It seems incredulous…but the same has happened here in our own Kansas. Native people once lived around Hays, as did rattlesnakes and prairie dogs and burrowing owls, and all of the artifacts of their living have seemingly gone with them, so this is also a reflection on biodiversity, the total loss of wildlife, habitat and people. Frontier Park is an idyllic place, but it is planted with foreign trees, introduced grasses, its bison are penned and obviously unlikely to ever roam again, and even the creek is bridled, all dammed up and spoiled with deadly nitrogen rich runoff.

Frontier Park, across the highway from the old Fort, bison roam off to the edge of the park, relics of the native landscape.

Mark Dion had a way of coming upon a culturally significant site and reinvigorating it with its untold story, this is my recreation of my ancestral past and the past life of Hays before it was settled by Westerners. I think I can do this most effectively by recreating in miniature, the living areas of a lost world within the park. Im currently making parts for my scenes which will include animals and dinner settings.  The clay figures are made in a basic, abstract manner reminiscent of stone age European ceramic animal figures and cave drawings. I want to make hundreds of these clay figures and set them out in select locations to complete their habitat.


Certain figures I have made  also personally significant. The duck and bowls  represent important aspects of my northern Paiute heritage and the unknowable lore that has never been passed down to me. For instance, the Paiutes were known to be expert animal attractors, using duck decoys and duck calls to lure in their prey, they were and are also renown basket weavers, and so I have made numerous ducks and baskets, a small hunting dream for my ancestors.

These figures will be placed throughout the mapped route. Observers complete this scene as they may come upon a world that is in stillness and decomposition. The people, animals and settings are nameless and without further hint to their function. Campfires are left to burn, animals are left to their own devices, and people are nowhere to be seen...Much in the way I comprehend Joesph Beuys's work, you wonder if this could be a mystical device, the wild is law, and order is no where to seen
- a maddening position for an observer - yet  to me, the imagery is also striking and transformative.

Frontier Park reconnaissance: Yes, this is exactly what it looks like, dog-bone trees and all, to scale.

Map of village area

Project: A commentary on lost civilizations, personal cultural memory, extinction, American westward expansion,

Materials: Unfired clay, found objects from park site, cloth

Time line:
May 2nd - 6th: Concept initiation, sketches, ideas
May 6-10th: Artist research, location and concept formation, blog drafts
May 10-15: Blog drafts revisited, reconnaissance on site with photographs, publishing
May16th: Morning setup, afternoon critique