Well, I heard from Santa Fe Indian Market and apparently, my designs were not good enough for their parade of pow-wow clothes and Native American ceremonial garb.
Modern doesn’t work for them. Also, did you know that they won’t even consider your artwork if you don’t have the proper background? Are you f*cking kidding me!
So if like the next Van Gogh or Michelangelo were to apply and if they did not have the proper background then they just wouldn’t consider them? And what in the name of The Discovery Channel’s “SHARK WEEK,” constitutes a proper background? Squash gourds, a woven Navajo rug and
Mesa scene that stretches from one end of the frame to the other!
I take this as a sign that I’m meant to go more mainstream as oppose to sinking any deeper into the Native American “industry.” I mean, the interests and offers that have been proposed to me only lend credence to that notion.
It would have been fun, but hey, if all these “Indian” art shows only want Indians to look, sound, and act a certain way then I’m sorry, I’m not going the route of the “wooden Indian.” I will not or have not ever used my ethnicity as a selling point. I feel that it cheapens us as a people to rely on such “gimmicks” and diminishes the pride of where we’ve come from and where we are going.
If that offends, I really don’t care. It’s the truth! I’m not the only one who feels it and knows it. Any Native American struggling in mainstream America feels what I’m talking about.
