Artist's work 'an epitaph of Native American existence'

“500 Years

Violence

Purple

Mountain

Majesties"

“Poverty

Sadness

For

Which

It Stands"

“Happy to donate what you took.”

And so go the words, biting and accusatory, melancholy, introspective and thoughtful, of Edgar Heap of Birds.

The Native American artist turns words into meaning.

Into feeling.

Into agitation.

And discussion.

Heap of Birds takes these words, seemingly innocent enough by themselves, and places them with another word and another, shuffling their order, then juxtaposing them against the American Founding Fathers' vocabulary of “liberty,” “justice for all,” “purple mountain majesties.”

He tweaks them and nourishes them with centuries of connotation until they whisper and speak and scream of the Native American state of being.

It’s this word art that makes up the bulk of his exhibit, “Secrets in Life and Death,” in the Juanita Harvey Art Gallery in Midwestern State University’s Fain Fine Arts Center.

The exhibit opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 27, complete with a 7 p.m. artist’s talk, and he also will helm a printmaking workshop at 9 a.m. Jan. 26 in the printmaking studio.

“He’s been using words almost exclusively in his art for almost 30 years,” Juanita Harvey Gallery Director and professor of art Gary Goldberg said. These are words, to the casual viewer, that look random, “But they’re ripped from Native American culture.”

He added, “I think of his art as being signposts.”

Just as signs caution people in beware manner with words such as “Danger,” “Stop” or “Poison,” Goldberg said Heap of Birds’ art gives similar direction and vital information, pointing out injustices without the benefit of an image outside of his gingerly constructed assembly of words and phrases.

“He sees himself as a provocateur and a disruptor,” Goldberg said.

Heap of Birds, once an art professor who is now a professor of Native American studies at the University of Oklahoma, finds his voice in his experience as a Cheyenne/Arapaho.

“I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, so I have a lot of affinity with the Wichita. But I’ve been in Oklahoma since 1980, and my tribe is from here,” he said.

He did not grow up on a reservation but in what he calls an urban Native community in Oklahoma City.

Yet he speaks with such clarity about the state of Native America.

His work does not tread lightly when it comes to American Indian social issues. He touches on poverty on the reservations, issues of health and the environment, and Native Americans’ place in America.

What he wants to do, he said, is share the reality of being a Native person in America while touching on “the genocide and process of colonialism that damaged Indian nations and erased many of them.”

And so his artwork, as much as it speaks of the times today, also reflects the history of Native Americans.

He is more than happy to tell you about Wichita, Kansas, and Wichita Falls, Texas, and the origin of those cities’ names.

“I work a lot of tribal history,” he said of his art.

One of his signpost-styled prints will have particular meaning to anyone who lives here.

It is a panel in bright red that conveys the names: “Huaco (pronounced Waco), Keechi, Taovaya, Tawakoni, Wichita and Kitikitish.”

“It is important because it deals with how the word Wichita is one subtribe and one name the government used,” Heap of Birds said. “... All of those are actually the same tribe, in a sense.”

Wichita refers to more than one tribe. It is a confederation of Native Americans in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, all of whom spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. Kitikitish, he said, is the name the people called themselves.

Part of the reason Heap of Birds said he travels to so many different places is “to help people understand where they really are (where they live).” Oftentimes, he said, people are not familiar with the history of the place they live.

“It’s kind of sad Americans don’t understand much about where they are,” he said.

Heap of Birds gives voice to that history, one seemingly difficult to find, considering Native Americans’ sparse written history.

Still, “It’s available,” the artist said. “I guess it’s just having interest to go see it.”

The print that encompasses all the names of the Wichita people is one he made about two months ago in Hawaii, he said, in anticipation of his trip here.

“I’m trying to honor the original people."

The title of his exhibit, “Secrets in Life and Death,” relates to that one print of the Wichita people. “It’s like there’s these secrets (like the history of the name Wichita Falls) that people should know.”

Heap of Birds' show is an amalgam of several bodies of his work: hand-blown glass works from his time in Murano, Italy; pieces from his Neuf Series paintings, created in Oklahoma City; and monoprints made in Los Angeles, California and Santa Fe in a body of work called “Genocide and Democracy,” which speaks to the seeming invisibility of indigenous communities in democratic systems because of low population and tribes scattered across the country.

Heap of Birds said in his artist’s statement for “Genocide and Democracy” how more than 100 million indigenous people lost their lives in the Americas because of their contact with Euro-colonizers and how they are trying to recover.

Ninety percent of the exhibit is monoprints, 16 by 22 inches, shown in groups of 4, 8 or 16.

What unites the pieces is the color blue, except for one group of prints in red.

Blue references the sky and water - natural elements Native Americans hold dear.

For the red prints, Heap of Birds said he sees his work as “an epitaph of the Native existence,” which is the reason for the blood red color.

The Murano glass in the exhibit honors Native warriors and their families who died traveling to Europe as part of late 19th century Wild West shows organized by William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Included on the glass are the images of warriors.

About four abstract acrylic paintings in the show are from Heap of Birds’ Neuf series. Neuf means “four” in Cheyenne. The number is significant in that is references certain ceremonies, done in four intervals, and the Cheyenne council of 44 peace chiefs.

The artist used layers and layers of paint to create shapes reminiscent of the landscape of the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservations. Viewers might see the arroyos or clouds floating in the sky when viewing the paintings.

The exhibit also includes four sign panels.

Goldberg said the images in the exhibit are likely to come with a bit of controversy.

“Unless you really go into it (indigenous history and concerns), we’ve been sanitized as a country,” Goldberg said.

Heap of Birds' exhibit does the opposite; it does not sanitize that history.

Goldberg said Heap of Birds is one of the top two or three Native American artists in the United States and his exhibit is a powerful one.

“In art in general, he is way up there.”

Follow Times Record News senior editor/reporter Lana Sweeten-Shults on Twitter @LanaSweetenShul.

IF YOU GO

What: "Secrets in Life and Death," featuring work by Edgar Heap of Birds

Where: Juanita Harvey Art Gallery in the Fain Fine Arts Center, Midwestern State University

When: Opens from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 27 with an artist's talk at 7 p.m.

Etc.: Heap of Birds also will lead a printmaking workshop 9 a.m. Jan. 26 in the printmaking studio

Information: 397-4264