WHITECLAY, Neb. — Within concrete walls that once housed a beer store that fueled alcoholism and death among residents of the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, renowned Native American artist Evans Flammond Sr. deftly draws lines on a huge buffalo hide.

Sitting at a table in the building in this small village on the South Dakota border, Flammond uses a tool called a chisel brush to lay out straight borders on the hide. The animal skin would eventually contain a sweeping encampment scene with American Indians on horseback running along the bottom.