EDMONDS, August 6, 2023—The Native American Modern: Shared Expressions in Northwest Art is now on exhibit until October 29, 2023, at the Cascadia Art Museum. This exhibition is the first to center around the art of Julius “Land Elk” Twohy (Two-vy-nah-auche) (1902 – 1986) and his local contemporaries. One of the region’s earlier modernists, he was best known for his paintings and prints created in Seattle through the Federal Art Projects of the 1930’s and 40’s.

Twohy, (Ute) and his younger contemporary, Delbert J. McBride (Cowlitz/Quinault 1920-1998), produced fascinating art and objects utilizing modern and abstract designs inspired by their Native American heritage. Their works will be displayed alongside non-native contemporaries such as Worth D. Griffin (1893-1981), R. Bruce Inverarity (1909–1999) and others who were highly influenced by Northwest indigenous design and culture. These artists worked side by side and received acclaim in their own individual fields.

Cascadia Art Museum is located at 190 Sunset Ave S., Edmonds is operating hours are Wednesday – Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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NEWBERRY — Anyone who walks around Downtown Newberry may notice a mural on Tiny Paris (Caldwell Street). This piece of art was created by 28-year-old Ricardo Ramirez.

Ramirez, a New York native, said he started getting into art at a young age.

“I remember being in school and instead of paying attention, I found myself drawing in my notebooks…to my teacher’s dismay. I found art and drawing captivated me more than many other things,” he said. “This is what I wanted to do, it was always art, it was always creating. I think that has definitely made its way into my adult life, I never lost the desire to create to make anything.”

Ramirez’s first creation was of his mother, he said it started after he got in trouble and was sent to his room.

“As a way to make amends, I decided to draw a picture of her. I quickly learned the mistake in this, after I was done drawing, I held it up and it looked so bad, looked nothing like her,” Ramirez said laughing. “I did not give it to her and stayed in my room grounded.”

That was the first piece he remembered drawing.

When it comes to style and inspiration Ramirez thought hard and said he likes to create art based on what grabs his attention.

“There is so much out there that tries to grab your attention to sell you something. If art can do it for more wholesome or thought provoking, that’s the kind of art I like to make,” he said.

Simply put, Ramirez likes to create art that he likes to make.

“I think way before you put pen to paper it is just observing, just looking, noticing unique features in people, maybe different poses, differing buildings. Just be observant, just look,” he said. “From there, the things that stand out when you are looking, that make interesting subject matter to make a piece. Not just nature, different T.V. shows, directing shots, comic books, anything — if I like it, that is where I start.”

One of Ramirez’s pieces is that of a rooster, inspired after spending time with his friend, Sergio, who has chickens.

“Being raised in the city, I was not exposed to farm life, never saw a chicken up close until he took me to meet his chickens,” he said. “Sergio shows me his rooster, he held him up and the way the light hit the feathers, I saw all these colors, greens, purples, the colors moved in the sunlight; I thought it was amazing that something ordinary has extraordinary characteristics. It all comes from being observant.”

Ramirez added that there is a lot that can be done with something normally overlooked. He said if you take a look at something long enough, a grain of interest is already there. For example, Ramirez started creating art following a coffee stain.

“I was working on my computer, put my coffee cup on a piece of paper, it left a coffee ring and it held my attention. I thought, you could do something with a stain and coffee, something unartistic you can do something neat with. I created art from what the coffee stain said to do, one was spaghetti and the other was a fox,” he said. “I used a pen (to create the other side) and then got better shadows using the coffee, I layered the coffee with the watercolor brush.”

When it comes to his art style, Ramirez said he was inspired by the late Roy Lichtenstein, an American pop artist.

“He is one of my favorite artists, he broke the norm. He would take pictures of comics and blow them up (before computers) and paint it. I watched a video about him, he was nervous and talking to an artist friend, he didn’t know if it was art and the friend said it didn’t matter, art doesn’t have boundaries,” Ramirez said.

This inspiration led Ramirez to create a canvas painting based on Lichtenstein’s work.

“During school, I got into comic books and that is when I really got into art, the stories are great but the images really captivated me, heavy black lines, graphic style of the artwork. That’s what I want to do, that’s me,” he said.

Professionally, Ramirez uses Octopus Ink has his handle and he said the name was invented by his wife, Emily, when they were dating.

“I told her I wanted to start this business, I couldn’t come up with a name. She asked me my favorite animal and I said octopus. I get a call that same day and she said Octopus Ink and that was a pretty cool name,” he said.

While creating his work, Ramirez said he uses pen, pencil and paper, however, after a couple of years, he bought a drawing tablet.

“Buying that opened up a world of possibilities, may be expensive to create on a canvas, but with a tablet doing it digitally, there is no limit to your imagination,” he said.

To see more of Ramirez, check out www.octopusinkcreative.com or on Instagram.

SUMMARY

• Shamanism, an ancient system of beliefs and practices, is prevalent in various cultures across the globe.
• Art has a significant role in shamanistic practices, with many art forms having symbolic and healing purposes. Contemporary artists like Joseph Beuys and Ernesto Neto have drawn from shamanic traditions.
• Indigenous artists provide an authentic perspective on shamanism, emphasizing its communal nature and resisting the homogenization of global culture.
• The resurgence in shamanism and spiritual practices might be a reaction to the uncertainties of the modern world and a collective desire for reconnecting with nature and finding sustainable ways of living.

Shamanism is a system of beliefs and practices that many researchers consider the oldest surviving. This system has barely changed in the history of humanity. Shamanism is not a religion in the present-day sense since various cultures rely on various mythological systems, but a specific type of religious practice. It is surrounded by many myths and misconceptions imposed by Western culture. Still, many artists choose to employ shamanic practice not only as an homage to their ethnic roots but as a specific way of artistic self-expression.

Shamanism as a practice is not limited to a specific region or culture. Although rituals and settings may differ, shamanic practices still exist in Australia, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The word shaman is familiar to the Western ear but it is often influenced by pop cultural images. Shamans are not evil magicians but practicing spiritualists and healers, usually deeply respected by their community. According to practitioners’ beliefs, one does not decide if they want to become a shaman as the spirits make their choice before the person in question is even born.

Entering the state of trance, often with the use of psychedelics, a shaman can supposedly communicate with spirits, negotiate with them, and sometimes even fight them. Shaman as a being exists outside the boundaries of the dead and the living, the spiritual and the human. Rebirth and transformation are crucial processes for shamans. Often they are symbolically killed during initiation rituals since this act is supposed to give them the ability to cross the borders between the worlds. Social and gender boundaries also rarely apply to shamans. In many cultures, a shaman is a separate category, not subject to the common characteristics of males and females.

Shamanism and Indigenous Art

Creating art plays an important role in shamanistic practices, yet, contrary to popular belief, the artistic element of it is not limited to performance art. Painting and sculpture are also common. However, a shaman is not creating art for art’s sake. Instead, all of their actions have symbolic and practical meanings. For instance, Navajo sand paintings that are created by a shaman seeping colored sand through their fingers, have a healing purpose, with the design of the composition depending on a particular illness. The sick person then sits on the painting as part of the healing ritual.

In fact, many varieties of shamanic art imply the destruction of the shaman’s work at the end of the ritual. Always made from natural materials like wool, soil, or honey, pieces of indigenous art involved in practices often come back to nature, completing the cycle.

In a way, the myth of a shaman is similar to the Western myth of an artist. Both shamans and artists perform their actions not because they are willing to do it but because they cannot avoid doing it. A shamanic gift can kill its owner when unreleased, just like the suppressed artistic self-expression harms the artist. The concepts of an artist and a shaman share the idea of non-regular humans, capable of seeing, feeling, and expressing more than others. Like a shaman transforming themselves during the ritual, an artist is going through a spiritual catharsis.

One of the best-known Western artists who incorporated shamanic practices in his work was the controversial German man named Joseph Beuys. Art historians regard Beuys as the father of performance art and conceptualism but nonetheless admit that his actions and claims need to be re-evaluated. Beuys’ artistic persona was the central element of his art.

Born in 1921, Beuys was old enough to volunteer for the Luftwaffe when World War II  unfolded. He was stationed in Crimea, Ukraine in 1942 and conducted attacks as a gunner until his plane crashed in 1944. That was the moment when Beuys artistic biography started. According to the artist, the tribe of Crimean Tatars found him and accepted him as one of their people. These events left a lasting mark on Beuys’ artistic practice. For years after the incident, he dived into shamanic practices and adapted them into his artworks, often using natural materials and ritualistic gestures.

However, it is necessary to state that Beuys’ story was hardly anything more than a product of his imagination. Although the plane crash indeed happened, there were no Crimean Tatars in the area. Despite Beuys’ claims that he was reborn as a new person and left Luftwaffe as soon as he got back to his unit, he actually remained in service until the Third Reich capitulation in May 1945.

Beuys never confessed what made him invent the story so difficult to believe. Apart from a rather understandable act of establishing his artistic persona, Beuys had probably felt the need to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public. After the end of World War II, being a German artist was not a crime, but being a Luftwaffe volunteer certainly was. To avoid accusations, Beuys fabricated the narrative of rebirth and redemption, which still did not stop him from maintaining his connections with some Nazi officials who managed to escape Europe.

The central topics of Beuys’ work were transformation, healing, and reconnection with nature. All these processes were necessary to fix the world after two great wars. He planned the world’s rebirth in the same fashion as his own life story, staging performances based on his archetypal mythology. Once, he spent a week in an enclosed room with a coyote, which he regarded as the most indigenous being in America, wrapped in felt blankets, overcoming the hostility of the poor animal.

During another performance, Beuys covered his head in honey and gold leaf and wandered through an art gallery with a dead hare in his arms, whispering the meaning of the exhibited works into the animal’s ear. Hare and honey are known as symbols of resurrection in German culture. The whole performance could be seen as both the lamentation over the natural world, destroyed by humans and replaced with simulacra, and the elaborate ritual of its resurrection, composed of movements, incantations, and sacrifices.

Borrowing indigenous spiritual practices isn’t anything new for Western artists. Apart from the not-so-carefully fabricated story of Joseph Beuys, we can recall Jackson Pollock, who had a profound interest in Native American art and shamanistic practices. Pollock’s gesture painting originated from Navajo art, used in healing rituals and ceremonies.

Only a limited number of artists inspired by shamanism directly present themselves as shamans. Still, their interest in rituals and shamanic practices illustrates a larger trend towards deeper spiritual involvement and reconsidering our relationships with society and nature.

Brazilian contemporary artist Ernesto Neto closely collaborates with the Huni Kuin people, an indigenous group living in Brazil and Peru. Neto didn’t just adopt the shamanic practices of the Huni Kuin, he also invited its representatives to join his artistic projects. Neto’s installations often incorporate smells, textures, and space manipulation to immerse the viewers completely, helping them reach a trance-like state.

Shamanism and Colonialism

When we talk about the use of shamanist practices in Western art, we have to mention a certain degree of cultural insensitivity. Cultural appropriation and distortion of concepts inherent to the life and practices of indigenous groups not only offend the groups in question but interfere with preserving their traditions. The use of shamanic practices by artists like Jackson Pollock sometimes provoked criticism for the inward-driven nature of his art, which focused on the artist’s ego. Shamanism as a practice does not focus on a single individual since it’s a community-oriented concept shared by all members of the group.

Thankfully, as the presence of indigenous artists on the art market grows, the representation of shamanism radically transforms from a deformed retelling to first-hand accounts of practitioners and keepers of the tradition. Through their spiritual practices, indigenous artists are re-exploring their ethnic identities, while establishing them in broader cultural contexts. Turning to shamanic practices often signifies opposition to the globalized homogenous culture.

In recent years, anthropologists saw a rise in interest in spiritual practices and shamanism was no exception. But why exactly did we decide to shift back to wood, felt, and ritual dances in the era of social media and metaverse?

The experts give several reasons for such a shift. One is the uncertainty of the future, with wars, pandemics, and ecological and economic crises happening. Unable to rely on the world around them, artists turn their gaze inwards, addressing the internal processes.

The Covid lockdowns and isolation brought a certain degree of techno-fatigue to people. Too many things were happening online as the world struggled to maintain an illusion of order. Although previous generations of artists were enthusiastic about technological development and its seemingly endless possibilities for creating art, contemporary creators now realize that technology can only express as much.

The physical experiences of interacting with nature and its powers became valuable again. Shamanistic practices, rooted in close contact with the realm of nature and understanding of its laws, offer an alternative way of expression and perception. The use of natural materials in shamanic practices also falls into the trend of ecological consciousness. The revival of indigenous spiritual practices is hardly a step back from rationalism and it might be a step forward toward a sustainable future.