Throughlines embraces wonder and curiosity, bringing together artworks from across the Museum’s collections to explore the range of artistic innovation. From diverse geographies, cultures, and time periods, artists have consistently created images, objects, and experiences that ask us to consider ourselves and the world around us from different perspectives. Visitors will encounter playful groupings that reveal how artists shape processes, materials, and forms into compelling and meaningful artworks. Organized by themes of portraiture and representation, views of the land and environment, and unexpected uses of imagery, ephemeral materials, and color, the exhibition prompts us to think about the objects in the collection as jumping off points for stories and conversations that foster a greater sense of connection among us.

This exhibition provides a glimpse of the exciting growth ahead as we look forward to the Mark Rothko Pavilion, a multi-year expansion and renovation project that will make the Museum more accessible and inclusive. While the galleries undergo this significant transformation, the Curatorial team, the Learning and Community Partnerships department, and PAM CUT colleagues have come together to present a collaboratively designed exhibition and event series that showcases our art collections and programs in a new light. After construction is complete, visitors will enjoy a fresh take on the collections as the curators reimagine, reassess, and transform the galleries throughout the Museum campus. Throughlines: Connections in the Collection will preview just some of the new approaches and collaborations we are undertaking.

Accompanying the exhibition, programming with artists’ talks and residencies, event-based experiences, multimedia presentations and screenings, and other moments of discovery expand the opportunities for visitors to engage with the joy and wonder of the artistic process.

Throughlines: Connections in the Collection is supported by the Museum’s Exhibition Series Sponsors.

In her village, women wore clothing with functional lengths, layers and ruffles to keep ticks and other bugs at bay. She imagines the FGCU skirt as something a current student might wear, much like the lightweight ribbon skirt she wears during an interview at the exhibit, which her grandmother made and wore in the 1980s.

She contrasts the comfort and versatility of ribbon skirts to the elaborate ballgown she made especially for the exhibit that celebrates the circus roots of the museum’s founders, John and Mable Ringling. A hoop skirt under the gown holds the floor-length skirt away from the legs, creating a dramatic silhouette.

“Goodness knows what would have crawled up underneath a skirt popped out like that in the village,” says Osceola.

According to her, the gown’s rows of red blocks on a white background are symbolic of the telephone poles along Tamiami Trail that replaced pristine sections of the Everglades but brought a means of communication. Thin strips of bias tape and rickrack trim convey the idea of communication lines. Those lines also symbolize The Ringling, as Osceola pictured the high wires traversed by circus trapeze artists.

She notes that her Everglades village would have been too harsh an environment for such a long dress. “We would never have worn a ballroom gown in the swamp,” she says.

For Osceola, exhibitions like this are important for Indigenous communities and the art world. “Maybe these look like ‘just’ textiles to somebody, which in the art world isn’t often viewed as important, so I’m grateful to FGCU and The Ringling for finding value in this.”

“It’s how we keep going forward with it,” she adds.

A historical art center in Norman is making an open call for Native American artists. Specifically, artists from Oklahoma tribes.

The Jacobson House Native Art Center on the University of Oklahoma campus had an extended closure due to the pandemic and renovations. The staff wants the public to know they are still there and better than ever.

A piece of rich Oklahoma history in the heart of Norman.

“It all started kind of right here, ”Jacobson House Native Art Center Board Chairman Brent Greenwood said. “Has a special place in my heart.”

Brent Greenwood’s art career along with many other Native artists started at the Jacobson House Native Art Center.

“So yeah, this is over 100 years old,” Greenwood.

He wants to help kickstart other careers through the center’s Fall art show dubbed “Twenty-First Century.”

“Some are going to be from the early 2000s and some will be from last month,” said Greenwood. “To see that gambit of narratives and expressions is going to be really cool.”

Greenwood said so far, they have 15 artists representing Oklahoma tribes on board for the art show. However, he would like to have artists from all 39 tribal nations. Greenwood’s other goal is to put the art center back in the spotlight of the community. The historical building recently underwent a major renovation and facelift.

“OU reinvested in the house and did major upgrades,” Greenwood said.

Greenwood is ready to showcase the art that made the center locally famous and keep the tradition alive for years to come.

“That’s what I want this to be for our people,” Greenwood said. “A sense of place, self, and community.

The open call for Native artists ends Aug. 30, and selected artists will be notified by Sept. 3. Contact the Jacobson House Native Art Center for more details.

BOSTON — A marble statue that depicts a felled Native American pulling an arrow from his torso is being returned to the Boston-area organization cofounded by Paul Revere that thought it had been destroyed decades ago.

“Wounded Indian,” sculpted in 1850 by Peter Stephenson and modeled on the ancient Roman statue “Dying Gaul,” was a gift to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association in 1893 and was displayed in its exhibition hall, according to Cultural Heritage Partners, the law firm that represented the Boston organization during negotiations.

That hall was sold in 1958, and the association was told that during the chaos of moving and distributing its assets to other area cultural institutions, the sculpture was accidentally destroyed and tossed away.

But the life-size piece showed up 30 years later at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.

The mechanic association started pressuring the Chrysler Museum for the sculpture’s return as far back as 1999 and stepped up its efforts a few years ago, when it brought in a researcher to establish ownership and hired a lawyer.

But the dispute was not resolved until Aug. 9, when the Chrysler’s trustees agreed to return the statue.

“It feels great to get the piece back because we really felt that there wasn’t any question that it was our statue,” said Peter Lemonias, the treasurer and past president of the mechanic association, who chaired the panel that worked on getting it back. “We were perplexed as anyone as to how it got away.”

It is headed back to Boston at a time when 19th-century art depicting Native Americans is under increased scrutiny. Like its inspiration, “Wounded Indian” depicts a vanquished foe considered primitive by the artist’s cultural standards.

The statue dates to the end of the Removal Era, when Native tribes were being pushed west to make way for white settlers. Art of the era reflects nostalgia and myth about growth that came at the expense of suffering by Indigenous people.

“When you look at the representations of American Indians in American art, they are often depicted in terms of tragedy, in this classical sense of overwhelming and undeterrable forces resulting in these tragic consequences, like it’s destiny,” said David Penney, an associate director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Lemonias thinks “Wounded Indian” is respectful.

“This is a solemn moment, maybe his dying breath, and I feel Stephenson was viewing the scene with a lot of empathy,” he said.

So what changed in the dispute over the statue? Greg Werkheiser, a founding partner at Cultural Heritage Partners, pointed to three things: the factual record of the statue’s provenance; public pressure on the Chrysler Museum spurred by an article in The Washington Post that detailed the dispute; and an FBI investigation into the sculpture’s ownership.

The dispute was resolved without litigation.

The Chrysler Museum got the piece from a now-deceased collector named James Ricau, who had a reputation in the art world for not being able to document how he obtained some of his objects, Werkheiser said.

Ricau said he had bought the statue from a reputable Boston art gallery in 1967, but that gallery said it had no record of the transaction, he said.

The Chrysler Museum said in a statement that it “acquired the piece in good faith in the 1980s,” but that “it was in the best interests of all parties to end the dispute.”

“The Chrysler is pleased with the amicable resolution, and we wish the best for the MCMA,” Chrysler Museum Director Erik H. Neil said in a statement.

“The impending return of this exquisite statue to Boston is a triumph not only for MCMA, but also for all Bay Staters and Americans who appreciate that this outstanding work of art was created in Boston, by a then-Bostonian, given to a Boston civic organization, for a Boston-area audience,” the mechanic association said in a statement.

Revere, the silversmith more famous for alerting colonists to the impending arrival of a British column before the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, was a founder and first president of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, established in 1795 to promote the mechanical arts and trades.

Today, based in suburban Quincy, it provides charitable support to organizations that teach or employ troubled and disabled youths. Paul Revere III is on its board and serves as general counsel.

The statue should be shipped back to Boston by early September, said Lemonias, and the next task will be finding a museum willing to house it and display it publicly.

It should be displayed and interpreted only with more historical context, Penney said.

“I think it would be helpful if we looked at this statue in a more critical way,” he said.

Hedda Sterne, Everyone, ca. 1970, Oil on unstretched canvas. (Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art)

In the 1850’s, Rosa Bonheur was officially granted permission by the French government to wear trousers. While permits were generally issued to those with medical issues, Bonheur, who spent much of her time in the countryside, in barns, the fields and even slaughterhouses to make drawings of the animal subjects for which she is so well-known, was given an exception. Wearing male attire, along with a pistol she sometimes carried, afforded her a freedom of movement as well as offering her a bit of protection as a solitary woman among men.

This permit was referenced, parodied and handed out to the guests at the opening of the exhibition, “(Women) Artists from the Collection 1800-2022” at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, as a subtle reminder of the many challenges both women and female artists have had to endure. The show’s theme also serendipitously pays homage to the women who helped found the museum.

The idea for the exhibition came about during conversations between Megan Benitz, the museum’s registrar, Soodie Beasley, an art appraiser for the IRS, and Megan Wyeth, a St. Joseph native and artist. While the Albrecht-Kemper can tout the fact that their permanent collection holds a higher percentage of female artists than the national average of 13%, some of the works selected for “(Women),” had never been exhibited before.

Works by blue-chip artists such as Lillian Westcott Hale and Mary Cassatt will be familiar to those who already know the permanent collection. But there are many surprises to admire or study. The earliest work is an elegantly simple sterling silver tea tray by Ann Bateman, whose first mark was registered the year her silversmith husband died in 1791, emphasizing how many women were dependent upon their husbands to learn an artistic skill (and perhaps only able to emerge from their shadow when alone).

The wall text for “Women’s Equality,” a double portrait of Elizabeth C. P. Stanton and Lucretia P. Mott by Marisol Escobar states that the artist’s work was often marginalized by fellow artists in the Pop Art movement, as they mocked its “feminine sentiments.” It is gratifying to see the lithograph by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith as well as it is to learn that she was the first Native American artist to have had a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York earlier this year. The provocative “Metamorphosis (Eleanor Roosevelt),” by Tina Mion, is just one of the artist’s intriguing portraits of first ladies from her series “Ladies First.”

According to Benitz, “Museums have responsibility to the public to help preserve and share everyone’s story. Exhibitions like this one are one step in presenting the work of women who were active, influential, or innovative in their time, but may have been overshadowed due to cultural prejudices, art market biases, or simply bad luck. “

A lavishly illustrated catalogue with thoughtful essays by the co-curators discussing the presence of women in museums, at work and in the marketplace accompanies the exhibition. Quotes by or about each artist are featured with a reproduction of their art.

A charming lithograph of apple pickers by Doris Lee is presented with her astute assessment: “We cannot afford to neglect or discourage any talent because of the artificial barriers of race, class or sex.”

“(Women) Artists from the Collection, 1800-2022” continues at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, 2818 Frederick Ave., St. Joseph, through Sept. 17. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $7 for under 18 and students. For more information 816.233.7003 or albrecht-kemper.org.

Details

By Darren Thompson

August 15, 2023

SANTA FE, N.M.—On Friday, August 18, the U.S. Department of the Interior will host its final public meeting on efforts to change regulations to the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The Act protects the authenticity and marketability of products claiming to be Indian-made.

The meeting is part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) effort to change aspects of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA), by including additional items that would be eligible to be marketed as an Indian Product, who can produce Indian arts and crafts products, and if Native Hawaiian Organizations should be included in the law. 

Meridith Stanton, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Director Indian Arts and Crafts Board, said in an email to Native News Online that the BIA’s proposed revisions to the current IACA regulations focus on expanding what is considered Indian art and craftwork to include products ranging from non-Indian made products to agricultural and food items. Besides expanding the definition of Indian arts and crafts, Stanton said she cannot discuss other pending changes. 

Suzan Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, spoke of the changes to regulations of IACA in an interview with Native News Online and said many of the changes would expand protections for mediums, or Indian products, not previously protected, but still fall short. The proposed changes also include protections for film, television, podcasts, books, cartoons, and news media, but do not include performing arts or academia.

“Why stop at hot dogs and leave out academia and performing arts?” Harjo asked about the additional proposed Indian products. “If you take care of performing arts, it takes care of a lot of the Hollywood problem.”

Harjo, who lobbied for the passing of IACA’s 1990 Amendment, has been advocating for additional protections and enforcement of law for many years. When IACA’s Amendment was signed in 1990, it expanded the original 1935 law by providing criminal and civil penalties for marketing products as “Indian-made” when products are not made by Indians, as defined by the Act. Under the law, an Indian is defined as an enrolled member of any federally or officially state recognized tribe in the United States, or an individual certified as an Indian artisan by an Indian tribe.

In other words, it’s a federal Indian law that acknowledges state-recognized tribes. Members of state-recognized tribes are authorized to exhibit, promote, market, produce, and sell Indian arts and crafts like members of federally recognized tribes. Other federal Indian laws do not apply to state-recognized tribes; the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 does not apply to state-recognized tribes.

Since the law was passed, Tribal Nations have not had input of enforcing the law when individuals pose as a member of a tribe. In 2021, the National Congress of American Indian passed a resolution asking for the Indian Arts and Crafts Act Board (IACAB) to update its regulations of who is protected under the law because of the widespread use of “Indigenous,” “Descendant,” “Ancestral Ties to,” or “Adopted by.” The resolution was aimed to prevent fraudulent artists from mis-representing protected Indian arts and crafts and to emphasize that the IACA, a public law, is not enforced. 

NCAI also passed a resolution in 2020, opposing the use of “Indigenous affiliation” or “Indigenous” in the same manner as someone enrolled in a federally recognized tribe or a state recognized tribe for employment or grants in the arts.

“NCAI calls on museums, research institutions, arts organizations, and employers who promote the history, art, language, and culture of the United States’ Tribal Nations to require proof of tribal enrollment in a state or federally recognized Tribal Nation from individuals who present themselves as Native professionals and artists, and as a prerequisite to eligibility for grant funding or any professional alliance as a Native professional or artist with said museums, research institutions, federal or state grant programs, and prior to any public listing as Native American (American Indian or Alaska Native) affiliation,” the resolution states. 

 The 1990 law also paved the way for an individual Indian person, a federally recognized Tribe, or an Indian arts and crafts organization to file a civil suit in federal court against a perpetrator. 

“Is this enough authority for an individual, or a Tribe, to go after a perpetrator on their own?” Harjo questioned the protections, noting that the matter is a civil and not a criminal action. “In order for Tribes to have authority to enforce this law as well, they must be permitted across jurisdictions, across state lines, to pursue offenders.” 

By allowing Tribes to bring the cases in Tribal court, the law would also recognize Tribal jurisdiction, as the Tribal Section of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that returned some criminal jurisdiction to Tribes. 

“This also allows Tribes to go after offenders who defame the Tribe’s name and image,” said Harjo. 

If successful, the Indian Tribe, individual Indian, Indian arts and crafts organization, or United States may request that the court order the relief including actual damages, punitive damages, and/or forfeiture of proceeds, but not a quantifier. “If the law includes triple the damages, that’s a good intent for Tribes and others to bring their lawsuits against perpetrators.”

“Given that the Department of Interior is in the comment period, citizens, Tribal Nations and Tribal citizens should closely review the revisions,” said Honorable Danielle Tasheena Finn, an Adjunct Professor at Sinte Gleska University and Judge for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in an interview to Native News Online. “Civil actions may have big implications for enforcement.” 

“It only took 33 years to bring revisions to the people for discussion,” Harjo said.

 “Updating the regulations does not make changes to the existing law. Our goal in updating these regulations is to better support Native artists and craftspeople, so it is critical that we hear their feedback,” said BIA’s Director of Public Affairs Joshua Barnett in an email to Native News Online. “This draft rule is intended to be a starting point for this conversation.”

Tribal consultations began in early April and will end in August. The DOI is accepting written comments until the end of business day on Friday, September 1, 2023 and should be emailed as soon as possible to [email protected].

The meeting at the Santa Fe Indian Market is scheduled from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm Mountain Time at the Institute of American Indian Arts’ (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, in conjunction with the 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market.

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The artwork of Native American artist Juanita Growing Thunder is more than just a form of expression. It’s a celebration of family tradition.

For Native American artist Juanita Growing Thunder, art is a family tradition and responsibility. Renowned for her traditional Plains Indians beaded artwork, she was born into a world where beaded belt buckles, shoes, and clothing were as common as milk and eggs. The daughter of a Sisituwan/Wahpetuwan Dakota and Wadopana Tuwa Nakoda (Assiniboine) mother, Growing Thunder says some of her first memories are of being surrounded by art and watching her mother weave colorful little beads into patterns that had meaning for her tribe.

“I remember my mother doing beadwork in the car when we traveled all over the West to go to art shows and museums,” Growing Thunder says. “I think that if you grow up this way, and you see someone doing this every day, and that’s the way they live their life, then it becomes the way you live your life, right?”

Nature, nurture, destiny. 

Walking This Good Way of Life Together, 2022, smoked moose hide, rawhide, otter pelt, wool, porcupine quills, beads, bells, thimbles, silk ribbon, ermine skin, horse hair, brass sequins, and pigment, hide, beads, wool, cloth, and yarn, 1995.

An award-winning and honored artist who has shown at dozens of galleries and museums throughout her career, Growing Thunder is second-generation Dakota and Nakoda from the Buffalo Nation. Her work consists of traditional Northern Plains clothing and accessories adorned with beadwork and porcupine quill embroidery, as well as soft sculpture figure dolls. Immersed in the art of her people, Growing Thunder and her family are culture bearers.

Growing Thunder was born in 1969 in Castro Valley, California. Her Irish father, Jim Fogarty, was a Western art painter studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland when he met and fell in love with Joyce Growing Thunder, who was living at the Dakota and Nakoda reservation in northeast Montana. 

“When he met my mother in Montana and brought her directly from the reservation to California, she said she didn’t know what a taco was. She grew up very impoverished on our reservation and went directly into the 1960s Bay Area lifestyle,” Growing Thunder says. “She was immersed into the art world right away, and I grew up spending the summers in museums and going to art shows and Western art shows.

“We got to know a lot of Native American Indian art collectors, and my mom was beading every day.”

Growing Thunder began beading with her mother and making her own little beaded items starting at age 6. But it wasn’t until some friends convinced Joyce to enter the Santa Fe Indian Art Market in 1985 that the art world opened up for her and her mother. 

“Until that time, my mother had never sold anything or made anything like that for sale. She always made things just for friends and family — she made like 300 to 500 belt buckles for friends,” Growing Thunder says. “So we went to the [Santa Fe] Indian Art Market, and she won Best of Show that year.”

Hismasma, 2021, buffalo and deer hide, sinew, trade cloth, glass seed beads, porcupine claws and human hair.

For the first time, Joyce Growing Thunder realized she could sell her art; that same year, Juanita joined the Santa Fe art market as a youth entrant alongside her mother. By submitting her own beadwork in the youth category, she gained valuable experience not just as an artist but as a representative of her culture. “That just opened up the whole Native American Indian art world to us, because Mom realized she could make a living and help support me and my four brothers. The art market was good for me, too. Some of the judges were so helpful with me as I was learning. They would say, ‘You really need to get this right — you’re representing your people.’ That really helped me grow.”

Since that first show in 1985, Growing Thunder has earned numerous awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Her work has also been included in museum exhibitions, most recently, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists as well as Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses and A Song for the Horse Nation, both curated by Emil Her Many Horses from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. She created the Growing Thunder Collective to showcase the work of her family, which now includes her daughters, granddaughter and nieces. Their work was shown in the traveling exhibition The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky. 

In addition to traditional Plains Indian beadwork, Growing Thunder is known for soft-sculpture figure dolls that emulate historical Oceti Sakowin attire. While the traditional dolls have soft bodies, Growing Thunder says she has evolved the style over the years, through circumstance, to become free-form standing figures and a new art form. Her soft-sculpture work earned her the honor of being one of five artists featured in the exhibition Grand Procession: A Collection of Contemporary Native American Soft Sculpture.

“My work enables me to practice our women’s traditions that embrace artistic expression,” says Growing Thunder, who still lives with and beads alongside her mother in Northern California. 

“I’ve learned from my mother, who learned from her grandmothers and their grandmothers stretching seven generations back.” In turn, she has instilled these teachings in her daughters, Jessa Rae and Camryn, both of whom have become award-winning artists, as well as her niece Paytyn Growing Thunder. Her oldest daughter started creating and selling her pieces when she was 3 years old, and now Growing Thunder’s 3-year-old granddaughter, Nuna, is already stringing beads and making things.

Beaded Pad Saddle, 1995, hide, beads, wool, cloth, and yarn.

“Everything is usually just focused on my mother and me, and that’s not what it’s about. Our entire family has fantastic artistic skills, and we want to be able to showcase them. We also hope that we’re encouraging young people to do the same thing and firing up our people to carry on the traditional arts.”

Growing Thunder will be showing for her 38th year at the Santa Fe Indian Art Market this August, surrounded by her daughters and nieces, who have also taken up the mantle of beaded Native American art through the Growing Thunder Collective.

It’s a huge honor to be a culture bearer, Growing Thunder says. “That was something that my mother has always stressed to me and my daughters and my nieces and my nephews. It’s very important to represent our people as well as we can and do the best that we can with that. Being a beadworker and quillworker is who I am. I spend every day creating work that honors our traditions and culture in hopes that my work will help preserve future generations’ connection to their culture.”

See Juanita Growing Thunder’s work at the 2023 Santa Fe Indian Market, August 19 – 20. Her soft sculptures are also on view permanently in Grand Process: Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection at the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

This article appears in our August/September 2023 issue, available on newsstands or through our C&I Shop.

Theo Tso, an enrolled member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, is the creator of the comic book superhero Captain Paiute.

Like some other Native independent comics artists—including Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Haida) and Cole Pauls (Tahltan)—he uses comics as a vehicle to talk about modern Indigenous life, and the sometimes powerful, sometimes fraught connection to Native traditions.

Tso has an upcoming exhibition of sketches, drawings and prints at the Clark County Library, running from Aug. 17 to Nov. 5. He also has a comics workshop scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30 at Great Basin Community College in Elko. Below is a conversation we had about Captain Paiute, water rights, and the power of representation. The transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Theo Tso at work. Photo: Rebecca Snetselaar, courtesy Nevada Arts Council Folklife Archives

Could you walk me through what your inspirations were for the design of Captain Paiute’s costume?

When I first created him back in the 90s—back in high school—the original idea was based on Batman. He was more like a Batman clone than anything else. He had a cape, and a full-headed cowl. He was basically a Batman rip-off—a bad Batman rip-off. Many superheroes have gotten their start by being a Batman rip-off. I pulled him out of my portfolio about eight, almost 10 years ago, and looked at him, like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to revamp this guy. This costume is not going to work, especially around the reservation.” I just simplified it—took away the cape but added a loincloth. I needed something to show action. I cut the top of his cowl off to expose his hair—you know, the “hair in the wind” effect. Even if he’s standing still there’s always that motion of action, either with his hair or his loincloth flowing in the wind.

I drew on my history. There’s a few old pictures of some of the old people wearing loincloths. It’s regalia, basically—I don’t call it a costume, it’s regalia. I think people overdo this, but some people say superheroes are like the new mythology.

You have these characters who have great powers—whether you’re talking about Greek mythology, or if you’re talking about folk figures like Paul Bunyan. There’s this sense of magic with characters like Coyote—or, since I’m in Northern Nevada I’m familiar with the Paiute story of the Stone Woman who, in grief, turned to stone and filled up Pyramid Lake with her tears. I was wondering if there’s a sense of continuity, for you, between these kinds of folk characters that have magical dimensions or powers, and the appeal of superheroes.

Actually mine is drawn on our traditions, our traditional ways. “Paiute” means “Water Ute,” [a member of the Ute tribe who lives near water]. I got the “Captain” from a Northern Nevada Native, a Paiute they just called “The Captain.” If I’m remembering right, he was a medicine man or a holy man. I thought that was kind of cool—it’s not a rank, it’s just a name.

Down here we’re desert dwellers, and we know how sacred water is. It’s a harsh environment and my ancestors carved away and farmed these lands down here. They knew where all the good springs were at. I took my ancestry and my heritage and gave it to Captain Paiute—some of the stuff that old people taught me, some of the old stories that they told me.

It’s kind of what you were just talking about, the mythology—but I took it and flipped it. I took it as a teaching tool for our young people, because a thing that our young people don’t have is a sense of tradition anymore. We’re all modernized now, and we need to bring that tradition back. We need to teach our young ones the traditional ways because we’re dying out. If we don’t have our traditions we’re going to fade quick.

Could you spell out some of the traditional ethics, or the traditional wisdom, that you think gets scattered in modern life—that you really want people to reconnect to?

Well, I watched a lot of Ghost Adventures with Zak Bagans, and it’s a pet peeve when he’s always saying that the land is cursed—that the Native Americans have cursed the land. No, we didn’t do that—we were stewards of the land. We took care of the land! We never cursed anything. I don’t know, maybe we cursed each other [laughs], but we never cursed the land because we all fed off the land. It took care of us.

One of the lessons I teach in my books is—we took care of the land. All Natives are stewards of the land—we fight for our water rights. We fight for our land rights. A lot of our good hunting areas are being taken up by corporations who want to put single family homes on there. Out here we’ve got the Nellis bombing range. It’s been saved for the time being, but they want to open up more bombing ranges, and it’s a sacred area to us. It’s something we as Native people have to fight for on a daily basis.

Captain Paiute’s powers are water-based. Could you unpack that a bit? Taking the notion of a Water Protector and transferring that into a superhero metaphor?

He can manipulate water. He can control the ambient temperature of his core, and create steam for a diversion. Or he can lower his body temperature down to almost zero, and create ice. He pulls his powers from Mother Earth. He’ll hold his hand to the ground and the groundwater will seep up and transform him into Captain Paiute. And after he’s done being Captain Paiute, he returns the power, he returns the water back to the ground. That’s me using that symbol as a metaphor—again, we take care of the land, we replace what we take.

You’re trying to communicate traditional ideas, but superheroes are a relatively new thing. I’m curious how you think about using a non-traditional framework to convey traditional ideas or ethics.

Comics were the bottom end of the art world back in the day. With these movies popping up, it’s become popular now. “Oh wow, this is cool now.” So with the young ones, it gives them a cool character—somebody that looks like them, who understands what goes on in a reservation.

Growing up at school I didn’t have anybody who looked like me. I was the only Native kid, out of a handful of kids I went to school with. We were in different classes, so I was the only Native one in the class, and I got singled out. Every time the teacher mentioned something about being a Native, all the kids looked back at me, and I’m like “Whoa—I don’t know what they did. I’m a kid. I’m here to learn the white man way.”

When a Native kid walks up to me and looks at the book, and his eyes get big and you know he’s drawn to the stories—I know what it’s like to be that kid. For me it was kind of the opposite. I was looking at the comic books, looking at the artwork, and then soon after I noticed there were no comics that featured Native Americans, starring a Native American. They’re sidekicks or trackers, or something like that.

When the X-Men introduced Thunderbird, I think he lasted three issues before he got killed.

Yeah, in the Suicide Squad movie the Native guy gets blown his head blown off in the first three minutes.

Captain Paiute’s alter ego is a hydrologist. I was curious about that piece of it—if it’s a way of grounding it. Playing on the sense that there’s a scientific or real-world way of engaging with these issues, and then there’s an imaginative or fantasy way of engaging with them.

I wanted to keep him in the water field because one thing our people need is clean water. Actually everybody, just people in general, need clean water. That’s why I used the Navajos [in Captain Paiute], who don’t have access to water. They’ve got wells out there, where you have to drive miles to fill your water jugs up. I used that as a springboard where Luther Pah—which is Captain Paiute’s alter ego—could go to other reservations and look at their water situation and say, “Hey, maybe I could design your water system, add a water filtration system, and we’re going to clean this water out.” And then on the on the flip side, maybe something happens at that reservation, and Captain Paiute can battle that.

What specific water issues have you dealt with, or has the Southern Paiute tribe had to deal with?

The big one right now is Lake Mead drying up. That looks like it’s coming back now. The water levels have gone back up. We’ll see what happens—summer’s not over yet. But since the lake has been shrinking, it’s been uncovering a lot of cool things.

Like what?

Like dead bodies, and old boats that have sunk to the lake floor. What I heard back in the day was when they built the dam, they flooded out a lot of old Paiute sacred areas, and there’s petroglyphs and things like that still underwater.

Are there a lot of petroglyphs down where you are?

Oh yeah, there’s rock art all over the place. There’s Valley of Fire, there’s the Overton Arm, up in the mountains …

I’m curious if you connect yourself—as a drawer—to petroglyph art?

Pretty much, yeah. It’s like, “Wow, my ancestors were telling stories before I started telling stories.” [laughs] The thing is, they were doing it on the rock wall, I’m doing it on paper. I was always curious about what kinds of tools they used to do that work. And some of that stuff is way up there, high up—how the heck did they get up there to tell these stories?

Theo Tso’s next exhibition, The Art of Theo Tso, Creator of Captain Paiute, will be on view at the Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Rd. in Las Vegas, from Aug. 17 to Nov. 5. He also has comics workshops scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30, 1-3 pm at Great Basin Community College in Elko.

Follow @captain.paiute.comics on Instagram.