Buffalo Bill Museum Complex, Cody, Wyoming + Shoshone Valley + NE Wyoming
The cowgirl of post-modernity! The cowperson of my feminist dreamhood! May life serve company as ravishingly competent and fresh/flesh-spirited as the Westerner depicted on this new acquisition at the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming. I tried to capture the info plate, but you can't make out the text, so would appear lost.... I remember that the artist is a cowgirl herself, from Texas, and that the deal here is the emergent new voice of the Western woman. Notice the phases of the moon. Notice the absolute whiteness of her blouse. How does she do it. I like. I like muchly. They just don't grow up like this on my end of the Missouri...
By providence and grace, katja came across an art book of Donna Howell-Sickles paintings, with text by Peg Streep, Cowgirl Rising, out in 1997 by Greenwich Workshop Press. Donna is indeed the North Texas artist and this very painting, "A Matter of Choice", smiles confidently at the reader from page 124. Yee-haw! Blessed be the lavishly gifting katja, and the smartly cowgirl-ascendant Donna.
Remember rap's June 14 Arapaho Hike Un organized by yours truly and Robin Sommo near Wild Bill Hickock's birthplace and in a magnificent state park, central Illinois, complete with deep earthen canyons (Rene's pix!)? Certain people raised a fuss about the absence of the Arapaho. So I decided to go find some.
Here is an Arapaho warrior, ready to raid some cavalry ass (mule), in Buffalo War-path Headress (note horns). The equipage is vintage 19th century, no imitations or reconstructions. It was something to see, low light and all. Note the characteristic design 8-star pattern favored by the Arapaho. Each Plains Indians people had developed their own special geometric patterns. With a bit of sampling and getting up to speed, you too can tell apart the Shoshone beadwork from the Blackfeet, from Nez Perce, from Flathead, from Lakota, from Choctaw, etc.. There's lot's to learn to distinguish! Museum of Plains Indian, Cody Wyoming.
Our Arapaho friend is in the background. Notice the magnificent breastplate of this warrior, a Sioux (Lakota). He's holding a lance bow, something to throw at things as well as shoot with -- deadly, but not as distance-deadly as the carbines of the cavalry. Everything here is circa 1890s, which explains the low protective light. In the contemporary section of the museum, the lights are bright indeed.
Related content in postcards, below:
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Last modified date: 8 November 1997. Under a copyright, yes, but if you'd like to borrow something, ask me. -- Marek.