More than just a Native American doll, she is the spirit of motherhood. She sits erect in a richly beaded saddle and looks toward the horizon. The woman’s eyes are clear and and her expression dignified. Her quietly alert infant is secured in a cradle board decorated with colorful beads. The Native American mother wears a scarlet dress covered with elk teeth in the Crow style. They create a fluid pattern that symbolically follows the contours her feminine shape. Her mare, too, wears Crow inspired regalia. The colt follows at the mares right rear leg, and echoes the baby secured to the saddle at it’s mother’s right thigh.
The mare drags a travois on which a son and a daughter sit looking back. The daughter is dressed in a smaller copy of the mother’s dress. The son’s clothing is covered with beads in the same design as the infant’s cradle-board. There appear to be tears in the children’s eyes though their cheeks are dry.
It is a story about looking ahead and about looking back. It is a story about being a mother and the bravery of bringing children into the uncertain future. I thought of my own children, young adults now, and let the universal story sink into my heart.
The storyteller’s art is not limited to pen and ink or even to words. We all speak our truth through whatever medium we find ourselves eloquent in. Rhonda tells her stories through her dolls.
My husband, a Native American art enthusiast who works in glass seed beads, introduced me to the Native American dolls of Rhonda Holy Bear in 2007. Her dolls are haunting. When we learned her work was being displayed with the rest of the Diker collection at the the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. we made plans to be there!
The intimate grand opening culminated in a ribbon cutting ceremony. Several of the artists were there, including Rhonda. I had the rare privilege of seeing in person the beautiful creations I had only ever seen in books. Even more moving, I was able to discuss the work with the artist and learn about her artistic process and her inner spiritual process in conceiving, creating, and letting go of such a dramatic work of story telling art.
Maternal Journey took two years to create. It is a complex, multimedia piece. The horses are carved. The dolls heads are sculpted and the faces are painted. The clothing is sewn. The horses dressed in cut leather work. Most striking of all, is the miniature bead work. It is lavishly and intricately worked over almost every surface of cloth and leather.
In his opening remarks as the ribbon cutting, Charles Diker discussed the importance of Native American doll making. It’s not just a craft. it is a way to the preserve culture. He notes that most artists specialize in one medium. They are painters, sculptors, bead workers, or leather workers. But the doll maker is all these things. “These dolls are a compilation of all the different art forms that the Native American culture has done.” These are faithful renditions of Native American dress and regalia. They are a culture reflected in miniature and documented in tactile form.
The program notes for Maternal Journey:
“Maternal Journey celebrates the cycle of life… it is an homage to the strength and dignity of the plains mother… I depict the maternal theme on multiple levels… The mother and the mare are guiding their young into the future. The twins face backward as they are pulled ahead on the road. They are looking to the past for guidance as they move toward their destiny.” ~Rhonda Holy Bear
The Grand Procession exhibit, including Maternal Journey, will be at the National Museum of the American Indian until January 5, 2014. If you can’t visit the museum, but still want a closer look at this art form, the book Grand Procession by Lois Sherr Dubin contains eloquent descriptions of the Native American dolls, interviews with the artists, and phenomenal photographs by Kiyoshi Togashi depicting every color and bead.
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