Visitation (2021)

Dressed in handmade paper, acrylic, porcupine quills, deer lace, and pigments, these vessels are adorned with Lakota motifs of power, and are extensions of something familiar. They contain an unseen force that is the essence of feminine vitality, like roots they are stable, yet like bodies they move.

Visitation is the interaction between my current work and a beaded Lakota dress, which was removed by me from its archival confinement within the Roswell Museum and Art Center. I see this dress as a relative, a story, stitched, and braided with intention. Every bead and every fringe is full of energy, similar to the vessels within this installation. By holding this sacred space, for both my work and the dress, I am engaging in reciprocity and continuity which are acts of making medicine.

A letter to the dress:

Takúye,

Thank you for being here, I know it's been a long time since you've been home and with relatives. There is so much I need to tell you and much more I need to remind you. Many of our young people are reviving the Lakhota language in our homelands and our womxn ceremonies are being held again. I brought you here because I know you need to be fed. When I first saw you I thought about how much someone misses you, how you're meant to be danced in, moved around, to feel alive. You don’t belong here but the worst part is they don’t even know who you belong to.

Takúya, please remember that you are not from the past, you are current and rooted in generations of knowledge. Your fringe hangs tight to stories, tribal history, cosmology, our people and me. You continue to ground me in a time when I needed you most. Your lanes of beads resemble more than a shift in our existence, they are a testament to our resilience. Dancing is like making thunder and like thunder there is a storm coming.