This is the 6th painting in my Native American Tales series. Each one depicts an animal that plays the starring role in a piece of animal folklore. Some stories resonate with strong visual imagery and those are the ones I want to paint. All I could find of this tale was a couple of sentences and no tribe of origin. But the picture that it created in my head was unforgettable. So I adapted and retold the story below, according to my interpretation.
Prints are available. I'm hanging on to the originals for now while I finish out the series.
36"x24"
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In the 1880s Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He traveled all over the country and saw many things, but wearied of the white man’s ways. He went back to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to be with his Hunkpapa people. Before he left the Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill gifted him with his favorite show horse which could do many tricks.
After returning to the Reservation, Sitting Bull became the center of the Ghost Dance movement, which the white men thought was the signal for a great uprising. The Ghost Dance Movement was really a religion of despair. It gave hope to people who had been deprived of their land, their food sources, and their connection to their own ancestry.
On a winter day in 1890 43 Indian police were sent to arrest Sitting Bull for his involvement in the Ghost Dance Movement. When they dragged him out of his teepee a commotion began, and when it was over 15 people lay dead or dying, among them Sitting Bull.
When Sitting Bull’s dancing horse heard the battle, it thought it was back in the circus at the Wild West Show. It began dancing and prancing and raising up on its back legs, bowing and curtsying and doing all of the tricks it had been taught. All who witnessed this thought that the horse was possessed because it danced through a hail of bullets and was never hit. The horse still danced for a while after the massacre ended and until the scene was silent. It had honored its master in the only way it knew.
Native American Legend,Equine Art Painting,Sitting Bull
36"x24" Acrylic on Yupo
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Western Wildlife,Contemporary Bison painting
I’m currently completing a series of 6 paintings based on Native American legends.
This painting is based on the legend: How the Bison Got His Hump. Here’s my retelling:
In the beginning days, the bison didn’t have a hump. He was fast and sleek and ran across the prairie having so much fun that he cared for nothing else. He didn’t notice (or didn’t care about) any small creature that got in his way. He trampled the birds and their fragile nests, he trampled the field mice, and the squirrels, and the foxes, and the rabbits. He crushed the flowers and the tender leaves that fed the prairie creatures. All of the creatures begged him to stay away, but Bison didn’t listen to them. He was having too much fun!
The birds and other small animals cried so loud that Great Mother heard them. She ran ahead of Bison and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself!” She hit him on the back with a stick, and Bison hunched up his shoulders and lowered his big head, to ward off another blow. But Great Mother didn’t hit him again. She said, “From now on you will always have a hump on your back and you will always carry your head low because of your shame.”
So this is why Bison has a hump, and why sometimes you see a happy bird or two on the back of a bison.
36"x24" Acrylic on Yupo//Available
The Original as well as Prints are Available HERE
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This is part of a series of 6 paintings based on Native American legends.
This painting is based on the legend: How the Aurora Borealis Came to Be.
Here’s my retelling:
After the great flood, the planet tipped on its axis, plunging the North into long periods of darkness. In the North there lived a group of people who had been spared from the flood. But when they could no longer see the sun or feel its warmth, they became sad and afraid; cold and hungry.
The Great Mother felt compassion for the People and told them to gather their belongings and walk south, where the sun would shine and provide bounty and warmth. But because there was no light and little food, many of the people perished on the dark, cold journey south.
In a stroke of genius the Great Mother covered the top of the world with mountains and hills made of ice crystals. The ice crystals captured the sun’s rays and reflected them into the black sky and so illuminated the nomads’ path. They could then journey south under the shifting, humming rainbow of light and became the forerunners of many of the great tribes of North America.
But the white bear stayed in the Great North. He stayed because he loved the beauty of the inky darkness, the music of whale song and sea birds, and the deep comfort of solitude.
36"x24"Acrylic on Yupo
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This painting is the 5th painting in a series inspired by Native American legends.
These works bring me back to my illustration roots. I love painting the visual imagery of a colorful narrative.
Native American legends are colorful and full of life and the natural world.
I paint these uniformly: all are the 36x24 and all are painted on Yupo mounted to gatorboard. I love indulging my love of detail and "close work.
The legend that inspired this painting is retold HERE
36"x24"Acrylic on Yupo
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Raven Totem 2, Acrylic on Canvas mounted on Gatorboard, 40x30. This is my second big raven totem painting. I began the first as a way to use up old paint on my palette and scraps of linen that I didn't feel like stretching. I fell in love with allowing myself to paint with more imagination and zero stress. These paintings don't have to look like anything other than what they are. Plus, for me, Raven has powerful magic.
40"x30"x1.5 Acrylic on Canvas /Available
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