INA SUNFLOWER KACHINA
Wado/Thank you for viewing! Hope you enjoy my work and the stories/meanings that come with them! Just click the "More" button for descriptions and close ups!
the plant people
2018 | Maidu Museum Roseville
mitakuye oyasin
2020 | #Ssart Challenge Shingle Springs Band Of Miwok Indians
we are here
2021 | Illustration
mother
2018 | Illustration
gratitude
2020 | Crocker Art Museum
honoring
2020 | Crocker Art Museum
selflessness
2020 | Crocker Art Museum
protector's
2020 | Crocker Art Museum
sacred fire's
2021 Art's and Culture Gallery
the plant people
"Our First Mothers" is my illustrated series representation of the teachings of the medicine wheel, whether it's from us two-leggeds or from higher otherworldly beings like Kachinas, who share the Beauty Way so that we may walk in our ancestors' footsteps and pass down our heritage from generation to generation. It shows how sacred simple lessons are and how they make us proud to be those who walk in the footsteps of our First Nation people, and to honor the sacredness of our creatures and Great Mother who nurtures us in the process, and what they teach us and have taught us for centuries to come.We as Indigenous people carry a heavy weight of our history, and the Crossroads that guide us in this life and in the spirit world teach us not to treat our heritage as a burden or a forgotten time. Our loved ones are still guiding us, our higher beings are still watching us, and the Creator has never forgotten us. I believe it's important for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to understand that we are still here and we will be heard. The Ina Sunflower Kachinas are bright Kachinas; they mother us and remind our young ones to grow up proud and accepted. To enjoy their teachings in their youth, for when they transition to lessons as young adults, as well as to share these lessons with the ones after. It's a cycle of sacred Medicine that has carried on before us and will after us. We walk in beauty as warriors and caretakers, as we always have since the beginning.
mitakuye oyasin
"Mitakuye Oyasin" which means "All my relations" in Diné (Lakota/Sioux) and Obijway. This drawing / Typography is my message and contribution for Mother Earth!
All my Relations or Mitakuye-Oyasin (pronounced mi-TAHK-wee-a-say or Mee-tah-koo-yay Oy-yah-seen) means We are all related or All are related. That means to Each other, The Plant People, The Standing people, Our Creature Teachers, the Creator, the stars, and of course Mother Earth.
My drawing includes a Sunflower And a Snake which represents how Delicate Mother earth is, but the more she is mistreated the more she will bite back.
I also Included my Ina Sunflower Kachina's which once again represents, The Plant People, The Creature Teachers and The Two Legged's.
The flicker represents Happiness and Healing for Everyone and Everything, and he is Sharing/Gifting his Happiness and healing to her as a sign of taking care of our generation and next ones to come.
I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful Earth day, WAH-DOH/Thank you!
we are here
Honoring the lost ones who were brutalized, abandoned and forgotten by their abusers. But not by us. Our ancestors, Old and Young will always be remembered and embraced for the footsteps they left us to follow in. The Medicine will carry on no matter the hardships and dictatorships thrown to block our voices from being heard, and standing together to honor each other and respecting the lost ones who once roamed these lands and that they now Dance, Sing, Thrive and watch over us from the spirit world. My heart throbs for the mistreatment of our ancestors children, and its because of their sacrifice and endearment of abuse we stand here today and Right what was Wrong so long ago and fight the continuous battle to keep our rights, put languages and to continue taking care of this land as we have for generations. Our younger generation is so incredibly important and that they grow up in the environments they deserve. This piece today, is to honor the lost children who were taken, abused, and buried underneath schools to hide the corruption the masses try to always cover up for the sake of being power-corrupted and using religion as an excuse to continue to harm others and take what wasn't theirs in the first place.
This drawing is surrounding around the west shield of the Medicine Wheel, the color of the direction is black which represents the Void where the answers live within the dark cave of the Bear.
She here is taking the children to the spirit world as they transform into her cubs as the people below pray and honor the children's long at lost found bodies. Each feather represents a child lost, and the Medicine burns into Father sky to keep the children warm and accompanied as they make their way to the Spiritworld. The youngest Ina Sunflower Kachina hands over her Medicine to the children spirits who aren't afraid of her presence as the crows help her make them comfortable before living alongside them. The infant represents the lost Children, and the current Children. It is the breath of the generation and the Heartlines of Mitakuye Oyasin (All my Relations, We are all Related).
This piece was drawn to honor the lost spirits and to pray for their journeys to the spirit world and to honor the families and elders who survived their abusers and continue on to this day.
It is my way to thank you for carrying our heritage, language, traditions and voices and giving the generation's like mine and yet to come the Teachings of the Medicine Wheel and the sacrifices you made to carry us on as a nation and continue to live and teach our ways to this day.
Thank you./Wado.
mother
This Piece never had a description as for it was a gift to the Sacramento Native American Health Center (SNACH) and it's incredible staff after allowing me to participate in their grief classes.
gratitude
Gratitude
As the Ina Sunflower Kachina's did their best to raise the children with their own teachings, the children were still human. They did their best to give them lessons everyday about something new and about respect to all living creatures and Plant people, and of course Mother Earth. it is something I believe that should continuously be taught today as a common courtesy and co-existing with one another, compassionately and respectfully.
Indigenous People's put gratitude into their daily lives, Indigenous peoples say Thank-You for everything in nature, from the stars in the sky to the ground upon which they walk, from their families to their ancestors, from their Creator to their fellow two-legged's. The Ina Sunflower Kachina's would always keep their distance with the Two-legged's to avoid conflict or danger but our Kachina here loved two-legged's and children especially, she would observe from afar and she now used that knowledge to give the children proper teachings to this day. She is the youngest of the three Kachina's.
honoring
Honoring
The next step of teachings would be about honoring, the second eldest sister would teach the children about Honoring one another and the life around them. From honoring the four-legged's for sharing this land peacefully and having a mutual respect and unconditional love for the two-legged's around them to honoring the the plant people for helping nurture and heal them from their wounds. But after the Ina Sunflower Kachina would teach them about honoring the good in everything, she then taught them a very important lesson about honoring the "Bad".
Once again, this was about honoring the good and respecting the bad. There is no "Good and Evil" but two boundaries with opposite intentions and opinions, and of course one could do more harm than the other. She would teach them this with the hope they would understand that just because you can respect something or someone it doesn't mean you should join them or bring it upon yourself to try and bend it to your benefit. There's a time to stop wrong intentions/doings and when to respectfully back away and move on.
selflessness
Selflessness
The eldest Ina Sunflower Kachina's job was to make sure the children didn't get into trouble. You see, she was better with four-legged's than she was with two-legged's. She was the most serious out of the three but she had the best stories to tell every night to the others about her adventures and the things she's learned. She would combine the last two teachings about gratitude and honoring into protecting not only just yourself but the others around you and the innocent who do not have the capability to protect themselves. There was a big difference between being Selfless and Selfish. She would explain that mother Earth,Grandmother sky and Grandmother moon watched over all the creatures below. And that we all have a responsibility, the children would have to pass these teachings onto the new generations after them and continue the Red Road ahead of them. It was their job to protect the innocent and the Four-legged's and the Plant people, just like the Ina Sunflower Kachina's did for them. To respect our Elders and our Children, to Honor our Animals and Plant life and this very Planet we live on, it is a ecosystem and our home and we weren't given this to take advantage of her. It is our job to learn from right and wrong and when to step in and when not to, to protect our people and heritage no matter how much others try to conquer us and our ways. It is our job to carry on and do what our ancestors did and teach the very people who are reading this why we are here and that we were never conquered, we adapted and it is time for Mother Earth to come full circle once more.
protector's
Protectors
The second eldest sibling of the children was quite curious, she would explore and adventure a lot and usually would disappear. The others would look for her but the Ina Sunflower Kachina's explained that sometimes it isn't our right to tell someone or something else what to do and what not to do, because we have to learn on our own in able to have our own experiences. We can cherish both, the good and the bad in our lives and that's what makes us understand the difference. The Kachina's were aware that all the children had their own specialties, just like they did. One day the Girl saw a herd of horses and decided to climb a tree for an apple hanging on a loose branch to offer to one of the horses in hope of making a new friend, but when she reached over she realized there was a familiar yet unfamiliar face staring back at her, a fourth Ina Sunflower Kachina? She was the same as them but she was not related to the sisters. She was younger and less experienced, but the two learned from each other. The girl would teach her what her mothers taught her, and the Kachina's used those as a reference to explain what her purpose was…
Our past loved one's. She could see the spirits of the children's ancestors, the two legged's and all the beings that we can't see. And how we should respect one another even in the after life, it was two worlds. Our world and the Spirit world which had many openings and worlds upon worlds. The girl learned about understanding signs from her ancestors and from the Four-leggeds that could see and hear them, the warnings when to leave and the little things that would remind her she is being watched over and protected. We should all Honor each other in this life and the next, we should be grateful for what we have whether it's big or small. We should respect all living things just as we do ourselves, we should protect the innocent when being wronged and attacked. Indigenous people have taught this for generations and respect comes both ways.
Following the Red Road doesn't determine on your looks and appearances, what does is the heart that beats inside you and the soul you carry. We as a people carry this burden of our ancestors and harness it to humble ourselves despite the hardships and others wrong doings, and we continue our ways with or without the permission of the corrupted two-leggeds we call our government.
sacred fire's
Sacred Fires is a simple piece that took about a week to finish. It features the youngest Ina Sunflower Kachina surrounded by smoke, Flames and Fire spirits.
The drawing itself was inspired by the gallery theme, "After The Burn" and its more of a theoretical meaning than it is an actual forest on fire.
Despite the importance of real burns & forest fires, I wanted to draw something that takes that same sacredness into everyday life.
We As indigenous peoples honor the importance of fire, it's not seen as disastrous or chaos bringer only in certain scenarios when it's caused with the intention of harm by two legged's.Controlled fires are used to maintain overgrown brush, and dangerous plants to keep the ecosystem healthy and consistent.
Indigenous peoples use fire to light our medicine to send our prayers to the spirits and Creator, sometimes to burn our worries and losses.Fires can also be very devastating yet it reminds us of a balance and how it can take what's given, it keeps us grateful for what we have and for the good things get to come. Fire carries its own burdens and grief, then evaporates it all into the sky for the universe to take.
Everything is temporary and change is a constant wheel that turns in four directions.The fire spirits in this drawing look like deer to represent the compassion fire has for the ecosystem and its creatures, because after the burn comes new life and a new start. The Ina Sunflower Kachina represents us as Indigenous People, as cliché as it sounds I like to say we go through our own wildfires in everyday life.
We get burned, and we heal afterwards with emotional scars that braid us as human beings and makes us who we are. Sometimes we set our own priorities on fire to keep other people warm and don't regard our own feelings or health.
Whatever the case is,
Sacred Fires is my representation on how we treat ourselves, each other, all Living Creatures and Mother Earth.