indigenous people's day 2010 - part 1

a year ago this weekend, indigenous people's day, yote, step and i formed what we called "no reservation required crew."  why?  because you don't need a reservation to see the work along the roadside and 2, do we really need reservations?  we pasted black mesa juntion first with lula + minne.  yote did the cornstalks and the ravens (which even a few of the locals thought were real).

that was on a saturday.  on sunday we did the abandoned house at bitter springs.  i'd been attracted to this house because of it's tall, flat, brick chimney.  at 14 feet, it offered one of the few chances to "go big" on the rez.  


step, yote and i were all gathered at my house.  yote and i finished cutting out pieces for the day's installation.   step helped me make the wheat paste while that was happening.  over the course of the morning it'd become really, really windy.  since the site where we were going was about 85 to 90 miles away, i didn't want to drive all the way over there to have it be too windy.  we'd had big problems the day before getting lula on her horse up.  the wind ripped her head from her body.  (this was before i realized it was far easier to unroll the paper down the wall rather than trying to put up a big, long sheet that becomes a sail.)


i'd about talked everybody out of not going when step said she thought we should do it. the house is in a valley and might be totally blocked from the wind.  the car shook violently from the wind as we left inscription house.  an hour later and 15 minutes later, late in the afternoon, we arrived to absolutely no wind at all.  we couldn't believe it and didn't talk about the fact that there was no wind because we didn't want to jinx it.


i was a little worried about putting hosteen hank up in 2 pieces.  this was one of the few big, multipart pieces i'd done.  i hadn't yet discovered registry marks.  anyway, we got it and had a great time doing it.  i'd brought a solar light to install over the chimney to provide some illumination to the ché but had decided it was too late, the sun was setting quickly so i'd do it another time.  step and yote talked me into getting it up.  


the video of that installation with the light coming on at the end summarizes my weekend with yote and step.  we'd had an incredible weekend making art together and we were loving what we were seeing and creating.  it was perfection.

on monday, we hit the tanks at gray mountain.  over the course of that weekend, we had a lot of good interactions with people and we loved it.  exhausted, i took them out to eat at cameron trading post.  

then, well after dark, step and i snuck into the tuba city fair grounds as workers were preparing the carnival rides for the fair the following weekend.  we put the horseless brocho rider on the rodeo grounds ticket booth with one of yote's ravens.  that was a nice little mash up.