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BISON
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Buffalo Skull, Scythe, Leather, Wire and India ink
2005-2007
A single prototype assemblage was exhibited at Wartburg College in January 2005. The expanded installation was exhibited at the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art in June 2007 and the Nevada Museum of Art, January 2009
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Badlands
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In the summer of 1995, my wife Kathy and I drove from Northern California to South Dakota to make our second exploration of Badlands National Monument. Our plan was to retrace the footsteps of our first trip. We left the Sage Creek primitive camp and backpacked eight miles across the short grass prairie into the formations. We carried four days worth of water because the water there is not potable due to heavy metals. Approximately six miles into our approach, we came across a scattering of buffalo bones. About twenty feet away I could make out a horn sticking up in the grass where I discovered a perfect skull.
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That same day, I imagined an idea for a sculpture. In my mind, I saw an actual buffalo skull that had been shaded with gradations of black India ink. The markings shaded out from the natural fissures of the skull and they reminded me of a Maori tattoo. Protruding from the back of the skull was an old hay cutting scythe. The arched handle of the scythe suggested the humped back of the bison. The hand grips suggested ribs and the blade evoked a twitching tail. The assemblage hung from a ceiling from a filament. This idea burned into my imagination and I knew that I would execute it someday.
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When we left Badlands, we drove to Southwest Iowa to visit my grandparents. While going through a musty shed on their farm, I found a scythe that my grandfather had used as a young man. I made sure to preserve the decal on the blade that said, “Little Giant.”
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The First Sculpture
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In 1997, I met a buffalo rancher named Ed Eichten at the Minnesota state fair. He said he would sell me a skull and gave me his card. When I finally called him in 2003, he said that it would cost $150.00 if he cleaned it and $40.00 if I cleaned it. I ordered the $40.00 skull. When it arrived, I set it out in the yard for the sun, rain and insects to work on it for the summer. The time came for me to mechanically finish the cleaning. This was the first time I closely examined the skull. It appeared that the back of the skull was badly broken up on one side. I guessed correctly that the rancher had dispatched the buffalo with a gun shot behind the ear. Though initially startled, I knew that this detail was meaningful to the subliminal themes of the sculpture.
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I exhibited this work at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa in January 2005. Seeing it installed led me to recognize a more adventurous possibility. I visualized an installation of twenty of these works to hang in a cluster. They would hang just at or above head level, all facing the same direction in a subtle, sweeping arc to evoke a passing of spirits. One unanticipated effect of this piece at my Wartburg exhibit was how the shadows activated the atmosphere of the space.
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It was at this point that I contacted Darrell Taylor, Director of the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art. We met at a local coffee shop where we discussed my expanded project. On March 21, 2006, I received a letter officially notifying me that the exhibit, “Echoes and Apparitions” was scheduled.
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Eichten’s Farm
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In March 2006, I located and purchased twenty antique hay cutting scythes from Chuck Kunstorf in Newhall, Iowa. On August 17, 2006, Reece Peterson and I drove to Ed Eichten’s Bison Farm in Center City, Minnesota to procure twenty Bison Skulls. Upon our arrival, we discovered that Ed Eichten was more interesting than I had anticipated. Ed is a former St. Paul police officer and sheriff’s deputy that takes hunting trips to Texas for Javelina and Alaska for Bear. In addition to the Bison operation, there is a cheese factory and a restaurant.
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When Reece and I arrived, Ed was working on a tractor with a helper. He took us to a barn that had Bison pelts scattered on the bare dirt at the entrance. Inside, my skulls were stored under a piece of carpet. Ed then told us about Bison behavior and how he dispatches them with a High Power Rifle from Thirty to Forty feet away. He took us to see his bone pile of approximately thirty Bison heads in various stages of decomposition. I wish I had taken a photo but I doubt many people would want to see a picture like that.
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Because of the steep deadline for my exhibit, I did not have time to clean twenty skulls. I spent the extra money for Ed to have them cleaned by a gentleman that lived in Red Lake, Minnesota. I appreciate what a big job this was. However, clearly the cleaning was rushed and not thorough. When I got the skulls home to my studio in Iowa, I was overwhelmed by the concentrated atmosphere of decomposing biological matter. In fact, it drove me out of the shop.
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I moved the skulls into my backyard to expose them to the elements. I had to carefully examine, scrape and clean all twenty skulls. As aggravating as this was, it forced me to undertake an interesting intervention. After thoroughly re-cleaning, I set them on a rack to be smudged with Sage incense. I made smudge sticks out of our native prairie sage (Mugwort) and White Sage that I harvested in Southern California. After the skulls were bathed in Sage smoke, I stuffed the cavities with fresh White Sage for the winter
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Collective Memory
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What does this work mean to me personally? It is affecting me on a number of levels. The primary theme is the Bison’s relationship to the ecological transformation of the North American continent. I am mindful that the transformation of tall grass prairie to farmland would not have been possible without a darker chapter in our nation’s history. The wholesale and wasteful slaughter of the Bison to near extinction was a premeditated genocide of Native American culture. We have to remember that as of this writing, this chapter was not much longer than one hundred years ago, just over a single persons lifetime.
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On a much more intrinsic level, I realized early on that I had stumbled upon an archaic symbol of global relevance. The earliest artists among the Paleolithic peoples depicted the Bison in the caves of Chavet and Lascaux. These sites and others in Western Europe provide a socio-ecological thread linking the first peoples of distant continents. I have a distinct sense that I am exploring a deep collective memory.
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