Native Cartography.

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I have long coveted this map, but like many coveted things, it’s out of my budgetary reach. Aaron Carapella (Cherokee) is still making Indigenous based maps, the latest a pre-contact map of South America’s Indigenous peoples.

A new pre-contact map by Aaron Carapella promises to be the most comprehensive snapshot of South America’s Indigenous Peoples.

Carapella, the 36-year-old architect behind a growing collection of Tribal Nations maps, in October released a map depicting 720 tribes of South America in their original locations and identified by their traditional names. Where possible, the rising cartographer also included historic photos of people or places.

“I focused on traditional homelands, or where the tribes were when the Portuguese or English or French came and took over,” Carapella said. “I tried to put the tribes where they were before they were shifted around and merged with other tribes, and I used their traditional names—the names they called themselves before European contact.”

The latest installment marks completion of Carapella’s plan to map the entire western hemisphere, a project that started about two decades ago. Carapella, who is of Cherokee descent, was a teenager exploring his own heritage in Oklahoma and wanted a map of tribes that he could hang on his bedroom wall.

When he couldn’t find anything comprehensive, he decided to make his own. He spent 14 years and visited 250 tribal communities as he researched and created his first Tribal Nations map. Released in 2012, the map depicts traditional names and locations of 590 tribes in the United States.

From there, Carapella expanded beyond the “artificial borders” and mapped Canada, Alaska, Mexico and Central America. He also offers a map of the entire North American continent identifying more than 1,000 tribes and absent any lines drawn between states or countries.

His map of South America also shows tribal nations without political borders. From the Wayuu on the northern tip of the continent to the Manek’enk on the bottom of Cape Horn, Carapella mapped as many tribes as he could in their original locations.

That, in itself, proved more difficult than Carapella imagined. Some tribes have lived on the same land since time immemorial while others were relocated, confined to reservations or combined with other tribes.

“It’s hard to find a map or anything that pinpoints where these people were actually from,” Carapella said. “The Europeans didn’t stop to make maps of where people were. That wasn’t their goal.”

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You can read and see more here. You can read about Aaron’s first map, the 1490 Turtle Island, here. Aaron’s website: http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/.

Angela Sterritt.

Gitxan artist and CBC journalist Angela Sterritt spent five days in China creating this mural. (Angela Sterritt).

Gitxan artist and CBC journalist Angela Sterritt spent five days in China creating this mural. (Angela Sterritt).

A Gitxsan artist from British Columbia is among several artists from around the world chosen to create murals at a mountain village resort in China.

“To be able to put Gitxsan people on the map and shed light on the reality and history of Indigenous people in Canada is something I am very grateful for,” Sterritt said.

Angela Sterritt, who is also an award-winning journalist, spent five days painting her mural on a 10-seven-foot wall in a resort on Mount Longhu in Jiangxi, a province in southeast China.

She travelled to China at the invitation of Karl Schutz, a German-born Vancouver man known for establishing an acclaimed series of murals in Chemainus, B.C., in the 1980s.

Schutz, in turn, was invited to organize the mural project by Steven Liu, a well-known Chinese entertainer, who “wanted to create a global mural attraction in his artisan village,” according to Schutz.

“I found Angela’s website on line and was amazed about her powerful art … her painting is awe inspiring,” said Schutz.

Sterritt made the journey with her young son, Namawan, who also helped with the project.

The mural Sterritt painted is a re-creation of one of her existing works, called First Contact, which she says is about the resilience and strength of Indigenous women. It is a striking image is of an Indigenous woman facing the viewer, while helicopters hover behind.

“It depicts a woman whose connection and love for her community, family, the land and her culture eclipse fear instilled in us at the time of first contact,” Sterritt said.

“As a Gitxsan woman, I’ve been gifted Sip’ xw hligetdin — the strength to speak out — through my art and as a journalist. This piece speaks to Indigenous women rising from the ashes [using] what has been within her all along — her culture, in this case from the Wolf Clan, an Owl Crest and a Big Raven House.”

The full story is here. Angela Sterritt’s site.

Shaun Tan.

Shaun Tan, photographed at the Illustration Cupboard gallery in London in June with the Fox, one of the characters from his new book

Shaun Tan, photographed at the Illustration Cupboard gallery in London in June with the Fox, one of the characters from his new book.

Shaun Tan, the latest artist to give form to these German folk stories collected in the early 19th ­century, is not one to shy away from difficult subject matter. Even so, the ferocity of the Grimms’ tales did give him pause. Take “Hansel and Gretel”, one of the first that Tan reread four years ago as he considered whether to take on the job of illustrating them.

“It’s pure nightmare fodder,” says the Australian writer, artist and film-maker. “Starvation, abandonment, abduction, cannibalism, psychological torture and subsequent oven-based revenge: sweet dreams, little ones! But it’s also my favourite tale. The leaving of stones and breadcrumbs, the house made of cake and bread and sugar — the imagery is so strange and beautiful.”

You can see why Tan, a master of beauty and strangeness in his own right, decided to go ahead. Over the course of his two-decade career, the 42-year-old from Perth has established himself as one of the world’s most important children’s authors. This status was capped in 2011 when he won the SKr5m (£450,000) Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the richest and most prestigious in the field of children’s and young-adult literature. Yet even the most cursory glance through Tan’s densely wrought, often highly political illustrated books is enough to dispel the notion that they are for children alone. Tan himself insists that he does not have a particular audience in mind as he works, preferring to think of what younger and older readers have in common than what sets them apart.

‘Harbour’, from Tan’s graphic novel ‘The Arrival’, 2006.

‘Harbour’, from Tan’s graphic novel ‘The Arrival’, 2006.

In the book that made his name, The Rabbits (1998), Tan collaborated with the novelist John Marsden to produce a fable of colonisation rich in retro-futuristic imagery and references to Australian history. His first solo project, 2000’s The Lost Thing, was a tale about a boy and a forlorn crab-machine figure that could also be read as a critique of “economic rationalism”. It would later be adapted by Tan and Andrew Ruhemann into a film that won an Oscar for best animated short in 2011. The Red Tree (2001), a powerful and ultimately hopeful meditation on childhood depression, has inspired musical and theatrical productions and even been used as a resource by professional therapists.

But it is for The Arrival (2006), a wordless graphic novel focusing on the struggles of refugees to remake their lives in unfamiliar, confronting ­surroundings, that he is best known. Drawing on research into Ellis Island and mass European immigration to the US, Tan’s hand-drawn sepia frames evoke family photo albums and, at first, locate us in an early-20th-century world that we feel we know. Yet the destination country is also a place of fantastical animals, indecipherable script and flying boats, to which freshly admitted immigrants are delivered in capsules suspended from balloons. The fantasy is disorientating, capturing the texture of the migrant experience in ways that straightforward realism never could.

FT Magazine has a wonderful in-depth article and interview with Shaun Tan: How Shaun Tan transformed children’s literature. I’ll just add that I think Shaun Tan’s books are by no means limited to children, wonderful stuff.

Doing what I hate, with love.

As I mentioned earlier, the tree quilt is resting in the cedar chest for a bit, as I have a few other things I must get done. Things which mean figuring out the math, measuring, cutting, and ironing. All things I hate. Some of that is done for now, and I’m onto a teeny tiny blanket stitch done with quilting thread, and love. Lots of love.

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© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Marvel Does Star Wars.

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This was a very steady week for comics, as DC Comics continues to roll out their Rebirth-branded books and Marvel’s midway through Civil War II. Around the edges of both of those events hide great little comics, and though they’re not included on this week’s roundup, readers looking for big action and want to clue into the big tentpole events should check out DC’s Action Comics #962 (that’s a Superman comic) and Marvel’s Captain Marvel #8. This week in the roundup: Star Wars; a New York-centric indie comic; a tech-obsessed reintroduction to a great DC hero; and a wonderfully weird anthology.

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Cover for Star Wars #22. Cover illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. Photo courtesy of Marvel Comics.

This Star Wars comic series from Marvel attempts to fill in the gaps between the original trilogy and today’s films. At this point, the events of A New Hope have already taken place, and readers get to see Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and a few new characters continue to stick it to the empire. It’s interesting to read a Star Wars adventure in as short a burst as a comic book, but the pacing is perfect, and the character interactions all feel true to the series. This issue sees the heroes trying to attack an imperial star destroyer, and it feels classically hopeless for the protagonists. This Star Wars series is recommended reading for anyone feeling like they need their SW fix.

Also covered by The Creators Project: Beef With Tomato, Blue Beetle Rebirth #1, and Island 10.

Ruh-Roh! Scooby Apocalypse!

Panel selection from Scooby-Doo Apocalypse #4. Illustrated by Howard Porter with colors by Hi-Fi. Screencap via the author.

Panel selection from Scooby-Doo Apocalypse #4. Illustrated by Howard Porter with colors by Hi-Fi. Screencap via the author.

The big news in comics this week is the leak that Disney Channel star Zendaya may be cast as the role of Spider-Man’s long-time love interest, Mary Jane Watson, in an upcoming reboot. And, in the most pathetic corners of Twitter, comic nerds are crying out because “Mary Jane can’t be black.” This is the worst of what comic/nerd/fandom culture can be, and anytime some “controversy” like this crops up, it makes one want to drop their trade paperbacks, shelve their video game systems, and run for the hills. For all the work that Marvel’s doing to amp up its diversity and push toward inclusion, there’s still, culturally, in a big-picture sense, a very long way to go. But it has to start at the top, and casting Zendaya in this role is another good, smart, bold step in the right direction.

As for this week in comic books, the best are strangely about horror, possession, apocalyptic stories…and Scooby-Doo.

Cover for Scooby Apocalypse #4. Cover illustrated by Jim Lee with Alex Sinclair. Photo courtesy DC Comics.

Cover for Scooby Apocalypse #4. Cover illustrated by Jim Lee with Alex Sinclair. Photo courtesy DC Comics.

How’s this for a premise? Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred all live in the near-future where a plague of nanobots have turned humans into bloodthirsty creatures inspired by classic movie monsters. In this verison of Scooby-Doo, Scoob can talk because he’s a cybernetically enhanced “Smart Dog,” Daphne and Fred are kickass documentarians that can handle huge rifles, Velma’s a super-scientist, and Shaggy has a twirly moustache. This issue sees the crew learning to work together as they’re chased from point to point. Dialogue heavy, this comic should please fans of Scooby-Doo and The Walking Dead.

Oh, I must have these. Why yes, I love Scoobert. Sparrow and Crowe: The Demoniac of Los Angeles #1, Broken Moon: Legends of the Deep #1, B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #144 (from the pages of Hellboy) are also covered at The Creators Project, and they all look grand!

Beauty of Horsehair.

Kestrel sent some more photos of her work, and they are just stunning. When I saw the first photo, all I had was “Oh, Wow.” Beautiful indeed. It’s been many years since I kept horses, but if I still did, I’d definitely have one of these made. Click for full size!

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Sometimes when I am working hair it strikes me as so beautiful I have to stop and take a photo. People don’t realize the beauty or the character of horsehair because they don’t see it the way I do. 25-strand double flat braid in horsehair. It looks like there are 4 different colors but the hair is from only 2 horses. At the roots where the hair emerges, it is generally darker (or in the case of white hair, really really white), and out in the brush of the tail where the sun shines on it and it can be stained by plants, it can be lighter, or, in the case of white hair it can actually be darker!

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The finished bracelet from the top, where you can see the section I photographed above on the left of the photo, and it’s also easier to see the slightly darker white from the brush of the tail.

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The other side of the bracelet. For the owner of these horses, this will be a cherished memento of two friends.

© Kestrel, all rights reserved.

How Freedom Shaped Ukrainian Art.

Silencing The Cacophony, 2015, Yulia Pinkusevich. Acrylic, spray paint, oil, vinyl, marker on linen. 69 x 161 inches. Photos courtesy of the artist.

Silencing The Cacophony, 2015, Yulia Pinkusevich. Acrylic, spray paint, oil, vinyl, marker on linen. 69 x 161 inches. Photos courtesy of the artist. (Click for full size, this is stunning.)

With Reality Check, exhibition curator and SAIC lecturer Adrienne Kochman seeks to explore the effect a quarter century of Ukrainian independence has had on artists both from the country and its wider diaspora. On display at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, of course) in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian independence, the works, including sculptures, paintings, and installations, demonstrate the dramatic impact of the nation’s sovereignty on the work of both its native born and émigré artist communities.

The immigrants who fled the Soviet Union were for the most part prohibited from returning to their home country. In their new homes, many were raised in communities that “worked very actively to keep Ukrainian culture and tradition alive,” Kochman says. “Including language, schooling, music, a lot of really cultural endeavors. Because those were the aspects of Ukrainian culture that were Sovietized and Russified, were forcibly changed.”

Communication with Ukraine was tightly policed; this, in combination with the vibrant but insular Ukrainian communities the immigrants raised in, created for artists a strong sense of place for a place they had never been.

“They had certain ideas about what is was like in Ukraine,” Kochman, whose mother was a Cold War Ukrainian immigrant, says. “Virtually immediately, [they] went to Ukraine once independence was declared, and wanted to witness it themselves. They were interested in different aspects of Ukrainian culture and what has changed, and maybe what was retained. It really was a reality check, which is why I named the exhibition the way I did, because you are testing your belief system. You are trying to ascertain, is it accurate? Has it changed? How do I reconnect to this culture that I’m very attached to, that kind of feels like home, but you never stepped on the land, because you couldn’t?”

Bear (T)hugs, 2015, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak. Felted bear, 5 painted wooden nesting dolls. 10 x 14 x 6 inches.

Bear (T)hugs, 2015, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak. Felted bear, 5 painted wooden nesting dolls. 10 x 14 x 6 inches.

Émigré artists created works related to what they found when their idea of Ukraine met the real thing, incorporating traditional aspects of Ukrainian culture and addressing the impact of Russia and the Soviet Union. Cleveland-born Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s Bear (T)hugs features a plush bear—symbol of Russia—holding nesting dolls of Putin, Stalin, Lenin, Rasputin, and vermin, while her In The Nests series use animals to explore socio-political and economic themes, for example a baby bird being fed a Russian coin. New Jersey native Natalka Husar’s paintings of Ukrainian men dressing like Russian gangsters calls to question identity, both culturally, politically, and as it pertains to masculine gender roles.

The opening of borders and communication worked both ways, however. “The artists from Ukraine were interested in branching out into styles or developments that were developing in the West, and have gone with that in their careers,” Kochman says.

[…]

The 25th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence is a tense one; Reality Check is opening in a world wherein a great swath of the country have been invaded, and the dormant sabres of the Cold War are beginning to rattle again. Signs in the windows of the Ukrainian businesses around the UIMA, blue and yellow and declaring a stand for a united and free country, are a reminder of how fragile the freedom that inspired Reality Check can be; the art itself, a reminder of how important it is.

Full story and more artworks at The Creators Project. I really wish I could see these works in person, they are all amazing, beautiful pieces that tell an eloquent story.

Breaking Up Boredom.

Having a large area to fill can get very tedious and boring. You can always go the distraction route, by putting a movie on or playing an audio book. Audio books don’t work for me, I find them annoying. Movies are fine, but they either need to be ones you have seen 5,000 times and pretty much know by heart, or a bad movie that won’t engage your attention much. A good movie you don’t know or know well will slow you way down. If I do movies, I do the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. They basically provide background distraction, and are a good way to time yourself, as each movie is around 80 minutes. There are other little things you can do, even if you are working to a pattern. If there’s a large area, break it up with various shapes. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a nice, subtle pattern, which is especially nice in large areas done in one colour. You can also take a couple of seconds to randomly doodle, which gives you a goal (one doodle covered, two doodles covered, etc.) and can make the stitching area seem less formidable.

Current Hours: 1,029. Skeins Used: 149. Click for full size.

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© C. Ford, all rights reserved.