Good Medicine: A Collection of Healing Forces

“Food is medicine and the three sisters of corn, beans, and squash are indicative of that. The plants thrive when they are cultivated together in this form of companion planting; with the corn serving as a base from which the others flourish and nourish one another. I used elements of the plants to represent the dresses and our connectedness to the earth while also referencing an idea I had once while drawing a corn husk doll. The facial features are very minimal because I invite my viewer to see who they want to see.”

The fan is used in all aspects of healing. To direct the smoke when we smudge, to fan the flames during the sweat, to salute the creator during the women’s jingle dress healing dance; and so on. The fan is ever present in the healing circle of our lives.

The sap from pine trees is medicine that lives within the needles. Even though the basket is empty, it is full of medicine. Made from coiled pine needles, in essence the basket itself is medicine, offering healing to all who encounter it.

I think of the spiral of life as the center of our being. Moving from the center throughout life on the spiral with healing, growing and abundant life.

Crane Plague Doctors Mask and Doctors Bag of Healing

This piece is dedicated to my great grandmother and her sisters who were the community doctors and used herbs and medicines they collected from Michigan woods and forests. These medicines also included good thoughts as they worked on those they were assisting in a healing process. The words written on the inside lid of the suitcase are words to live with and by for a better world and tomorrow. The hands on the cape represent our missing and murdered Indigenous Men and Women and Native Children who were taken to boarding schools and never made it home. May we acknowledge truths and begin a healing process good for all.

Breathe (Front)

This word is something not to be taken for granted. For some it is never thought of, just something that we all do each day. For some it is a privilege, and the right to breathe is used as a weapon against them, for some it is a right to breathe on whoever and whatever they wish, no matter the consequences it may have on others. No matter how you view this inherent right to Breathe, remember it is everyone’s right to Breathe, and not a privilege nor is it a weapon.

Floral and Fauna (Back right)

This mask shows the beauty of our Michigan environment and the life that depends on it. Breathe in all that is Michigan.

Let Us Heal (Back Left)

This mask is made with the healing properties of copper, which has been proven beneficial to healing, and our black ash – which teaches us to work together and helps to heal our hearts.

My work serves as a cultural narrative, an expression of personal experience, and an exploration of form and function. I use specific materials and designs to connect with my tribal art forms from antiquity while material and content choices embrace the reality of my modern mixed heritage. My designs originate from older traditional sources and combined with beadwork and embroidery techniques create a specific textural and tactile experience necessary for me to explore the relationship between data and knowledge. I use the visual language of color and shape to articulate new observations on politics, history, and identity.

Our hands are powerful. We can heal with our hands by a simple touch. When your hands touch the medicine plants you have doubled the gift of healing. When you go to Mother Earth. You are healed and she is healed. This healing knowledge comes from my Mothers, Mother, Mother from the Haliwa-Saponi  indigenous people

A boy in the woods walks to the edge of a clearing. He simultaneously tramples upon flowers as he blows seeds of hope out into the world. He is a reflection of Hesaketvmese (breath giver/breath taker).This reciprocity is apart of traditional Mvskoke thought. Breath is an essential element in traditional Mvskoke medicine which is administered by a medicine man.  

The Choctaw elbow basket is woven commonly by rivercane outer bark which has two cone-shaped arm-type extensions with a handle for hanging.  It was a useful tool for storing outdoor cooking utensils. Due to its naturally well controlled aeration, the elbow basket was also used by medicine men and healers to dry various herbs, plants and roots which were used to minister to the sick.

Good Medicine is from a new series of creations titled Indigenous Hunting. The idea of practicing the traditional ways of my ancestors like hunting and fishing brings a connection of soul with my tribal heritage. I learned this practice from my grandfather and uncle. My cousin, siblings and I enjoyed the time spent in the field, forest and rivers as our teachers of harvesting wild game. Recently I enjoyed hunting on Kiowa land in Oklahoma with a fellow Seminole, I spent the entire day sitting, watching the sun move over the landscape. Although we did not harvest game that day, my soul was full recalling past hunts, and enjoying the current hunt.