Balancing Two Worlds
American Indian artist Stan Natchez upholds tradition while embracing progress
by Katie Winchell
Artist Stan Natchez stands in the lower level of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, his vivid multimedia paintings displayed on the walls behind him. Dressed in an understated gray suit, he talks comfortably with his audience about his artistic visions, the deeper meaning of his underlying themes and the mechanics of his process. Natchez, an artist with high intellect and sardonic wit, is a former art history teacher and magazine editor accustomed to entertaining and challenging his audiences. But today he’s not talking to the art collectors who eagerly purchase his works from Tokyo to Copenhagen; he’s addressing a dozen young descendants of his local tribe, the Tataviam, a name that roughly translates to “people facing the sun.”
“You see this Pepsi bottle cap?” Stan asks, gesturing to the Warholesque painting behind him. “I’m painting the life I live in. Just because we’re Indian, it doesn’t mean we don’t drink Pepsi or have MTV at home. We’re modern. Everybody thinks we live in tipis, but we don’t live in the old times. [In this painting] the Pepsi bottle cap represents the world we live in, and the Indian on the horse represents native culture. It’s really important to keep our culture, because we live in a time of X-box and Nintendo, so it’s easy sometimes to forget that you’re Indian.”
Natchez’s young tribal members look around at his artwork, squirm and ask him questions. “Why do you put dollars on the paintings?” one child wants to know.
“Well,” Natchez explains, “when I paint the dollar bill, I’m saying that the dollar bill is a symbol of the world we live in. When you go to the store, what do you need to buy something? You need money, right? In the 1700s and 1800s Indians painted on deerskin, buffalo or elk hides. And if you wanted something, hides were your money. So the modern-day hide is the dollar bill.”
“If we bought the painting, would we have to give back the dollars or could we keep them?” the girl asks, sparking laughter among the adults present.
The exchange illustrates the challenges faced by the Tataviam and other tribes native to the L.A. area. Once thousands strong, European diseases, land grabs, mission slavery and extermination programs decimated their populations, stole their economic base and destroyed most of their cultures. The Tataviam have yet to reap the benefits of federal recognition by the U.S. government that came way back in 1855. Ongoing legal struggles continue, but a new optimism and cultural renewal is dawning, celebrated in part by Natchez’s ascent in the art world.
Natchez took a circuitous route to successful, full-time artist. His dad, an intellectual, authored a thesis followed by a book on the connections between Jungian and Native American symbolism. Growing up in the Valley, Natchez was a self-described “creative” student who didn’t always stay between the lines at San Fernando High School. Nevertheless, he went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He then taught humanities at the Orme School, an Arizona college preparatory school on a 26,000-acre working ranch, for 10 years. Later, he served as an editor at Native Peoples magazine. All along, he painted, but it was his other education that gave him the spiritual voice that would launch his art career to the next level.
“In the white man’s world, if you want to get education, you go to college,” Natchez explains. “In the Indian way, if you want to get knowledge, you go through ceremonies. I am a California Indian and all our ceremonies are gone. But I was fortunate enough to travel throughout the United States and meet people who lived in tribes that had ceremonies and invited me in.”
For 12 years, Natchez participated in the Sun Dance in South Dakota, a grueling three or four-day ceremony dating back at least 300 years in which dancers circle a tree trunk and pray for spiritual rebirth and earth regeneration.
“Being hooked up to that tree allowed me to examine my own life in a way that I may never have, if I hadn’t gone through those ceremonies,” Natchez says. “Whenever anyone goes through any type of healing, you have to travel through pain and despair. But when you come out the other end, you leave out the anger and bitterness and hatred. I feel I’m really fortunate to be educated in two worlds [and] have that knowledge.”
Natchez’s art is an invigorating storm of influences and icons. Inspired by Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and other Pop artists, his paintings exude the power of color and familiar objects. The artist often starts his canvases with artifacts of American culture that either directly or indirectly reflect Indians: an 1866 Harper’s Weekly cover depicting Native Americans; broken treaties between the U.S. government and tribes; dictionary pages to represent the Tataviam’s lost language. Then he includes figures such as Native Americans, mission priests and cowboys. Intricate “stars and stripes” beadwork add texture to bold works that emanate beauty and joy.
For Natchez, spirituality is intertwined with art. “They’re really one,” he says. “[In] the earliest forms of native art, the people who painted on the hides, painted on the rocks, beaded the moccasins and did the quillwork were the medicine men and women. Even in the old days, they realized it was a great gift to create art because it came from the spiritual world.”
He also stresses that for Native Americans, spirituality infuses every part of life, especially the family. “In the traditional way, the elders teach us that you don’t just live spirituality for a day; you live it every day,” he emphasizes. “I think all spiritual people in the world have that in common. It’s how you treat yourself and your elders and children.”
The kids are getting antsy at Natchez’s feet as he wraps up their discussion. But as a senator in the Tataviam tribe who lives far away in Tempe, Arizona, he has a parting message for them before the art collectors arrive: “Our families have lived here in California for tens of thousands of years,” Natchez says. “There were over 300 Indian languages in California alone. We’re an ancient people here. And today we’re well educated; we’re intellectuals. Don’t be afraid to stand up and say, ‘Hey, I’m Tataviam.’”
Katie Winchell is a freelance writer with a passionate interest in Native American cultures.
