Palo Duro Canyon, 1993, acrylic, ink, charcoal, cloth on paper, 57" x 38"
The Blizzard (Wounded Knee), 1994, acrylic, charcoal on paper, 38" x 44"
Sun Dance, 1993, acrylic, charcoal, cloth on paper, 67" x 45"
Spirit Line, 1994, acrylic, charcoal, oil pastel on paper, 50" x 38'
The Long Walk, 1993, acrylic, charcoal, cloth on paper, 77' x 36'
Ghost Dance, 1993, acrylic, oil stick, charcoal, cloth on paper, 96' x 48"
Trail of Tears, 1993, acrylic, ink, charcoal, cloth on paper, 30' x 50"
Sand Creek, 1993, acrylic, charcoal, oil stick, cloth on paper, 65" x 38"
Manifest Destiny Series Artist Statement
In 1993 I traveled through Arizona’s canyons with a Navajo guide. He shared his love of the pictographs and petroglyphs and I marveled at their similarity to goddess art of the Neolithic and Paleolithic eras of Old Europe. Continuing on to Montana we were guided through the mysterious glacial forests by a Blackfoot. He spoke of the wind by describing its height and width, its pace through the branches, its weight upon the landscape.
At night I read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I returned home with a gift of a buffalo skull and pelvis. A single line of Dee Brown’s recounting of history was often sufficient to inspire a complete painting. The buffalo skull and pelvis became my visual metaphor for the Native Peoples of the Land, and the American flag the metaphor for white man and the US government.
At night I read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I returned home with a gift of a buffalo skull and pelvis. A single line of Dee Brown’s recounting of history was often sufficient to inspire a complete painting. The buffalo skull and pelvis became my visual metaphor for the Native Peoples of the Land, and the American flag the metaphor for white man and the US government.
When Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of America there were between nine and eighteen million Indians inhabiting the land. Studying American government documents I learned of the US policy Manifest Destiny. This policy was a genocide of a scale and scope without parallel in recorded history. The American government also called for the extermination of the buffalo and outlawed native spiritual expression of the Sun Dance and Ghost Dance.
This series is my personal response to white man’s dealings with the native people. These paintings are gifted to the Native Peoples of North America who suffered these injustices.
“Whether it happened or not I do not know; but if you think about it you can see that it is true.” Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
Sally Linder
1994
1994