Showing, talking about Native art in Havre

Montana State University-Northern launched its celebration of American Indian Heritage month Monday morning with an art exhibition and panel discussion of Native-themed work from local artists.

The presentation, which took place in Northern's Student Union Building Ballroom marks the start of a series of activities throughout the month highlighting American Indian culture and history. Other activities will movie screenings and several art exhibitions.

The events are being organized by the Office of Diversity Awareness and Multicultural Programs in conjunction with the university's Native American Studies Program.

Four local artists, all but one of whom was Native, participated. They displayed their work and spoke at length about their backgrounds, styles and influences.

"There are so many artists that I think they deserve some space and time," said Christina Estrada-Underwood, director of Diversity Awareness and Multicultural Programs at Northern.

Artists in attendance displayed a variety of crafts: beading, to pencil drawings, painting and sculpting.

Donovan Archambault, an Assiniboine who lives on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, is a teacher at Harlem High School and carves traditional Indian pipes. He was one of the artists on hand.

The long pipes, known to many as peace pipes, have ends cut from stone. A small buffalo, bear or other figures adorn their ends. The wooden stems are made from a range of different wood with beading patterns or painted designs.

Though he remembers his great-grandfather making them, Archambault said it wasn't until he was 62 that he made his first pipe. It was during a trip to New Mexico with his wife that he first got the inspiration, after seeing one that was being sold for $2,000.

"So I told my wife, I can do that. I can make that thing," he said. When he got home he acquired a piece of stone and proceeded to craft his first pipe.

Each year, he imparts his knowledge of fashioning these traditional pipes to students. He said that beyond creating the end product and teaching students about American Indian heritage, it instills in them other values: respect, discipline and patience, that help them excel beyond the classroom.

He tells his students, "When you get done here I want you to take what you have learned here and take it to your next class," said Archambault.

He said that though the project may be demanding at times for students, he has never had a student drop his class.

From the time he was a child, John Murie from Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation said, his passion was art.

"I was always drawing," Murie said.

He remembers those early days, drawing images he found in the pages of comic books and magazines.

As a teenager, he would show off his work at high school art shows. After graduating, he attended the Institute of Indian American Arts in New Mexico. He now teaches art studio classes at Stone Child College.

In his classes, he encourages his student to ask what "Indian Art" means. For him, Murie says, it has always been a challenging question. Is "Native art" any art that happens to be done by an American Indian? Does it have to have a theme that involves traditionally Native elements?

"I never try to label myself as an Indian artist," Murie said. "I'm not an Indian artist. I'm just an artist that happens to be Indian."

Despite this, much of his work does have some elements on native culture, both profound and light-hearted. For example, one drawing consists of Star Wars characters, seated around a campfire, dressed in traditional Native attire.

"I like to be playful with my art, also," he said about the drawing.

Other pieces included a pencil portrait of Murie's grandfather, and another a pencil drawing of Murie's father and uncle with a large peyote plant in the background.

It has been about 39 years since Havreite Don Greytak decided to make a living as an artist.

Unlike the other participants, Greytak is not a Native. American. However, Native Americans are featured prominently in the 11 pencil sketches he brought to the exhibit, as well as in calendars he is selling.

The former rancher and self-described "frustrated storyteller" has also lived in the Harlem and Chinook area. He raised cattle and lived for a decade on Fort Belknap. When he started doing art, sculpture was his medium, but after a couple years he shifted to pencil drawings.

Some of Greytak's drawings, typically of years long gone, draw from his farming and ranching background. Other aspects of frontier life, such as the railroad, also feature prominently in his work.

Greytak also features Natives in his art.

Most of the pieces on display Monday show younger Natives embracing modern life while older Natives in traditional garb stand in the background mourning the drifting of the young away from tradition. One for example, shows a couple in Native dress on a motorcycle and sidecar, while an older man stands in the background by a teepee. Another such drawing features a young Native man riding an Indian Motorcycle and wearing a T-shirt with the Indian Motorcycle symbol.

"I'm sort of a frustrated story teller, so this has kind of been my way of doing that," said Greytak.

Bara Buffalo Hide, an Indian of Blackfoot and Shoshone heritage who lives in Dodson, makes and manages sales of jewelry, clothing accessories, Indian centerpieces and time pieces for Indian Time, an LLC she founded and operates.

Buffalo Hide remembers a girl selling from the back of their pickup truck belt buckles, bags and coin purses that she and her mother made. This, she said, inspired her to begin beading.

"The value lesson my mom taught me is, I would never be broke as long as I had a needle, beads and design in my imagination of something to make," Buffalo Hide said.