Now, back to Nick: how dare you carve a sculpture of a Raven out of an actual Bible? Don’t you know that Natives (and non-Natives) literally burned at the stake for lesser offenses?

Anyway, this guy Galanin—the audacity of this guy. He’s a throwback to back before Natives were taught that we should be cautious or scared to take on an enemy against huge odds—unafraid. Decolonized.

I’m an undercover art fan; I don’t really “get” a lot of art simply because it’s not speaking loud enough. I like big, bad, bold art—art that has PLENTY of underlying meaning and depth, but screams out, “Bro, you gotta see this shit. This shit here is crazy.” I like beautiful but disturbing, but not just for the sake of being disturbing. No, I like disturbing for the purpose of creating new conversation and thought—Breaking Bad, Calvin and Hobbes, Grace Jones. Nick Galanin’s art does that for me.

A taxidermied wolf that cannot move because of the horrible effects of the environment on wildlife is disturbing; we’re Native, right? We don’t like to see our beloved wolves in this vulnerable, effed up state. But it also makes sense, “Yeah, we really ARE messing up the environment. All of us—Natives too! This stuff really IS happening.”