'We’re rising out of the ashes'
Bacone College in Oklahoma hosts fundraiser on March 23
By
Kevin Abourezk
Gerald Cournoyer was skeptical about the Italian pianist at first.
Others had made promises to the Lakota artist about presenting his work to foreign connoisseurs.
Almost always, those promises proved hollow.
So when
Emanuele Arciuli – a world-renowned classical pianist – told Cournoyer he would host a concert and art show featuring the Native artist’s work in Italy, Cournoyer smiled and thanked him.
“Within six months, I’m sending 20 works over to Italy to be in a show with him,” Cournoyer said. “Everything sold.”
Afterward, Arciuli made Cournoyer another promise: If you ever need me to play for you, I will.
"A Night to Celebrate Art and Music" takes place March 23, 2019, at the Bacone College Chapel in Muscogee, Oklahoma. Image: Bacone College
On March 23, Arcuili will keep his promise to Cournoyer by performing at
Bacone College in Muscogee, Oklahoma, for a fundraiser to benefit the school’s art program. Cournoyer, a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, serves as director and chair of the Bacone Indian Art Program.
Along with Arcuili’s performance, Cournoyer plans to host an
art lottery featuring work by such renowned artists as
John Gritts,
Enoch Kelly Haney,
Holly Wilson and
Ruthe Blalock Jones.
Those who want to purchase art will buy a ticket for $250 apiece, and they will receive a number in return. When their number is called during the event, they will then get to choose an art piece.
Doors open for the event at 6 p.m. March 23 in the Bacone College Chapel. Arcuili’s concert – which costs $25 to attend – begins at 7 p.m. and the art auction starts after the concert in McCombs Hall Gallery.
A piece by Ruthe Blalock Jones (Delaware, Shawnee and Peoria) is among those up for auction at Bacone College on March 23, 2019. Courtesy photo
Another piece by Matt Jarvis (Osage) is also up for auction at Bacone College at the Bacone College fundraiser. Courtesy photo
Cournoyer, 52, said he’s hopeful the event will raise much-needed funding for an art school that has trained many of the earliest professional Native American artists since it opened its doors in 1935.
But in recent years, Bacone College has faced financial difficulties that nearly forced it to permanently close the Indian Art Program. But last May, the arrival of a
new president, Dr. Ferlin Clark, led to the art school’s re-establishment as well.
Clark, a Navajo Nation citizen, enlisted the support of Seminole filmmaker
Sterlin Harjo and hopes to start a film school within the art program as well. The Bacone art program will focus on diverse media, from ancient techniques of basketry and weaving to painting and filmmaking.
Cournoyer said the Bacone Indian Art Program’s history is interwoven within the history of contemporary Indian art.
Gerald Courneyer, a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is the new director and chair of the Bacone Indian Art Program. He's also offering one of his pieces for the March 23, 2018, fundraiser at Bacone College in Oklahoma. Courtesy photos
The art school’s first director,
Acee Blue Eagle (Muscogee, Pawnee and Wichita), promoted Flatstyle painting that was influenced by Art Deco and other Modernist styles. Flatstyle was characterized by light backgrounds and solid colors and was often painted in opaque watercolor.
Many Works Progress Administration murals by Native artists were painted in the Flatstyle and remain throughout Oklahoma today. Other famous Native artists – including
Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi),
Dick West (Southern Cheyenne) and Ruthe Blalock Jones (Delaware/Shawnee/Peoria) – followed Blue Eagle as directors of the Bacone Indian Art Program.
“Bacone Indian Art was the founder of the Indian art movement in educational institutions, and we are proud to re-establish it for our students to learn from the best our contemporary and traditional Indian art world has to offer,”
Clark said in an announcement to students and faculty last November.
Cournoyer – who holds three master’s degrees – said he developed a love of art at St. Paul’s Indian Mission in Marty, South Dakota, where nuns would often compliment the young student’s drawings and place them on a bulletin board for all to see.
But he forgot about his passion for art for many years, until his first year at college at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. At the time, he was studying to become a physical education teacher.
“I was going to wear sweats for the rest of my life, have that whistle around my neck,” he said.
But the college required Cournoyer to take an art class – drawing – and as he began creating art he quickly remembered his passion for it.
As his work has evolved, he has transitioned from creating work focused on literal depictions of Native cultural and ceremonial practices to painting Modern pieces characterized by geometric symbolism. Through his more recent work, Cournoyer said he attempts to capture the essence and meaning of Native cultural and ceremonial practices and how they enlighten the Native experience.
“Instead of painting somebody sitting inside a sweat lodge or on a hanbleca (vision quest), I paint the essence of what that one thing was,” Cournoyer said.
Indian art, he said, has too long been focused on recreating the past in an attempt to ensure the survival of Native history and culture. But Native artists have forgotten that ancient Indian art focused on geometric symbols that were meant to convey deeper truths, Cournoyer said.
However, in recent years, he said he has had to return to painting more literal works showing Native cultural practices in order to sell his work. It’s a sad reality of Indian art that most affluent connoisseurs don’t appreciate Modern forms of Native art, he said.
“I’m basically going back to everything that I was doing before, just to make a sale of a painting,” he said.
But he said he can’t imagine doing anything else.
And he’s hopeful the March 23 fundraiser will not only raise funds for Bacone College but also morale among its students and faculty.
“We’re like the Phoenix,” he said. “We’re rising out of the ashes.”
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