8
Wednesday, January 17, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Sisters
artist
carves
conquest
By Jim Cornelius, Editor
In February of 1519, a
mere handful of Spanish
adventurers launched the
conquest of the massive,
sophisticated and populous
Aztec Empire in what would
eventually become the nation
of Mexico. That epic tale of
valor and tragedy has been
brought to life through the
carving of Sisters artist J.
Chester “Skip” Armstrong.
In the summer of 2012,
Armstrong created a massive
five-panel depiction of the
Mayan creation myth, which
is housed at Javier’s Mexican
Restaurant in the Aria Resort
& Casino in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Thousands of peo-
ple have seen that work. One
man in particular, a resident
of Belize, fell in love with it.
“He saw it whenever he
went to Vegas,” Armstrong
told The Nugget. “Every time
he went to Vegas he made a
point of making a pilgrimage
to see it.”
Finally, he commis-
sioned Armstrong to tell
his own Mesoamerican
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J. Chester “Skip” Armstrong has depicted the conquest of Mesoamerica in a massive carved triptych.
story — the story of the
Conquest of Mexico. The
client is of Spanish Castilian
descent — the blood of the
Conquistadors flows through
his veins. Armstrong’s work,
which flows across three pan-
els, offers up vignettes from
the saga of his ancestors.
That story, from the stand-
point of 2017, is a fraught
one. A handful of Spaniards,
armored and armed with steel
blades and mounted upon
horses, conquered and sub-
jugated a vibrant, extensive
— and bloodthirsty — indig-
enous empire. Armstrong
sought an honest and imagi-
native retelling of that story,
in all of its tragedy and vio-
lence, but also in all of its
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said himself — what hap-
pened,” the artist said.
Noting that Western
minds “read art from left to
right,” Armstrong started the
story in the upper-left-hand
corner of the first panel with
the arrival of Hernan Cortés
in his ships, which was seen
by the Aztecs as the fulfill-
ment of a prophecy.
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“crazy courage and valor
beyond all rationality.”
History — especially dif-
ficult and racially charged
history — has become a
cultural flashpoint in recent
years. Armstrong’s carv-
ing recreates an especially
charged history vividly —
unsanitized and unapologetic.
“It is — like the (client)
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