PAGE 6 • GO! MAGAZINE
Thursday, May 6, 2021 • ThE BuLLETIN
CENTRAL OREGON ARTS SCENE
bendbulletin.com/gosee
New art on centuries-old maps
opens Friday at Raven Makes Gallery
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
I
t’s a fascinating idea: Take centuries-old maps and put them in the hands of contemporary Indigenous artists from across North America, and see what
unfolds. Raven Makes Gallery owners Chris Morin and LaRita Chapman followed through on that idea, and the result is “The Homelands Collection:
1st Edition,” a monthlong exhibit of more than 60 original Indigenous works created on antique Western world maps. Opening Friday, it is the first-ever
compilation of its kind, they say.
“In terms of a collection of artwork on
antique maps, it hasn’t ever been done any-
where in the world,” Morin said. “This is the
first time it’s ever been tried. We kind of saw
that (and) think this might be a big thing.”
The husband and wife opened the gallery
in 2016 after decades of teaching. Morin
taught special ed, and Chapman taught ele-
mentary school-age children.
“My wife grew up in rural Alaska, and I
went up there when I was young,” Morin
said. “We were teaching up in Alaska (and)
quite involved with the Alaskan Native peo-
ple up there in different ways.”
In 2000, no longer able to tolerate the
darkness of Alaska’s winter months, the two
left Alaska, moving to the Southwest, where
they lived on the Navajo Reservation. Pre-
dominantly situated in northeast Arizona,
it reaches into Utah to the north and New
Mexico to the east.
“The Navajo Reservation, most people
don’t realize, is the size of South Carolina,”
Morin said. “We lived right in the middle of
it. So you’re living among the people. You’re
provided housing when you’re there, but
when the time comes that you retire, you
have to leave. There’s no staying. And it kind
of felt strange, not a good thing, to break the
connection that much.”
Knowing they had to leave, and not want-
ing to retire entirely, the couple moved to
Central Oregon and opened Raven Makes
Gallery in Sisters.
“We came up with the idea of the Native
American art gallery because so many —
whether it was friends or family of our stu-
dents — were artists, jewelers, weavers,” Mo-
rin said. “By having this art gallery, because
If You Go
What: “The Homelands Collection: 1st Edi-
tion,” an exhibit of Indigenous art on an-
tique maps
When: Opens Friday and displays through
May during gallery hours (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
closed Wednesdays)
Where: Raven Makes Gallery, 182 E. Hood
Ave., Sisters
Cost: Free
Contact: ravenmakesgallery.com or 541-
719-1182)
Submitted photo
“Isuqwiq Pisuraa,” or “Hunting Seals,” by Alutiiq artist Heather Johnston, created on an 1825 map
of the Alaska Peninsula from Belgian cartographer Philippe Vandermaelen’s “Atlas Universal.” The
18-by-25-inch piece will exhibit beginning Friday at Raven Makes Gallery in Sisters.
we only carry the works of contemporary
artists, that’s allowed us to stay connected to
them.”
When they opened Raven Makes Gallery,
Morin and Chapman attempted to achieve a
balance representing male and female artists
of the Indigenous art world.
“Even with this map project that we’re do-
ing, at least a quarter, and maybe a third of
them, are women,” Morin said. He began to
conceive of the idea early in the pandemic.
“Our business was shut down, like ev-
erybody else, so we were just sitting around
wondering about the future of Native Amer-
ican artwork because it didn’t seem too good
at that time,” he said. “In all that downtime,
you’re surfing the Internet, for one thing,
quite a bit more maybe than usual.”
He doesn’t recall the website, but some-
where during his surfing, he came across an
1860s map of the upper Plains.
“You could enlarge it, and I saw the
names of the tribes on there,” he said. “I was
like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is incredible.’”
It called to his mind ledger art of the
1860s to 1910s, in which Native artists on
reservations would be given pages from full
ledgers.
“They’d tear out a ledger page and then
give it to the artists, and they’d draw on it,”
he said. “Those works … from the late-
1800s, they’re in museums now.” There was
even a ledger art revival that started in the
1990s using antique ledger pages.
Continued on next page