Visitors to the Ulrich Museum of Art will see work from a local Native American artist, Taiomah Rutledge, that focuses on symbolism and cultural history. His exhibit and talk at the museum on March 5 were the first installment in a new speaker series, “In Place,” hosted by the Ulrich, which works to highlight artists who live and create work in Wichita.
Rutledge, a multidisciplinary artist of Ojibwe, Dakota and Meskwaki descent, began his talk at the Ulrich with a traditional Ojibwe greeting: “boozhoo,” a formal way to say hello.
Rutledge then spoke about the importance of names and how empowering it is to have someone use your full name.
“My name roughly translates to ‘bear whose voice makes rocks tremble,’ so that’s an entire sentence,” he said. “The name Taiomah comes from the Meskwaki side … so we have different tribal affiliations and different representations with their name.”
“I like to use my full name, no matter how scary or intimidating it is for people to pronounce. But there’s something that’s very powerful when you use your full name, and especially names in a language that you can’t even speak yourself.”
Rutledge said he likes to explore proximity in his art, not just to lineage but to location.
“Growing up and having that proximity to the culture, one of the things that informs our design — making our artwork — is this native design, things that were observed in nature, a lot of things that would actually tell you what region these people were from,” he said.
“Anytime I do artwork, I like to have an artifact that is present that will ground things into present day, because oftentimes as Indigenous people, we’re depicted in the past-tense aesthetic.”
With the prominence of artifacts in his work, Rutledge said a lot of his ideas come from thinking about what defines native art.
“I always choose to actually depict indigentity and indigenous, because representation is very, very powerful for younger people, especially people that have been excluded or haven’t had autonomy over how they’ve been depicted,” he said.
Storytelling is a large part of all forms of Native American art, Rutledge said. Dances, songs and physical artwork all tell a story.
In several of his designs, Rutledge said that he hides small messages in the details. One example he showed includes what he called otter tracks, which had a circular base, and going around the circle, there were straight areas broken up with two rhombuses side by side.
“If you have ever watched otters and the way they move in the snow, they hop, hop slide, hop, hop slide,” he said. “So that otter track goes all the way around, so you can just imagine an otter going hop, hop, slide.”
Certain combinations and designs of patterns are associated with specific native families and societies, Rutledge said.
“You can actually tell a lot about something based on what they’re wearing,” he said. “And it will actually tell you, not only the region where they’re from, but even very specific things depending on what colors are used, what plants are used, how they‘re arranged — that can tell you about specific families, something that’s passed down for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
Rutledge’s work can be found on the first floor of the Ulrich Museum of Art, where it will remain until July.
More information about upcoming exhibits and events at the Ulrich can be found here.
