2021. 63 x 63 cm / 1280€

Gallery4 location: Brick wall

My father loved Longfellow and often read us his poems before going to sleep. One of his favorites was The Song of Haiwatha, written in 1855. It is this sonorous poem (which we as children misnamed Haiwatha) that provides the soundtrack for a spirit in my work I would call Native American. I was raised on Long Island where the names of places are often the names of tribes. These people, native of the land upon which the country was formed retain a strong presence there, both in the land itself and within us who were born and have lived there.

By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water, stood the wigwam of Nokomis, daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, rose the black and gloomy pine trees, rose the firs with cones upon them; bright before it beat the water, beat the clear and sunny water, beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. (Longfellow, The Song of Haiwatha)