- EDGAR HEAP OF BIRDS
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"Wheel" 50ft. in diameter. 12ft. high. Denver Art Museum
John LeKay: Can you please tell me about the tradition of the medicine wheels and how they are used and what they symbolize in the Native American culture etc.?
Edgar Heap of Birds: They all go into primarily the astronomical observation by scientific observations of solstices; of different star systems rising and setting and going forward from there - what I believe - a renewal site for usually summer solstices. That kind of coincides with your 2nd question; I don't say sun dance - I choose to call it earth renewal ceremony. I am a practitioner in that ceremony - I'm an instructor and dancer and have been for 20 years or something. The wheel itself can actually be diagramed to become the rafters of the earth renewal lodge - the temporary lodge has a lot of the same spokes as the stone wheel - the one in Wyoming is the one that I am aware of.
JL: How many spokes does the one in Wyoming have?
EHB: I don't know; I haven't really counted all of them - but the rafter number is similar; except the contemporary one is made out of cottonwood trees.
JL: Isn't the sun dance pole structure also made out of cottonwood trees?
EHB: Yes, it's about renewal; it's about the trees down by the water; the water trees are heavily saturated with water; so it's all about renewal.
JL: Why is it that you do not refer to it as sun dance; is that because it's more of an American term that has been applied to it?
EHB: Yes that and also - it is a religious act, and I try not to really talk about that. Unless it is more of a personal one on one - for publication it is more private and I try not to talk about it. If you come and observe one; it would be very apparent - it takes that kind of experience in a way - observe it, make an offering.
But anyway, the spokes tie into the earth renewal lodge - which is actually pretty much an outgrowth of the medicine wheel and the tribes use it from Oklahoma up to Alberta. We all use the same configuration of the earth renewal lodge in a contemporary sense and we share the ancient medicine wheels together; like Sioux, Cheyenne, Rapaho, Shoshoni, Sarsi, Blackfeet; all the ones in Canada.
There are ten trees in my sculpture in Denver and there's twelve trees in the earth renewal lodge; so I took out two. I am sensitive about presenting a religious structure so I made it dysfunctional by taking out two of the pieces out.
JL: The sensitivity - that's because it's such a holy kind of thing - and you don't want to get in the exploitation of that aspect?
EHB: Yes, exactly - I am a worker in it. Although it is really meaningful to me - but I can't really make art about that necessarily. And I want to say that last - that it is art and that it is contemporary art and that's all I do. I am not as prominent as religion; I am just an artist.
JL: Right. There is kind of a very fine line isn't there that you cross when you delve into this kind of work. One of the trees has the 1887 Dawes Act - what does that mean today?
EHB: It is made there because of the reservation. You ask about the Dawes Act - that was when the tribes were allotted 168 acres treaty out of all of the millions of acres that they owned. Colorado - that's where it sits - is actually near the first reservation that we ever had with the USA, so it's coming back home - bringing that will back and setting it down as a permanent sculpture is in a sense a reclamation act back to the first Cheyenne Arapaho homeland - as far as the USA saw us - so it relates back to the Dawes Act and it relates to the Fort Laramie Treaty - the first treaty we had - and that's kind of where I am on that sculpture. That's also why I would be more explicit with references that were ceremonial because it goes back to the San Creek Massacre site near there - it's all about the Cheyenne. It's a nucleus in a way - it's the kind of art I wouldn't make every day - it's very special. I wouldn't make another one.
JL: What do you mean by Nah Kev Ho Eya Zim ? We are always returning back home again.
EHB: My grandmother said that to me. We were doing a show in New York and traveling and we were talking about how Indians always come back home - meaning conceptually - that they never leave home in the minds - in their communities. And, I asked her how would you express that and she said Nah Kev Ho Eya Zim - and that means that we are always turning around - or coming back; again that goes back to the wheel - returning back to Colorado.
They had a vigil for the anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre inside of the wheel - in my sculpture just the other night. They had a candlelight vigil - there were Cheyenne chiefs speaking. I was really honored that they used my sculpture. They had a run from - I think from Montana - there was a Sand Creek Massacre run - some of the Cheyenne's ran down to Colorado to honor the people that were killed at Sand Creek - and they stopped at my sculpture and speakers talked and they had candles. It was kind of nice how, again, they came back to the sculpture, they come back to the land that was home. That's what I was hoping for the sculpture to become - just to be kind of a remembrance site too for all kinds of issues.
JL: I bet with time, it will pick up other meanings as well. How long ago was the one in Wyoming made?
EHB: About a thousand years ago. I went up there with my sons - and we smoked our pipes and made our prayers right up there too. People go up there and fast and make their offerings and prayers. Tribal members go up there and live there for a few days - so it has a lot of function - it's a great place - a very powerful place.
JL: What is the significance of the upside down American flag?
EHB: That whole part of the tree was about the American Indian Movement (AIM) - that's their symbol - it's America in distress. They also use that as an international distress signal - if you take the flag of your nation and you turn it upside down. It's a great symbol and America is in distress, obviously - and it still is. I like putting that up there.
That tree also has a lot of things about the international treaty council and about the AIM movement's international council - they went out and met a lot of tribal people in communities and made alliances. There are actually two sides of the tree; on the thinner side is the design from Australia where I worked with an Australian artist in the Bush and then the other side is actually from Zimbabwe where I had been working with artists from South Africa. I have been doing that myself - bridging between these continents and collaborating. I just finished a project in Java - in Indonesia this summer. I am going to Italy on Wednesday; there is a big meeting with the National Museum of the American Indian about the Venice Biennale. There's a couple of things happening.
I don't really do Venice Biennale or those kinds of festivals; I am really more involved with just meeting artists and living out in the Bush and making work with them.
JL: The piece you did in the early 90s - Building Minnesota; it is also an outdoor sculpture project . How did you get to build that piece?
EHB: Well, it was a solo exhibit opportunity that they gave me at the Walker Art Center and I usually do things in indoors and outdoors and I am also kind of sensitive about the classist nature of museums - the elitist. Most folks won't go to one - no matter what you do - working class people or colored people - they won't go. So I went out to make something for people outdoors too - and of course that could deal with issues of genocide from the Minnesota history. It is also in a sense like a wheel - I think it is an honoring piece too - it honors fallen travel members. It is a memorial; it kind of educated the world about Abraham Lincoln's viciousness, but also it was a memorial for the ones that were killed. They left offerings, they tied feathers. There were descendants living in Minneapolis that would come there and make their offerings in memory of their relatives.
The detail about that is that we've been negotiating and working for ten years with the Walker Art Center - and they just now tried to kick the whole thing back to me and it is coming in about two weeks - back to my studio. They won't show it in Minneapolis - the Walker will never put it out - nobody in Minneapolis wanted it. I went to all kinds of institutions and I've been to all kinds of meetings - I worked for ten years off and on on this mess - the Walker said they would try storing it; they were gracious enough -but they would never put it out on their own (on their sculpture garden or on all of that property). It is too hot of a topic.
JL: You think that it is too tough for them to deal with because you're putting it right in their faces?
EHB: And it's not something about Bosnia, or Tiananmen Square, that stuff will fly easily; but genocide in Minneapolis, Minnesota - it doesn't fly so easy.
JL: That's what I loved so much about the piece. When I saw the images - I thought this was so amazing. In history books - in England or in the US - you don't read about any of this stuff.
EHB: You know when I talk about that piece in lectures at universities around the country - rarely does anyone know about it.
JL: It was 38 that were hanged.
EHB: Then Johnson hung two more so there were 40 altogether. They call it the Dakota Uprising; they did attack a store house and did kill a store house manager that had the food that was being withheld from the tribes. They were supposed to feed the tribes. There was a war that happened - a small war - because they revolted against the government and tried to take things into their own hands. There was retribution - they surrendered and everything and there was a truce.
JL: What it brings to mind is tree No. 8 - the one with Leonard Peltier's number on it - can you tell me about this?
EHB: That is Leonard's number at Levenworth. It is about supporting him and that legacy of the AIM movement and insurgency that is necessary in America to make any progress. We need to have somebody with some rebuttal to what's happened in this country. And so Peltier is suffering for all that right now. He is also an artist - we had a show together in Boston. We had a show where we had a benefit for his defense fund; he sent some work out and we exhibited it together.
He has that book My Life is My Sun Dance; so I put on top of that tree the sun, and it said Free - free the sun and that was underneath it - so it was all about Freeing the Sun.
JL: There are also five birds and underneath that there is a spiral and then - respect all nations sovereign.
EHB: That is my Cheyenne last name - which is mini magpies - the first translation of heap of birds was mini magpies - and in Cheyenne our name is magpie birds - many of them together - so I've included those birds as my last name - and those birds were actually done in Fort Marion in prison - they were small drawing of one of the prisoners of war in in 1870 in Florida - and multiplied it. Another prisoner - and then Peltier prisoner too - and then my name.
JL: How has the public reacted to this piece? - looking at it and reading what's on it - its a tough piece.
EHB: There's a lot of details and a lot of history. But it's been pretty favorable. There's been some static about the flag being down, but I think it has done pretty well. I'm looking forward for it to get more national and international exposure - it needs that, but Denver isn't the crossroads of the art world necessarily, it's an important museum, but it's not New York - it would be different.
JL: Well that's what came to my mind. Imagine if this were in Central Park - a piece like that would be incredible.
EHB: I am interested in doing more public art that deals with other native histories around the country. I just finished coming back from Vancouver - I'm doing a piece at the University of British Columbia; we are putting out these signs with Native Host - those with the state backwards - like New York backwards state of host is Shinnecock or NY host is Mohawk. I had a series of those in NYC. But these are all British Columbia tribes so British Columbia is backwards so native host is Squamish or Cree or .... So I am giving them to the University of British Columbia and we are putting them all over the campus. It deals more topically with the tribes from that part of Canada. I am interested in doing more of that work - it is more appropriate to history that is regional.
JL: Is most of your work outdoor installations?
EHB: I do a lot of studio work also - I am doing mono prints too - I am in love with all kinds of art practice. The most noteworthy - in terms of the public - is probably the public art because that gets all of the press. But, the piece that I did in Indonesia was more personal words - I worked with some art students and they interpreted my own words in their Indonesian text and wrote it with their own language back and forth - so we do all kinds of different sorts of sharing. And sometimes I just do my own kind of diary - my own kinds of whimsy - I just write that stuff out. So I am busy with all kinds of different attitudes - I guess - with art. And I am working on some paintings as well.
JL: Going back to your "Wheel" piece. The branch shape (Y shape) is that from a tree shape?
EHB: Yes, and it's a support. Actually in the earth renewal lodge you first have those sticks standing up by themselves - and they are waiting to accept the rafters - to hold up the ceiling and stuff. And the metaphor to me is that it is a huge support system - that's what my sculpture is for the native people.
JL: Also metaphorically - the history as well - all of it. It is very weighty isn't it - but then in another way it is very airy and kind of ethereal.
EHB: You know - it is a beautiful shape - just standing real quietly - it looks very beautiful and simple.
JL: How did you decide to use the color red?
EHB: Well I am always using red for my public art pieces - I go back to like the red skin thing when they sold Indian hides for bounty - in the east coast they did that - and the red man - in Oklahoma - Okla and Homa is land of red man and where I live there is red dirt hire - beautiful red earth. In the Cheyenne tradition - red is blood and blood is good - red blood is fresh living blood - so the tribe really makes red things good things.
JL: Yeah, it's really beautiful and it looks amazing.
EHB: I had my mom and dad up there and they came to the dedication; I made a nice little three minute dvd of the piece and I had them at the end standing there by the wheel too.
JL: What were their thoughts on it?
EHB: Oh they were pretty excited - I took them up there because it was the first time I was doing something near Oklahoma - and a pretty major piece - of course my most major work - and they saw all the hooplah - it was quite a huge event for Colorado - and they were there kind of being congratulated for having me.
JL: They must have been so proud of you.
EHB: Yeah, they were at that moment. It all varies you know.
JL: What is the material it is made out of?
EHB: There is an interior steel frame that's galvanized - its about 18 feet long - they stand 12 feet tall above the ground and there's six feet underneath the ground - a big poured concrete pedestal down there - and attached to the steel frame is another piece of plate steel that has been cooked and baked in a big furnace and covered three times with a porcelain enamel - so its porcelain enamel what you see on the outside - it's been cooked about three times to make that surface.