Art Connecting Spirit through Dance (North/South)
This is Art Boundaries latest initiative. The aim has been to promote works that connect artists working with healing spiritual dance traditions in North and South America. Art can reveal the human experience symbolically, and artists working with sacred experiences through traditional/indigenous communities, expose the invisible meanings or powers evoked by ceremonies. This project has nurtured traditional visual artists while supporting our organization's mission of fostering the international exchange of artists and art projects.
As part of this project, we have trasnported two artists, Lakota artist Chief Leonard Alden Crowdog Jr. (Junebug), and Cilau Valadez, a Huichol yarn painting artist, to a spiritual dance ceremony in Baja California in Fall 2010, and commissioned them to each create a painting inspired by the dance.
In December 2011, we brought the artists to New York city to exhibit their commissioned works, and to give talks about their artistry at the Clemente Soto Velez Center in Lower Manhattan. You can see images of the art opening, here.
Meet the Artists
Lakota artist Leonard Alden Crowdog Jr. (Junebug), is recognized Lakota Chief, Leader, and Visionary. Chief Leonard is a member of the Sicangu band of the Teton Lakota from the Black Hills of South Dakota. Junebug's original airbrush paintings depict the inspiration, dreams, and visions received by following the traditional way of life through the Red Road. |
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Cilau Valadez is an indigenous artist who creates the traditional Huichol art form of yarn painting. Scholars agree that the rich Huichol cultural legacy, a storehouse of art, symbolism, music, folklore, plant knowledge, profound religious insight and more safeguards timeless knowledge that may hold significance for people far beyond the deep precipitous canyons of their central Mexican homeland. Cilau's yarn paintings clearly demonstrate spiritual vision using the special Huichol language of symbols and color. |
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