Big Ups
“Corn Maiden Storyteller” Design and Mural by Pola Lopez, autumn dawn & three sisters collective apprentice, 2023
It’s been almost a whole year since I’ve “blogged” about anything. The summer (2023) was action packed and fast paced, with the creation of 2 full scale murals in O’Ga P’Ogeh and several community workshops. Between the energy spent commuting, the intense New Mexican sun, and caring for the exhaustion that comes from being an organ recipient, I was feeling pretty drained. Fulfilled but drained.
As the summer waned into fall, the plan was to get some traveling done, and then reconnect with all the creative stuff I’d put on hold for mural season. But on September 28th, as I traveled to Oklahoma to see family who I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, intense violence shook my community. During a prayerful occupation of a possible reinstallation of a colonial statue, a visiting Indigenous artist was shot. I heard and saw the shooting take place through live stream as my family crossed the Texas border. My friends were there, elders, children, the people who I call family, their lives had been changed and there was nothing I could do to console them in their time of need.
Days later, on my birthday, the occupation and genocide of Gaza began, further amplifying the feelings of vulnerability and further shining a light upon the culture of violence and it’s refusal to honor life.
The winter was quiet. Trauma, political backlash, and exhaustion ruled the season. The community was healing quietly, as well as the victim, who was on his way to full recovery. But we remain still surrounded by the images of the violence our fellow Indigenous peoples are facing across the world. Sometimes, highlighting successes and wins just doesn’t feel appropriate. As I grow as an artist and a human, knowing that my life trajectory isn’t ever promised, I am choosing authenticity. Not as in the authenticity that my hometown advertises food and Native art with, but the authenticity of an Indigenous femme giving my all and trying to make sense of the world around me. I’m thankful for my collective, my elders, my family for keeping me from going to the dark place™, and I’ve been drawing, creating, experimenting, trying to take each experience as it comes, trying to enjoy the land, sky and waters around me as I drift through this existence.
So here’s to more blog posts haha
Read more about the Onate Statue shooting here
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/8/cop28_violence_against_clima
“The Land Will Never Forget” Mixed Media, autumn dawn 2023