Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: An American Modernist

Introduction

1 Introduction My work is a diary, or journal, of my life. —Jaune Quick-to-See Smith ▲▼▲ This book is an invitation into the intensely imaginative world of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, an American artist, curator, and political activist, who was born in 1940 at the Saint Ignatius Mission in Montana and is an enrolled Sqelix’u (Salish) member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.1 A bricoleur, Smith has self-consciously shaped her identity and her art from disparate cultures and ideologies. Her primary motivation for each new work of art is to communicate an idea, a philosophy, or a history lesson. She is compelled to insert her viewpoint into the racialized discourse of American history and to demonstrate how it is important to the contemporary moment. Each work of art offers the viewer an active role as an interpreter reimagining history from her perspective. After she has defined her project, she invents her artistic strategy to suit her immediate goal, which is always to communicate with her audience, whether by painting, assembling, drawing, or printmaking. Smith’s artwork was first shown at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1978. Since that time, her work has been exhibited internationally and collected by renowned museums.2 She has been widely honored for her ability to reach and educate viewers.3 Most recently, in 2011, she was elected by her peers to join them as a National Academician, an honor that has included the most distinguished American artists and architects since the National Academy of Design was founded in 1825 by Thomas Cole, Rembrandt Peale, Samuel F. B. Morse, and others now less famous.4 Further, Smith holds four honorary degrees that recognize her impact as an important 2 Introduction mentor and teacher.5 She has been a frequent visiting artist and speaker at colleges and universities, and her artwork has been shown in these institutions’ museums, yet aside from ephemeral brochures and a few small catalogs, scholars have not written about her work.6 To date, the most extensive review of her work was published in the exhibition catalog edited by curator Alejandro Anreus, Subversions/Affirmations: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, in 1996.7 I began this manuscript, as many academics do, because the book I wanted to read about this important artist did not yet exist. As I pursued my research, I found that Smith’s persistent desire to reach each viewer, to motivate and activate them, arises from her particular life experience , which is as complex as the visual vocabulary and materials of her artwork . This unique motivation pushes her artwork beyond a single signature style or a particular place in a movement because she chooses her media and techniques for their ability to communicate one of her messages.8 With each new work, Smith expands the boundaries of American art as she constructs a record of her life and passions in dense sign systems. This introduction offers a method for understanding Smith’s complexity by presenting the artist, modernism, and her effort to articulate difference—her difference as a woman and as an indigenous artist who interprets the history of this continent and the history of art in the process of making her art. She is enacting the most ancient role of the artist, to make visible what others cannot see. She has chosen modernism as the tool and context for delivering her messages. As I analyzed Smith’s work, I realized that I must situate it within the social, political, and art historical discourse of its making to reveal its full complexity. This text focuses on specific moments in her art practice in order both to create a space for recognizing and analyzing how she has contributed to American modernism by drawing upon her complex cultural heritage—both Native and non-Native—and to demonstrate how her work has expanded the definitions of “American” and “modernist” art. It does not create a chronology or an overview of Smith’s long and prolific career. The artwork pictured and discussed does not show progression, evolution, or development. My goal is not to establish a survey or a summary of Smith’s artistic life, but to invite viewers to look closely at her artwork and to recognize the depth and meaning imbued there by the artist. Two studies of difference and identity have been an inspiration for this project .9 First is Anne Wagner’s project to identify “sex differences...