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dataAM[1] = new data("images/collaboration/am01_l.jpg","<font><strong>Marcus Amerman</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;May 1999<br><br>&quot;My name is Marcus Amerman. I'm from the Choctaw tribe. My Native name translates as Big Turtle. I was born in 1959 in Phoenix AZ. My extended family are Hopi. Eventually we moved up to Portland and Pendelton Oregon, where I went to High School. Afterwards I went to Whitman College in Walla Walla WA, where I initially studied mathematics and physics, with the hope of that becoming my major.<br><br>I began beading when I was about ten years old, and have been beading for almost thirty years since. I began selling my beadwork at the Pendleton Roundup, which has an 'Indian Village' behind the Rodeo Stadium.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[2] = new data("images/collaboration/am02_l.jpg","<font>&quot;During the summers I would visit my cousin, Linda Lomahaftewa (editor's note: click to see her work in our Indian Humor exhibit), down in Santa Fe NM, where she taught painting at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Seeing her life and her friends there re-sparked my interest in Art. Back at Whitman I took a sculpture class, and changed my major to Art. I decided I wanted to become an artist, and to live in Santa Fe.<br><br>After graduating from Whitman with a BA in Fine Arts I moved to Santa Fe, and enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts studying painting, sculpture, and fashion design. I was sent to the Anthropology Film Center in Santa Fe, and studied documentary filmmaking there for two years. I also attended the University of Illinois for a semester, but upon arriving there I immediately started boycotting the 'Indian' mascot there. That sort of divided that Art Department against me. It wasn't a good environment to be around; surrounded by people in warpaint, dressing like 'Indians'; who thought they were honoring Indians by doing so.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[3] = new data("images/collaboration/am03_l.jpg","<font>&quot;I've lectured on a concept of mine called Art is War. Back in the old days young Indian men would go to war to gain honor and prestige, and form their place in the world of the tribe. Now that we don't really have wars, I see Art as a way of hunting, providing food for yourself, and gaining honor and wealth. I used to say just selling your art was like hunting; just something you did to put food on the table. Showing in a gallery was akin to stealing horses; gaining wealth. To have your work hung in museums or to be asked to lecture was more like honors won in battle.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[4] = new data("images/collaboration/am04_l.jpg","<font>&quot;The T-shirt I'm wearing is a reproduction of a cover I did for Native Peoples magazine. It's a picture of Medicine Crow, done in size 13 beads, with the title done in size 16 beads. I just decided my beadwork should be on a magazine cover, so I made one with their logo, and sent them a picture of it. I hoped they'd use it, and they did.<br><br>It turned out to be a very popular issue, so I thought maybe I should try some other magazines. I made covers for Smithsonian Magazine, and Rolling Stone (for which I did a beaded portrait of Janet Jackson). I sent beadwork covers to these magazines in the hope that they would use it, but they never did.<br><br>I wanted to convey the idea that Indians are still alive, doing new and creative things. I wanted to communicate that to a large audience. I knew the Smithsonian Magazine was doing an Indian issue to celebrate the birth of NMAI; but they used 2 Kachina dolls instead of my work. I kept the rejection letters from Smithsonian Magazine and Rolling Stone and framed them right next to the actual piece. That says that at least I was trying to communicate my ideas into the mainstream.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[5] = new data("images/collaboration/am05_l.jpg","<font>The Gathering<br><br>&quot;This the largest beaded piece I've done; 11&quot; x 17&quot;. It's in a frameable format. It was created specifically for the first Indian Art Northwest Market in Portland Oregon, which is held on Memorial Day annually now. This was a commemerative piece that was also made into tee shirts, tote bags, and other items.<br><br>To begin with I made a collage out of photographs including a portrait of 10 Nez Perce warriors from a 1906 photo, with a photo of the skyline of Portland placed behind that, and behind that a protrait of Mt. Hood., which looms over the city. This was recently purchased by the Portland Art Museum. There are about 60 different colors.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[6] = new data("images/collaboration/am06_l.jpg","<font>Stormbringer<br><br>&quot;A portrait of a Sioux named Iron Hawk. He's wearing four arrows in his hair, behind him is an image of a big storm taken from a photograph that I got out of Arizona Highways. In the storm clouds there's two eyes with tears falling, taken from a Man Ray photograph.<br><br>Originally this slide had the word  &quot;Smithsonian&quot; in the upper left hand corner. This was one if the pieces I did in hopes of getting on the magazine cover. When that didn't happen I still needed to sell the piece, so the prospective buyer had me take the Smithsonian logo off and fill it in with black cloud.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[7] = new data("images/collaboration/am07_l.jpg","<font>The Hopi Snake Priest<br><br>&quot;This piece has been on tour with a traveling show concerning contemporary realities, and is from the American Indian Contemporary Arts in San Francisco. It's 10 x 10 inches. I use a portrait of a Hopi Snake priest from a classic Edward S. Curtis photograph, and an Arizona sunset in the background.<br><br>Since my relatives are Hopi, and my uncle is involved in the religion of his people, I asked him if would be all right to depict this Hopi Snake priest. He said it would be OK to do it in beadwork since it was such an old photograph.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[8] = new data("images/collaboration/am08_l.jpg","<font>Modern Cradleboard<br><br>&quot;This is my Modern Cradleboard. I used an actual baby carrier I'd bought while in Sweden. I created this shortly before the birth of my son Sirius. I did 3 panels in beadwork that are attached to the baby carrier with Velcro, so it can be removed and the cradleboard cleaned. It has long fringe flowing down.<br><br>Some of the imagery contains a white star and a red star. My son is named after the brightest star, Sirius, which is actually two stars that circle each other: a white dwarf star and a red giant. The rotation is what makes it seem to twinkle in the sky.<br><br>Maybe some of my background in astrophysics is creeping into my work here. This piece is similar to other things that I do in that it's an update of an older piece, but with new ideas and new imagery. I could see this piece being displayed next a old traditional cradleboard. I think Indians in the past traditionally embraced new materials, methods and colors to create different and exciting things.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[9] = new data("images/collaboration/am09_l.jpg","<font>Casino Blanket<br><br>&quot;In keeping with the theme of using new materials for traditional things, this blanket is made from an actual roulette table cover from the Desert Inn that I bought in Las Vegas. I then beaded the word 'casino', a blackjack hand, an Indian women holding an apple (sort of like an Indian 'Eve'), bingo balls, and a smiling Indian caricature taken from a fruit crate label.<br><br>My idea was that this blanket could be used in a Powwow, and worn just as traditional blankets are. It adds something new, and includes things that are influences in our lives, such as the casino culture. It's also a statement of my mixed feelings about gambling in our Indian world.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[10] = new data("images/collaboration/am10_l.jpg","<font>RezBomb<br><br>&quot;This was an installation made for an Institute of American Indian Arts Museum show called 'Savage Truths'. It brought together 12 Indian artists from around the US to collaborate on making installations for the gallery. This is the piece that I took the lead on. My idea was a 'Rez Car'; to have an Indian Super Hero race car brought in to the Museum. They had to get a huge crane and tilt the car on it's side to get it through the door.<br><br>I painted the number 49 on it and covered it with fruit crate labels with Indian caricatures on them from my collection of Indian kitsch. It had a red fist on the hood, a horse tail sticking out of the back, as well as a beaded bumper. The interior was covered with Indian quilts and some Pendleton material, with fur all along the inside. The windshield was video projection screen, onto which was projected imagery from 3 artists (including myself), created from driving through reservations. For my section I drove through the town of Santa Fe with two other Indian people and then we would have an adventure. So you'd be inside the car having an adventure, and being Indian, it would sort of be like Indian Virtual Reality.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[11] = new data("images/collaboration/am11_l.jpg","<font>The Mound Builder Bag<br><br>&quot;An exploration into the prehistoric imagery of the Mound Builders. They're supposedly related to my own Choctaw tribe, as well as the Chickasaw. I used actual motifs from some of their shell gorgets. Many people might mistake these for Mayan or Aztec, but I think there is a Meso-American link. I believe the Mound Builders had very big trading areas, of which we would know very little.<br><br>Part of my research at NMAI was to investigate the links between their style of sculpture and imagery, and tying it to different regions. I wanted to get into the mindset of what they were thinking, and try to discover why they were so good at sculpture and art.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[12] = new data("images/collaboration/am12_l.jpg","<font>Iron Horse Jacket (with Brooke Shields)<br><br>I call this my Iron Horse jacket. This was actually the first piece that I did in the photo-realistic beadwork style I mentioned earlier. I made this out of necessity - I needed something cool for the back of my motorcycle jacket. This piece was also on display at NMAI as part of the Indian Humor exhibit.<br><br>I liked Brooke Shields, so I got a big picture of her and used gradations of red beads to create her in beadwork, and then sewed it on the back of my motorcycle jacket. I put thousands of studs down the arms and on the front in a similar pattern to the way war shirts were painted.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[13] = new data("images/collaboration/am13_l.jpg","<font>Medicine Man's Headpiece<br>(also in the Indian Humor exhibit)<br><br>&quot;For this I started out with an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist's reflective headpiece, which I decorated with thirty Amazon parrot feathers that are each Peyote-stitched together at the shaft. In a way it was a modern day update of a medicine man's headpiece. When I do these 'modern day updates' I try to use contemporary materials. In my own mind I think they (my predecessors) might have embraced these new technologies, innovations, and imagery.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[14] = new data("images/collaboration/am14_l.jpg","<font>Feather necklace and earrings<br><br>&quot;This last one is an older piece of mine, created using a peyote stitch design with each feather attached to the main body. I've always done a lot work with feathers. My family and I always used to make our own bustles for our dance outfits, so I have this natural attraction to feathers; beautiful feathers. Even the science of them amazes me; a lot of these feathers have no pigment or coloring in them. It's their structure that causes them to reflect certain wavelengths of light. That's what gives them their special colors.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[15] = new data("images/collaboration/am15_l.jpg","<font>&quot;I've accumulated a lot of video imagery from all of the pieces I've seen, as well as slide imagery. Part of my method was to record as many of the pieces I was interested in as possible; turning them around to capture a 3D view of each item. Among the things I studied were objects from different aspects of Choctaw life, such as their weapons, their dress, their beadwork.<br><br>I also studied Mound Builder items; mostly sculptural pipes, shell gorgets, incised shells, even a few textiles (which I was surprised to find). I looked at Crow and Nez Perce beadwork.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[16] = new data("images/collaboration/am16_l.jpg","<font>&quot;The plan for my follow-up community project is threefold: I'll go to the Crow Shadow Institute in Pendleton, Oregon to give a slide lecture as well as a workshop on my particular style of beadwork. I want to concentrate on the Crow and Nez Perce beadwork that I'd seen here, so people could actually see what's in the collections of the five different museums I visited. I want them to see the wealth of designs and colors I found.<br><br>I'm very interested in color theory, and particularly how these people used color. Since I learned how to do beadwork there, I feel like I'm giving something back to the community that helped me, and influenced my artistic career. A lecture in Santa Fe at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum. I will probably show the whole range of things I looked at in New York. The sculptors and ceramics artists I know will be very interested in seeing the sculpture and ceramics of the Mound Builders. There's very little published about the Mound Builders.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[17] = new data("images/collaboration/am17_l.jpg","<font>&quot;I also carry my own money clip, which has a portrait of my god daughter Alex Stock.&quot;</font>")
dataAM[18] = new data("images/collaboration/am18_l.jpg","<font>&quot;I'm working on a new Star Wars bracelet that will feature characters from the new Phantom Menace movie. By depicting celebrities or new imagery in beadwork, I sort of make it Indian. I take the soul of it and adopt it into my own thinking.&quot;</font>")

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