February 25, 2011

Cherokee Nation unveils Resurgence statue

Cherokee Nation Celebrates Heritage With 'Resurgence'The Cherokee Nation is celebrating the tribe's heritage in an artistic way. Unveiled Friday morning was the statue called Resurgence. It represents the Cherokee people's ability to overcome adversity with pride and integrity.

Artist Daniel HorseChief created the statue which shows a Cherokee stickball player leaping for the goal.
Comment:  We've seen many statues of half-naked Indians. And many statues of Indians looking up reverently: praying, shooting an arrow into the sky, holding a hawk aloft, etc. Which implies how spiritual Indians supposedly are. No clothes, no tools, just a primitive Indian and his Creator. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Resurgence is one of the few statues of this type that I like. Why? For starters, the Indian is half-naked for a reason: because he's playing stickball. And not because he's a savage. In fact, he could be a modern stickball player who's dressed for a hot, grueling match.

Also, he's lifting his sticks and looking up for a reason: to intercept the ball. The idea of rising or surging--i.e., resurgence--is implicit rather than explicit. The stickball player is reaching for the sky because it's part of the game. It just happens to be a metaphor for seeking, advancing, and achieving.

For more on Native statues, see Coast Salish Statue in Tacoma Plaza and Ideas for Ishi Statue.

Below:  "Two views of the statue Resurgence."

1 comment:

Rob said...

For more on the subject, see:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/03/cherokee-heritage-center%E2%80%99s-resurgence-pays-tribute-to-jerome-tiger/

Cherokee Heritage Center’s Resurgence Pays Tribute to Jerome Tiger

The Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma recently welcomed a new resident: a bronze stickball player, engaged in this early version of lacrosse, standing nearly 12 feet tall. The sculpture, called Resurgence, will be on permanent display in the center’s atrium.

For sculptor Daniel HorseChief, the work is a tribute not just to American Indians, but also to Jerome Tiger, an art prodigy who died in 1967 at the age of 26. Tiger—like HorseChief—was primarily a painter, and it has been said that his virtuosity broadened the possibilities for all Indian art that followed. “When I was younger, I saw an incomplete statue of a stickball player by Jerome Tiger,” HorseChief recalled. “To me it showed so much potential. It was monumental and larger-than-life, even though it was unfinished.”