Presentation of Rawhide Art with an American Indian Motif: Part 2

Video Transcript

"I'm here describing to you the process of doing my rawhide art. We've gone through the phase of sculpting the face. Then I chose to come up here and work with a little plate that you can see on the back. Much simpler process than the face, but folding it around to make the shield. Many tribes had shields. This happens to be the thunderbird shield. So then I thought, well, if I'm going to have a shield, this is really an arrow, but it's kind of to do a shield and a lance. A shield and a lance are typically what they would carry, whether it was a processional or whether it was into warfare. Those were their items that were always with them. So then I chose to come down to this little end and do a spirit figure where I would mold into another face and just as it was about to be completely dry, rather than coming out three-dimensionally, I would flatten it. So this was the wind spirit that would blow him on his journey, and you can just make out the great detail. I left a little of the hair on this hide. It's kind of like an old goatee motif. This happens to be a little bit of bear fur on here, more up here. This is an arrowhead on the end. I chose on this one, because it had such magical detail without any painting, to leave it alone. They can get overworked and get really out there, and this one was a beautiful hide. It was very, very thin, really wonderful to get the wrinkles in his face and in his forehead and even his eyes. He's just come out. He's just like your spirit guide that just comes with you, and then this is the spirit guide for him. A little piece of red crepe cloth, blanketing, to complete the arrow to make this piece of rawhide art."