“Black Elk, Lakota Warrior, Mighty Visionary” is the inaugural exhibition at the new Canyon Crossroads Museum at Celebration Park. I am exhibiting my tarpage “Great Circle of Life” depicting the vision Black Elk had when he was a 9 year-old.
Mike is also featured in this exhibition. Here he is with his painting, “Black Elk and the Morning Star.”
For a full picture of my tarpage, “Great Circle of Life” and my statement regarding its content, click here.
“Great Circle of Life” — Tarpage, 60″ X 60″
This tarpage, “Great Circle of Life,” was inspired by the fevered vision Black Elk had as a 9 year old boy. He saw spirit horses galloping from the four sacred directions — from the west snorting lighting, from the north swirling in snow, from the east glowing like morning at dawn with starry eyes, and from the south with manes flowing like prairie grasses. As the horses vanished a firey rainbow arced above him and he saw six ancient grandfathers who gave him gifts of power — a wooden cup of water with the power to give life, a bow and arrow with the power to destroy, a red stick which sprouted four green leaves representing the tree of life — which would flower if all people shared the vision. Black Elk was just a little boy when he had this vision and it took a long time for him to have the courage to share it with his people. When he finally was able to share it, a ceremonial tipi was set up and images from his vision were painted on it.
Imagine this tarpage is like the material that tipi was made from, and the images on it are like those which were painted on that tipi. And the eyes? Black Elk’s. Mine. Yours. May we all share the vision.
Mike’s exhibition “House Ghosts” opened on May 7th at the Carol Robinson Gallery in New Orleans.
That’s Carol, with Mike at the Opening…
We brought most of Mike’s new work for the show with us on our drive down, but we arrived in New Orleans with a few paintings left unfinished. Mike worked on them in the evenings, at his French easel which he set up on the kitchen table.
Go ahead, try this at home!
Carol always hangs a beautiful show, and “House Ghosts” was no exception.
There was a great turn out for the opening, and it was wonderful to catch up with friends, both old, and new.
The show will be up during the month of May, and you can see all of Mike’s available work on the Carol Robinson Gallery website, as well at at MichaelChambersArt.com .
Good job Mikey! 👍👍❤️🍷🎉
In honor of the collaboration TVAA has enjoyed with Boise State Public Radio since 2010, all the exhibitions in 2016 will feature themes based on programs aired by NPR and BSPR.
The first in the series is titled “This American Life,” and for my submission I entered the Tarpestry I made for the HAWK Pedestrian Crossing Box on the corner of Edson and Curtis in Boise, titled “Walk, Don’t Walk.”
This Tarpestry was inspired by the Boise International Market (which burned to the ground in 2015), and is in a neighborhood which is home to many families new to America. Many of those residents are refugees.
Below is the Tarpestry in it’s entirety. The photo above is of the edited piece which will be used to create the digital printout on the skin which will “wrap” the traffic box itself.
For my solo exhibition at the Student Union Gallery of Boise State University I exhibited 39 Tarpestries ranging in size from 12 X 16 inches to 8 X 10 feet.
I also exhibited the individual pages of the book I self-published titled
You can read more about the exhibition here and here. And you can read more about the book TARPESTRY here.
Click the image to see the Tarpestry book
