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I was blessed to have the (name-dropping) help of Terry I, Michael Colpitts, and Brian Walker to relocate the Valentina Blackhorse sculpture into the house for final detail work before the wax casting phase last November 13th - the day I finally had to move the sculpture. Realizations of the events of October had just crept up on me - I had the momentum going with interest from possible grant funding and my backers on my side, but with the broken right wrist factoring in, and starting to run thin on $, I really rather sensed that day that I might be walking right into limbo again - such as when I had to remove the sculpture from John Soderburg’s studio the first time in 2021 and I had no place to work for two years - until I met Jill and she brought me back into John’s studio for his last few months…! It has now been six months since that day in November and the moment I had to leave Jill’s studio. And again, production on the piece is stalled.
The Valentina Blackhorse Memorial sculpture was intended to serve as a homage to not only to one individual’s story, but to so many who lost their lives when COVID swept thru the Navajo Nation. I was present during the time when that wave occurred. Driving back-and-forth across the Navajo Nation from Arizona to Colorado to visit with a friend of mine who was on her own path to transitioning on the Western Slope of Colorado.
Although I was on the periphery, I could sense the effect it was having on the communities. Entrances barred. Signs saying “move on, keep going” urging people not to stop and chance spreading the virus. It was just a very strange and isolating time with the underlying threat lurking across the land. From my perspective as a non-native, I was concerned about making the correct choices going forward - an Anglo crafting an image of someone of the Diné. Would it be understood, and accepted that this was not just a project considered to be a pursuit of art for its own sake?
This was not intended to be a project to draw attention to myself, as I had a talent for sculpting that had been lying dormant during the COVID pandemic. But part of my thinking had been - that during a time when people on the East Coast were tearing down bronzes of those they felt had disgraced the country… maybe the meaning of what I was trying to offer was missed. Bronzes crafted by an unknown white woman on the Navajo Nation might not have the same appreciation. I had heard a woman from the Iroquois Nation who had spoken up on Public Radio about how we did not have enough monumental pieces honoring Indigenous people and that more bronzes would be a way to honor the memory… which further motivated me to go talk to Laverne and Vaneilie Blackhorse, (Valentina’s mother and sister) to ask permission and to see if this would be an appropriate way to honor Valentina’s memory. And when that permission was granted, that was how the sculpture of Valentina began, although I had never know of her before and never met her, her story so moved me and as I learned more about her and her achievements, I became more and more invested in the project.
When I lost my own aunt to COVID in July of 2020, I made the decision to move my mother to Sedona, near the studio, to continue my work and to make sure my mother remained safe from the virus. It was a big deal back then. I think many people have forgotten.
