Ghost Dance Original

Ghost Dance

 By firelight, the spirits of slain relatives dance with the living.

Oscar Howe expresses the Native American's mystical sense of association with the spirits in both life and death as part of a continual communion with nature.  

The marquetry itself is full of a light that fills the image with an eerie sense of invisible presence.  When you study it, the work keeps on revealing subtleties in the wood and design , and compels appreciation of the texture and pattern in each shape.   

18 species of natural wood veneer,

acrylic lacquer, 48 x 60.  By permission Adelheide Howe,  2001.  First version.    Marquetry by Gene Zanni.

This is a photo of the original gouache

now in the Heard Museum, Phoenix.

Sioux Mourner Original

Children at Play Original

Two Deer Original

Sioux Dancer

Ducks

Blizzard Bath

Sioux Mourner

This quiet image is a scene repeated in every

family in every generation of every culture.   It is a depiction of the mystical union of man and nature and spirit.

Lost in the photography is the light in the wood

that seems silently to link the

material world to the spiritual.

18 species of natural wood veneer, shellac. 

 By permission of Adelheidi Howe, 2001. 

34 x 47.  Marquetry by Gene Zanni. 

Children at Play

This interpretation of Yanktonai Sioux artist Oscar Howe (1915-1983)

is a much less detailed rendition than the original.

I took the liberty of emphasizing the

spirituality in the image.

I saw in his picture the universal theme of man communicating with spirit,

as well as a summary of the

mystical communion of man, nature and spirit.

The image is the shape of an egg, a universal symbol of the circle of life.

The children do not touch the ground, as if they were creatures between the earth and the spirits;  their veneer glows and shines.

The earth itself has no radiances.

The children play with and are protected

by the spirits of relatives

who are as real to them as each other.

The tinted lacquer of the spirit shapes is artificial, not natural color,

and each shape gleams and flashes

right through the color.

The children themselves are

natural wood that contains light.

When fully lighted, the picture is

extraordinarily full of gleaming light

and exceptionally joyful. 

48 x 72;  11 species of natural wood veneer;  acrylic lacquer;  UV additives.

An interpretation for pleasure.  2004

Two Deer

When I decided to do this picture,

I thought that the vortex background

would give it a spiritual element

when the light glinted and flashed

through the green desert fog.

I thought it would suggest the

the union of nature and spirit.

Although the picture is very pretty when lit,

my metaphysical intent didn't work.

It's still a picture of two deer.

16 species of wood veneer;  acrylic lacquer;

UV additives.  48 x 60.  2002

Marquetry by Gene Zanni

Among the images I hope to interpret next are those below.  I didn't count them, but I think that there are more than 200 images at the University of South Dakota from which I may be allowed to choose.

Retreat

Double Woman 

Sun Dance