“Do you practice your culture?”
The question is double-edged, and as artist Raven Halfmoon explains, “I’m always riding this line of understanding traditional tribal knowledge, and representing that, versus the pressures of the 21st-century mindset and the fast-paced materialistic world.”
A citizen of the Caddo Nation, Halfmoon is continuing thousands of years of tradition through her work. Renowned for their ceramics, the Caddo people have passed their history and stories through clay for generations.
Yet, Halfmoon challenges and pushes the scale and material, revealing the force and experience of the artist’s hand.
“I do not want my sculptures to look like a machine made them. They are meant to be powerful, emotional, and experienced,” explains Halfmoon.
The work appears vandalized, with the artist’s name and the title spray painted in red — a color that signifies the traditional face paint of the Caddo as well as wounds, war, blood, and earth.
Introduced to clay and pottery at an early age, Halfmoon studied anthropology, ceramics, and painting at the University of Arkansas – one of the few institutions in the world housing authentic Caddo pots made by her ancestors.
It was there she began to blend traditional with contemporary to create her own voice.
The totemic work Do You Practice Your Culture? stares the viewer down with five pairs of eyes, each representing a different identity the artist carries with her — Native, American, woman, millennial, and artist — forcing Halfmoon to ask, “How do I continue to represent my tribe, but, I also like TikTok! And Chanel! And fashion! And Megan Thee Stallion! I’m always straddling that.”
Yet, it is through the merger of these complex identities and histories that Do You Practice Your Culture? challenges the stereotypes that the question implies.
