15 | Artist profile: Terran Last Gun

Detail

Seeking Balance (2023) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger notebook sheet (c. 1908) 

What part of the country did you grow up?

I grew up in Browning, Montana that is located in Piikani (Blackfeet) - Piikani is one of four nations that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy. The original territory extended from Yellowstone River in Montana to the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta Canada.

how does that reverberate in the work?

This is a very rural place. It’s where the plains meet the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the West, and the North, East, and South are the plains. There is also the Sweet Pine Hills to the east which to me resemble islands out in the ocean, but in this case the plains. My work reflects the land and geographic landmarks  such as the three massive Sweet Pine Hills that sit out on the plains, as well as buttes and other singular elements in the landscape. The singular form are an influence - holding land, cosmos, celestial beings and place within the cultural histories

 Can you share more about your upbringing and background; how has it influenced the artist you are today?

My father is an artist, using ledger paper as well, but I wasn’t interested in making art until I got to Santa Fe, NM to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). However, Blackfoot painted lodges and our visual aesthetics have always influenced my work. I am working in a continuum manner. I have a book collection of historic and photographic books on my people. The symbolic imagery that was developed through lodge paintings have influenced my visual vocabulary.

 Blackfoot painted lodges can generally be looked at in 3 visual tiers.

Bottom: representing land and place

Middle: unique and personal to the lodge owners

Top: representing the cosmos, constellations, and our solar system

 I view our painted lodges as Classic great plains art that were painted with natural pigments for 10’s of 1,000’s of years. I am drawn to the history, layered personal stories, experiences, and recollections of home that can be seen in my work. The Blackfoot Confederacy were never displaced or relocated off of our traditional territory, but for Piikani in Montana we got pushed up against the Canadian border and Rocky Mountains.

Detail | Where Harmony Exists (2023) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger notebook sheet (dated 1924) 

You currently live in Santa Fe, NM, How did you end up there? Are you currently teaching?

I enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) for museum studies in 2011, and fell in love with art making while I was there. Specifically, printmaking with an emphasis in Serigraphy, and photography. I was invited to teach this year in the printmaking department. It has been great to teach what I know -  Serigraphy 1 – and it has been a huge learning experience. 

 Through research I learned that your father, Terrance Guardipee Last Gun, makes ledger drawings. Can you talk about his work and/or influence?

 My father’s paintings and ledger drawings, depict cultural figures, warriors and Blackfoot narratives in his work. I noticed these geometric forms in his work and wondered where those were coming from. Then I found out it was from our painted lodges and that they all had various symbology. The Blackfoot geometric forms started to influence and emerge in my work.

In 2020, the pandemic closed the print studios that I was working in. My father gave me some ledger sheets some years before that I was just hanging on to and not ready to use, but once the studios closed I shifted into drawing on ledger sheets at that time. I transferred and adapted the visual vocabulary from printmaking to the ledger drawings. 

Your ledger drawings combine a historic page with what seems like a modernist or pop art references, is that a correct interpretation? What does the imagery evoke for you?

My work draws from Indigenous geometric abstraction, as well as pop art for the vibrant, bold, saturated colors (like Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Stella), minimalism, and hard edge paintings. I love op art for its color interaction and the visual vibration it creates.  I’m playing with the idea of abstraction – feelings, experiences, moods and color means many things across cultures, religions and places. And also, what you see is what you see. Titles evoke another layer of my ideas and what I was thinking about as well as inviting the viewers interpretations and associations.  Good or bad, the invokes so many different feelings about the work.

 How do you find ledgers to draw in, do people give them to you? Do you have a secret source?

I’ve gotten paper from my father, through trading, and through folks giving it to me. Government and county ledger sheets are the best, because they are linen ledger, they work well with the colored pencils. The paper is from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, so I am thinking about that time, what was happening in North America, what was happening to Piikani people. 

Enlightening Sites (2023) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger notebook sheet (dated 1921) 

 Do you surround yourself with reference materials or colors? What does your studio look like?

I have a home studio, it ties back to The Piikani culture of resourcefulness – of using what we have. It is a small sacred artist space. I have a collection of rocks, driftwood, beaver wood, and toys. I like taking breaks to look at and handle them. They are my little treasures.  I have a collection of books, exhibition catalogs, and postcards of archival photographs by Edward Curtis, Roland Reed, Winold Reiss, Walter McClintock, Carl Bodmer, and George Catlin.

 I also have post it notes up of words, phrases and terms such as:

Visual sovereignty

Survivance

Intergenerational

The power of the world works in circles

I think about the cosmos and how the Blackfoot creation story includes the Sun and moon and morning star. We are star people in that sense – part of the solar system. The expansive origin stories include our own people, as well as the whole of humanity.

 Do you listen to music there? What genre do you return to?

I listen to music and podcasts in the studio

Music - Black marble, still corners, synth wave, dark synth, electronic instrumental and because I grew up in Montana I love country music.

Podcasts - Broken Boxes,  5 plain questions, Hello Print Friend. I was recently interviewed on a local Santa Fe radio show called Coffee and culture

I love films too – Horror, sci fi and comedy. There is so much humor innate to Native people and to my family, and sometimes it’s rough humor. My sisters and I have a group chat, and stay connected through gifs, memes and jokes.

 What books are on your nightstand right now? What books do you consistently return to for perspective?

I collect books on history and art:

Lanterns on the Plains: The Blackfeet Photographs of Walter McClintock (2009)

Painted Tipis: By Contemporary Plains Indian Artists (1973)

Nitsitapiisinni: The Story of the Blackfoot People (2001)

William Seitz - The responsive eye

Frank stella Retrospective

Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight

Frederick Hammersley to Paint Without Thinking

Detail | Enjoying The Open Space (2023) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger notebook sheet (dated 1924) 

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Do you keep a journal or a sketchbook?

I document each drawing's color palette in a black Rhodia gridded book for color documentation that I started in 2020. At first I was doing it on printmaking paper, but after seeing an exhibition of Frederick Hammersley, I started documenting it in a book.

 Do you have a favorite brand of pencils?

I use 3 brands of pencils and they each have different qualities and uses

Faber Castell

Pablo

Holbein 

Pencil drawing takes time because I am pressing hard for a saturated bold look. Working with geometric shapes gives me a sense of order - of feeling organized. Drawing on antique paper with someone else’s handwriting creates an interesting play between the two. It doesn’t necessarily drive the composition, but is an element in the final work.

 My background was in photography and printmaking. Switching to colored pencils expanded my color sensitivity and knowledge of the color spectrum. When I am out walking around seeing color, I am naming the color of the pencil, like “”strawberry”, “ tiger lily” or “phthalo blue.” I use a 12 and an 18 color wheel to select and determine color and harmony. Triads, tetrads, complementary, split complementary, and monochromatic. I am also exploring tints, tones and shades of pure colors that amplify the full color.

 Is there anything you would like to add?

Originally or historically, drawings were made on bison hides, elk hides and lodges depicting success and coup stories. In the 1850’s and 60’s, incarcerated warriors were given ledger and accounting sheets to draw on and document and record their lives. In the present time, we are still using the same documents – they are antiques now. When using the ledger sheets, especially the Montana sheets, I feel I am reinserting, reclaiming, reinvigorating our own culture and stories, after generations of being forced to do so many things.

In the Museum of the Plains there is a collection of Historic Native items and ledger drawings of the Plains tribes. I was able to handle a ledger book that was full of drawings  -  war scenes, encounters, courtships, ceremonial scenes, and more.

 My father Terrance Guardipee Last Gun makes drawings using warrior figures and scenes. He and his generation sold work at art markets all over the country, including the Santa Fe Indian Market. My generation of artists sell at markets too (I will be in Santa Fe Indian Market for the third time this year) - but we are also interested in working with galleries and museums, going to residencies, getting support, transcending the boundaries of where our art is shown. I honor the tradition of ledger drawings in my work – but it brings questions about abstraction and symbology. I am in the continuum of what it means to make ledger drawings.

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Join us and Terran on Saturday December 2, from 7-10