Conference speaker commends art teachers

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith commended the approximately 100 art teachers in attendance for their efforts to keep children involved in art work. She said art teachers do the most to help children open both sides of their brains and to use all five of their senses. She noted that all the other disciplines require children to use the right side of the brain, but only art requires that they use the left side and thus broaden their horizons.

Now a resident of Albuquerque, Quick-to-See Smith was born on the Flathead Reservation in Montana and has become an internationally acclaimed American Indian artist. She recently spoke at five universities in China and has lectured at nearly 200 universities, museums and conferences. In addition, she has had more than 80 solo exhibits and received numerous awards, including the Women’s Caucus for Lifetime Achievement Award and the College Art Association Women’s Award.

The speaker calls herself a cultural art worker, or one who promotes combining culture with art to both preserve and promote the heritage of the universe and its people. Early in her presentation, she read a poem she wrote. It included:

“Culture is our identity. It makes us different from another. Culture is our history, yours and mine. Culture tells us who we are. Robots and computers will never have it. If you take you Soma Pill, you won’t have it either.

“Culture is language, slang, humor, gestures, dance, religion, ceremony, clothing, music, art, folkways, taboos, literature, foods, oral history, institutions, systems, governments and more.”

Focal points of her work, Quick-to-See Smith said, include respect for nature and humans and “democratization” of art.

Quoting filmmaker and naturalist David Suzuki, Quick-to-See Smith pointed out that while children will inherit the earth, most are fundamentally disconnected from the natural world. She said city kids often don’t know where electricity, water or food comes from. They have no idea what happens after toilets are flushed, that trees help clean the air or that the sun provides the energy that grows food.

She encouraged the teachers in the audience to inspire their students to dream and to combine disciplines such as science and English with their art instructions. She added that hundreds of jobs incorporate some form of art, and noted that the end product is generally not as important as the process.

During her hour-long presentation, Smith showed slides of works of 40 American Indian artists and some of her own work. She said one of her goals is to incorporate traditions that are thousands of years old into contemporary art.

Following her talk, Quick-to-See Smith was joined by Don Ruleaux of Chadron, an award-winning American Indian artist and an adjunct art instructor at Chadron State, in a question-and-answer session narrated by Robin Smith, coordinator of instructional design at the college.

Ruleaux noted that, like many schools in the 1950s, his high school considered art to be a frill and did not offer it. He also said that while he frequently checked out books from the local library, he did not read them, but studied the pictures.

Both Quick-to-See Smith and Ruleaux told how they became teachers.

Quick-to-See Smith noted that she was the only woman in an art class she took and was better at drawing than the men. But the instructor told her women could not be successful artists and she should go into teaching.

Ruleaux said when he enrolled at Chadron State, his mentor became Bill Artis, an art professor who told him that since food, clothing and lodging are necessities in life, he should earn a teaching degree so he’d have a paycheck while continuing to work on art.

After graduating from Chadron State, Ruleaux attended an art school in Kansas City. He said the instructor there was totally engrossed with abstract art and didn’t like the precise work Ruleaux produced.

“I loved the detail that I put into my paintings. When he saw my art, he told me I should work for a magazine and forget about trying to sell my work,” Ruleaux recalled.

Ruleaux advised that to become a successful artist, a person needs to carry a sketch book everywhere and can’t hang out with friends or have other distractions.

“You have to practice all the time,” he stated.