Based on a paragraph from the Great Vision of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota Sioux shaman and medicine man of the late 1800s, this cutting was commissioned by Sister Diane, Principal of St. Mary’s High School on Kodiak Island, in the fishing village of Kodiak. The passage illustrated from the book BLACK ELK SPEAKS was as follows (the aged Black Elk, speaking of a vision he had while unconscious with a fever at age nine):
“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”
The artist, Alice Helen Masek, spent over a week drawing the design, then inked the pencil drawing and erased the pencil marks to cut the pattern into three 12-foot strips for duplication. The pattern and paper from which to cut it was sent ahead to Kodiak Alaska, to be there when Alice and her husband Mike arrived to give the September 9, 2001 workshop, at which several angels were cut at the same time the Black Elk piece was started.
Unfortunately the events of September 11, 2001 intervened and the Kodiak copy was not completed. Since then, the piece has been cut in South Dakota, but this is the first time Alice Helen has been present for its completion. Over 100 UCSC students in sessions in August 2015 and January 2016 brought this copy to completion. The artist thanks the students for their efforts and is grateful to Provost/Professor Faye Crosby for organizing that participation.
Artist’s notes: In his book, Black Elk speaks of “Four-Leggeds,” “Two-Leggeds,” “Winged Ones,” and “Green Things.” He did not speak of the creatures of the seas, because at age nine, he had not seen them, living on the great plains. Because the design was drawn for the people of a fishing village, I had to include the sea creatures, which became the middle “hoop” of the circle of the world, beside the humans.
Because Black Elk spoke of seeing “the shape of things in the spirit,” I used Inuit (Eskimo) Native art images of Alaskan animals as models for some of my images front and center, where Alaskan wildlife and people were featured. To the left around the circle, one sees North American animals, then Australian. To the right around the circle are shown African, then Asian animals and people.
Black Elk himself, from a photo taken while he acted in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in Europe (where he met Queen Victoria) stands atop the mountain behind the “Mighty Flowering Tree.” A great variety of people beneath the tree were drawn from National Geographic magazines, Heifer Project brochures, and many other sources. The huge Eye in the upper right corner, representing the “sacred manner” of seeing, came from a series of Lenten evenings at St. Mary’s Church in Kodiak, during which people drew in response to passages, with the Black Elk on the last evening. The beautiful eye and several other details in the drawing came from those drawings, sent ahead to the artist. The sun was drawn to represent an Alaskan sun, with “sun dogs” reflecting off ice crystals in the sky, and a flaming corona.
In his story, Black Elk referred to “Singing Birds” in the “mighty flowering tree,” and I hope this vision makes your heart sing!
