David

@archaeomather.bsky.social

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Minnesota environmental archaeologist

A fuzzy cat staring into space.
Magazine page with title “Gateway to Lake of the Woods” by David Mather with photos by Richard Hamilton Smith.
Elaborate glass mosaic artwork. “Shahzia Sikander's pioneering practice takes traditional Indo-Persian artistic mediums and subjects to their point of departure. Here she spins two motifs: the court lady and the flower, popularized in South Asian princely painting during the Mughal period (c. 1526-1857). The artist supersized their scale, pixelating their forms with the medium of mosaic. For Sikander, such composite imagery offers ample room for metaphor. In this work, she cites ‘the enormous possibility of the feminine spirit,’ as well the blossoming flower's present-day association with poppies and the opium industry. She also observed that the composition ‘looks like a bombed-out site to me.’”
Multicolored glass pieces arranged as rays.
Big marble building with a central dome and flags.
The two shells as described, exterior surfaces.
Painting of a man wearing a toga lecturing to reclining students. “Trained in Antwerp and eventually residing in England, Alma-Tadema was fascinated by the ancient Mediterranean. In this imagined scene, he presents classically dressed figures listening to a poet reading from Homer, an ancient Greek author. Alma-Tadema was deeply knowledgeable about antiquity, but often his models resembled contemporary Victorians rather than ancient Greeks or Romans. To this criticism, he replied: ‘I have always endeavoured to express in my pictures, that the old Romans were human flesh and blood, like ourselves, moved by much the same passions and emotions.’”
Lithograph of a covered bridge and gas station with old fashioned cars and pedestrians among advertising billboards.
Advertisement for Gory Brand Nail Varnish in a lithograph with a woman walking past holding an umbrella.
A statuette of a man carved in dark stone. He is wearing a coat and hat. The face is carved from ivory.
Photo of a girl in profile with a wooden gaming stick held in both hands and extending back over her shoulder. “This photograph, which is part of Tom Jones's series Strong Unrelenting Spirits, shows Ho-Chunk community member Bella Falcon holding a stick for the game double ball. This historically women's game of endurance is still played in Ho-Chunk communities today. The added elements surrounding Falcon imitate orbs of light that Jones saw when participating in a Sichá gu Lakhóta ceremony on the Rosebud Reservation.”
A fuzzy cat on the couch, partly in the sun.
Drawing of three skeletons and a rectangular structure that is likely a spirit house.
Woman with a cat face saying “I control her soul.”
Sad woman saying “Because of the cat …”
A Native woman praying to a thunderbird in the night sky. “Chholing Taha makes her paintings only after she receives a complete and detailed vision that is revealed by a variety of spirits at powerful moments she cannot anticipate. ‘The images are fully formed and appear almost like a slide being inserted in [my] head,’ she said. ‘I know it sounds unusual, but have come to be patient and see what will appear. I never know.’ She writes that Safe Passage is a ‘tribute to the Big Lake, Lake Superior (Gichigami). This vast body of water is still used today as a highway for ships of all sorts, as it was used for thousands of years by Indigenous Peoples from many, many Tribes and even visitors from other countries. Due to the diversity of travelers here you see a woman from the east in Naskapi Cree painted dress. The canoe paddle is Mikmaq design, also from the east. The canoe is Ojibwe from the midwest. Gichigami is a living Spirit. The water lynx could easily sink or overturn any watercraft. The Thunderbird, the protector against evil, is beseeched so Safe Passage will be assured.’”
Magazine cover of Records of the Past, a 1907 issue with the image of an aqueduct, and decorative drawings of ancient symbols around the margins.
Closeup of the previous map showing five dots in Minnesota.
A map of the continental United States (at that time the entire United States) with dots indicating the general locations of ruins.
Skyway corridor with windows covered in translucent colorful art.
A brick building with a large mural featuring a young person looking ahead while carrying the history with them, symbolized by the details described in the previous skeet.
Mural segment on a brick wall with the sun rising behind a building, train, people, a steamboat and Snoopy in his doghouse on a small island in the river.
Bojack Horseman, a cartoon character of a horse who walks upright, has hands, and wears human clothing.
A band of yellow flowers under a band of purple-pink flowers, with a dome peeking up behind.
Pink compound flowers on tall stalks swaying in the breeze.
Two elephants walking out the front door of a brick building next to three men in overcoats and hats.
A tiny butterfly getting some pollen from a composite flower.
A fuzzy cat asleep on his perch.
Painting of a masted ship surrounded by mermaids with other ships in the background. “Chales A. Owens grew up in Mayswile, Kentucky. the child of an opera singer and saxophone player. In 1949 he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he was a contemporary with felow African American folk artst Eljah Plerce. To support his famely. Owens worked several jobs, among them a chef, ice cream maker, construction worker, bootlegger and mechanic. He enjoyed painting and drawing in the spare time, though he produced most of his work after he retred. Owens found inspiration for his paintings in his memories, the world around him and in books. The Bark Patriat is a combination of history and fantasy. Acrording to an inscription on the back. the ship was a trading vessel built in 1809 and used by Salem, Massachusetts, merchants. Owens took great care to delineate the complicated rigging and billowing sais of the ship. Yet, he whimsically surrounded the "Patriot" with mermaids, much to the excitement of the sailors.”
Painting of a child at the center of a surreal family tree connected with ribbons. “André Breton promoted Frida Kahlo's work as an authentic expression of surreality, rooted in Mexico's mythology, ecology, history, politics, and art traditions. In My Grandparents, My Parents, and I, the artist depicts herself in three stages of early existence: as an egg cell, as a fetus, and as a child. A ribbon connects to images of photographs of her European and Mexican forebears as in a family tree. While Kahlo's art was frequently autobiographical, this painting more specifically pertains to ancestry and the question of mestizaje, the idea that Mexican identity derives from the mixing of cultural and ethnic groups.”
Surrealist painting of a person with a horse’s head holding a rooster.
Painting of two legendary figures with animals between trees and a river. “Deploying the visual language of European painters, Strickland brings viewers into the world of Ojibwe ancestral oral histories. Here, two key figures from the canon of Anishinaabe storytelling are represented. Marked by his rabbit ears and legs, the Anishinaabe trickster figure Nanabozhoo is led out of a forest by his Nokomis (grandmother), her antlers representing wisdom. Accompanying them is an entourage of Great Lakes wildlife-ajijaakwag (sandhill crane), gijigijigaaneshiinhyag (chickadee), and memengwaag (butterfly). By depicting this tender moment between generations and across species, Strickland affirms understandings of kinship and respect, central principles within Anishinaabe homelands.”
A woman holding a framed award, standing between two other people.
A man on stage holding a microphone at a podium.
Painting of a bare landscape with on pillar with a surface that looks like white tree bark. There are many fluffy clouds in a blue sky. “An important Surrealist active in Brussels and Paris, René Magritte used traditional painting techniques to create images of realistically rendered objects juxtaposed illogically. Magritte and other Surrealists were inspired by the poetry of Isidore Ducasse (1846-1870), who wrote under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont, and defined beauty as "the chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella." Magritte's visual paradoxes, which may seem contradictory or irrational, are designed to undermine our complacent belief in a stable, predictable world.” - at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Wooden carving of a bear with painted facial features, at the de Young museum in San Francisco. “In the northern Pacific Northwest, the matrilineal clan system is essential to culture and ceremony. Carvings such as this one are symbols of identity that document family and community history. Every Haida group belongs to one of two clans, Raven or Eagle, and they share a reciprocal relationship. Only Haida Ravens have bear crests, so we know a noble member of a Raven moiety commissioned this carving. It was most likely a high-ranking Eagle person who created it. Once this bear was removed from the Haida community, it lost its clan history and its intended function.” - Ashley Verplank McClelland, curatorial assistant, Bill Holm Center, Burke Museum.
A tall building with “FOSHAY” in lights and a tall antenna, and partial reflection in a more recent glass tower.
A historic bank building flanked by taller downtown buildings.
Detail of a fancy window with carved glass.
Bas relief sculpture of a topless muscly Art Deco farmer with crops and birds. “Founded in the Year 1874.”
A midcentury modern building with a perimeter of tall narrow pillars.
Mural on a downtown building with 3 images of Bob Dylan.
View up through a lattice skylight window to tall buildings rising above.
Some very fine ducks on a lake.
Kayakers on a beautiful lake.
Statue of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat into the air.
Screenshot of the homepage for the Bosnian documentary INATLIJE (link in the quoted posted).
A crowd of people on a peaked pedestrian bridge holding flares at night. One of them jumps from the bridge into the river below.
Four people by an outdoor shrine, sort of posing for the camera, sort of talking amongst themselves.
Political cartoon of Teddy Roosevelt with a rifle holding his hand up refusing to shoot a small tethered bear who has unnaturally large, round ears.
Detail of the car illustration. little boy in the front seat has either a teddy bear or a real bear cub on his lap.
Newspaper from 1908 declaring that Minneapolis is the “Ideal Automobile City of America” with an illustration of a family in an open car.
Round medal with the profile of a man with his name and other and text around the perimeter.
Our dog, a golden retriever & chow mix, hurrying home at the end of his lead.
An elderly sweet dog and a young woman snuggled on the couch.
A dog and young woman with a camera in a mountainous landscape at sunset.
At Mia, the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “This rare and enigmatic gold sculpture of a lion—a symbol of power and authority-is elaborately decorated with looping filigree and fine granulation, in keeping with the Islamic gold-smithing traditions of the later Muslim kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal). Islam arrived in Europe in 711 CE, bringing new traditions in the decorative arts, such as the animal-shaped aquamanile: a vessel used for hand washing, which the Qur'an requires before prayer. While the handle, spout, and open mouth of this lion statuette complies with the forms of an aquama-nile, its small scale may suggest more symbolic than functional use. The work closest in size, style, and workmanship to this lion is a winged ram found in northwestern Spain, leading us to believe that this work, too, is from Muslim Spain.”
Face of a gold statuette of a lion with tongue protruding. At Mia, the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Painting of a woman with shoulder length dark hair wearing a black dress and long gloves. She is striding toward the viewer. “Max Lingner worked in Paris as an illustrator and art director for L'Humanité, the widely read newspaper of the French Communist Party. After the Nazis occupied France, he was arrested but escaped, obtained false papers, and supported the French Resistance, returning to Germany after the war. The bold image of his friend, Mademoiselle Yvonne, conveys Lingner's awareness, as he wrote, of ‘the importance of the French woman in public life, in party life, in illegality, the resistance movement and in the fight for freedom and peace... I have often glorified her cheerful confidence, her passionate heroism with pen and brush.’ Yvonne, a fellow member of the Resistance, was arrested, tortured, and deported to Auschwitz, where she is thought to have died in the spring of 1943.” This was in the exhibition “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.”