Summer exhibitions to open at Old Jail Art Center
By Melinda L. Lucas
New exhibitions will open at the Old Jail Art Center with a members’ viewing and dinner reception on Saturday, June 10 and remain on view throughout the summer until Aug. 26.
The two exhibits, which will be featured during the Fandangle season, are Cheyenne Ledger Drawings: Stories of Warrior Artists and Corrie Thompson: Drought and Deluge.
Nineteenth-century Plains Indian drawings have been termed “ledger” drawings because they were often made with pencil, ink, and watercolor on pages of old ledger or account books.
The images that will be exhibited at the Old Jail were created by three Cheyenne warriors, also artists, who were among 72 prisoners of war taken by the U.S. government to Ft. Marion in Florida in 1875 following the Red River War.
While at the fort, government agents attempted to assimilate the imprisoned Cheyenne. Their once long hair was cut short and their clothing was replaced by military uniforms.
For nearly 100 years, this narrative was told and retold by historians and government agents. But the Cheyenne warrior artists artfully documented their own version of the journey east and the life they left behind.
Cheyenne Ledger Drawings: Stories of Warrior Artists features 52 deeply personal works by three Cheyenne artists who were part of this national forced assimilation project.
In the ongoing Cell Series of Exhibitions, Corrie Thompson will install drawings on canvas and fabrics entitled Drought and Deluge.
The Fort Worth artist makes drawings, books, and textiles that explore tensions between identity, loss, and place.
Thompson explores elements of the Texas landscape in drought and deluge weather states, considering them as indicators of the state of the world.
Her drawings on canvas and fabrics with applied text develop another layer of content within the confines of the OJAC’s historic jail structure that has witnessed more than 146 years of change.
For more information or to become an OJAC member, call 325-762-2269 or visit theojac.org.
