Monday, February 23, 2015

How Do You Insult A Hualapai Woman?

February 23, 2015
   The latest issue of Phoenix Magazine hit the streets this week. Nice write-up on my show at the Tempe Historical Society:

Phoenix Mag BBB

   Raining pretty hard here at the True West World Headquarters. Went home for lunch and worked with Curator Cal a bit on filing my massive amounts of Daily Whip Outs. Ate a Christmas tamale from Carole Glenn (last one!). Dang that was good. Then back out to the studio and to whip out a scratchboard version of the Hualapai Historian:

 
Daily Whip Out: "Scratchboard of The Historian"

   Thanks to Gay Mathis, I decided this would make a good True West Moment on Hualapai modesty:

A Serious Hualapai Insult
   110 years ago, female members of the Hualapai tribe wore their hair heavily banged, with hair covering their cheeks and even their chins. There was a reason for this, and one anglo photographer found out the hard way: "I wished to make a photograph of a woman I had long known and been friendly with. As her eyes and face were scarcely distinguishable, I took the liberty of putting back the hair from her cheeks. She arose in anger, and for three years refused to speak or meet with me. I had given her the most serious insult a man could offer to a Wallapai woman."
—George Wharton James

"As a painter I shall never amount to anything important. I am absolutely sure of it."
—Vincent van Gogh