¡Colores!; 407; Icons: Windows to the Soul; Sister Mary & Robert Lentz Interviews

Let me see if that's fine to get us a better fantastic that would be all right. Okay. I don't know if I can remember if it was the greatest interview I could come in the suicide but I won't do that. Okay. Okay. I can try. Okay. I can try. Okay. Let's open the room just a little. There we go. Okay. Focus. There it is. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry for this sister. One more time. Now that I read, remember, just so that we have it. What's your name? I'm Sister Mary Winita Little, a member of the Apache tribe, and also Teva from San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico. And

you're a nun? I'm a Franciscan sister of our Lady of perpetual help, and I have been ministering here 13 years. And here in Mexico. We are here in Mescalaro, New Mexico, a St. Joseph mission before the icon that portrays Jesus as an Apache medicine man, which was given to us by the artist Robert Nance. Now, as we said before, what does this image mean to you as a Mescalaro person? This image of Jesus as an Apache deepens that faith that Jesus truly came to be one of us. There are a number of times that I have asked various people from here

what they thought about Jesus portrayed as an Apache, and they looked at me so astonished, and the answer has always been why we always thought Jesus was an Apache. So this image certainly, for me, it certainly speaks of the presence of Jesus among us as one of us. How is it different, as we said already, but how is it different from other Catholic images? This image, I think, is different from other Catholic images because of the strength that I see in the face, also because he is dressed in a very traditional Apache way. And it's different

because I see less of it. It's different because I see Jesus in so many different ways in this image, especially the little hint of humor. It's a little bit hard to find, but if you know a Apache man, there's a certain little smile that is kind of knowing in mischievous, and I find that in this picture, this image. Now, how is it deep in your understanding of yourself as a Catholic person? The deepest understanding myself as a Catholic, mainly because it helps me to identify with Jesus as who I am, as

an Indian, and yet able to, and yet a Catholic. For so many of us who are Christians, sometimes we've had to kind of separate our Indianness and our being Christian, but through this image, it's such a close integration of our Indianness and being Catholic, seeing that to be Indian is how God certainly created us. And so that has deepened my own appreciation for even myself as an Indian person. And you had mentioned that, well I was going to say, how does the icon speak to you in the same way that your own Native American images, perhaps more abstract, but does it speak to you in a similar

way or in a different way? Well, it speaks to me of a medicine person who comes to the people with wisdom and with healing from God. It reminds me of one of the beliefs that we share with many other tribes that there was a time when a man came among us, among the different tribes, and taught us how to live in harmony with our Creator as well as with all other creatures, and especially with one another as human beings, and also taught the people how to use various herbs for healing. And to me, this

says that Jesus certainly walked among us, and for us, in our tradition, this person was with us and then just simply disappeared. So I often look at this image and know that Jesus truly walked among us and still remains with us. And finally, how has the image changed for you over time? You had mentioned that it's different for you. Well sometimes, sometimes he looks very stern. There are times when he looks very humorous. There are times when he looks very sad. And also I've always seen in the eyes a kind of a looking inward and yet at the same time looking

outward and seeing all that goes on now and into the future, it's a kind of almost a paradoxical kind of a look that I see in his eyes. They say that images and icons are windows to something much greater in our own world, how do you feel about this image when you're crying then? Well that's what I see in the eyes, that he looks beyond this world, look into the future and to things greater, he sees things that we cannot see, that's what I see in those eyes. It wasn't supposed to be, it was supposed to be a small picture in a book and

after I had spent some time with the people here I felt so much in love with them that I realized I wanted to do something that would help them preserve their culture. It was not painted to convert a patchy, it was painted to help a patchy, it's remained a patchy. Can you go over the story of how you came to arrive at the particular iconography present in it? The priest who was then stationed here in Mescalero had arranged for me to meet with a number of different medicine men and medicine women and after three days of talking with these people we refined the image, basically the way it is right now, something which is halfway between Mescalero and Chiracawa that could speak to various patchy peoples and still be noticeably a patchy to non -Indians as well. Okay, what is its strength as an icon? As an icon it's firmly rooted in 16th centuries of

Byzantine Christian tradition and yet its strength is that it speaks a new vitality unknown to the Byzantines which is the strength of the Athabascan people, the Apache people of New Mexico with the dignity of their culture. Did you have any fears or misgivings in creating the icon? My only fear or misgiving was that I would not be completely accurate with regard to the Apache people. Many would see a conflict in portraying Christ as an Apache Indian but you must feel differently. Can you talk about that? To root this answer in Christian tradition which

makes me step out of my role as a simple most resurrection Christ cannot be Apache, he cannot be anything. Many would see a conflict in portraying Jesus as an Apache Indian but you must feel differently. I'd love to be able to answer these questions just as an artist because my artist rooted in Christian theology I have to turn to that field as well. If after the resurrection Christ in his more cosmic nature cannot be depicted as well as an Apache as a Caucasian then artists have no business depicting him at all, European artists have felt no qualms about giving him blue eyes, blonde hair, brown hair even though he was a semi from the deserts of the east

and if they felt no problems with this for 1600 years why now should Caucasian people bulk at seeing and at the Baskin Christ? Can you talk about some of the details of the icon? The inscription at the bottom means giver of life, it's one of the names that Apache people have for the creator of all. The clothing is a mixture of mescalero and chirochava clothing, I did that on purpose because both tribes live here on the reservation both come to this church and I wanted each tribe to feel equally comfortable with what they saw. He stands at the very top of Sierra Blanca, the sacred mountain and he stands there as a medicine person greeting the sun on the fourth day of the young women's puberty rights on his hand, his painted a sun symbol with cat tail pollen and colors of clay and if the medicine man times his singing correctly just

as the sun is rising he is finishing the last song of the cycle which has lasted all night long and the sun hits that spot on his hand. In his other hand is a rattle made of deer hoofs which the medicine man uses to keep time with his chanting. The basket at his feet contains cat tail pollen, tobacco and eagle feather and a grass brush, objects which a medicine person uses during the puberty rights. The inscriptions at the top are typical Greek inscriptions that read Jesus Christ, he who is there found on every icon of Christ throughout the world. What did you hope to give to the Apache people with this icon? I hope to give them the faith in themselves. When the Spanish crown sent missionaries, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs parceled out tribes to various churches to be converted and as they thought

civilized great treasures were ripped from the human race as cultures began to disintegrate. No one can now change the fact that Chiracawa and Mescalero people are Roman Catholic or Dutch reformed or Southern Baptist or whatever they may be. But through the cyclone I hope that those who do come to this church who are Apache will retain faith in themselves and in their own culture which is something beautiful and in maintaining that culture can be for the rest of us human beings. An example of what it means to be human in ways that we are not used to, in ways that might open doors for us. How do you feel now seeing this icon?

This icon has in some ways helped me to put roots on this mountain so that when I come here I no longer come as a stranger. I come as one who in a small way belongs and I feel happy. And how does the work represent your transformation as an icon painter? It came, this icon is now three years old and I painted it very soon after I finished the Roman Cathedral in Santa Fe. At that point my own spiritual growth was showing me horizons much greater than European Christianity had taught me existed. The Apache people propelled me along the trail. I had just discovered and opened to me an awareness of how infinitely rich this spirituality can be.

And how does this icon in this church differ from the Cathedral of St. Francis and the work that you did there? The Cathedral of St. Francis was tightly controlled by people concerned with dogma and established order. And this icon was painted for people who have suffered precisely because of dogma and established order. This icon, I flew with this icon in a way that I struggled for two years with the Cathedral. Finally, how is this representative of how your subject matter, how you started integrating different subject matter and what not? Can you say something just briefly about, and we'll talk about it later, but just how your different motifs are converging different images and what not

as opposed to traditional? In 1989, when I painted this icon, I felt that it had to be an Apache Christ. In 1993, where I painted an icon for the Apache people, this would be child of the waters. It would not have to be a Christ. I would see today validity in as artists portraying for the people one of their own holy ones, and not needing to justify it in some way by tying it literally to part of the Christian myth. Yeah, that doesn't get me in trouble. Yeah.

It takes you out of the classroom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a rock. It's a very rock.