Writing

Self Portraiture

I started taking self portraits in 2008 in Graduate School. At that time I had just turned 30 and was definitely reflecting upon my life in all ways. I began an exploration of my Identity utilizing self portraiture as a way to communicate my thoughts and feelings.

Quickly my self portraits evolved into larger expressions of Identity that went beyond myself. I explore notions of ethnicity, gender, culture, and social constructions of race connected to my personal experiences.

My Self Portraits ask questions; they don’t give answers. As a Feminist artist, I continue to explore my Identity with my all my art, and I’m still asking questions.

Reclaiming Thanksgiving

For North American Indigenous People,

Thanksgiving is traditionally our everyday Prayer and 

Celebration of Gratitude for All Our Relations ( for 'every-thing' ).

We Give Thanks continually for All that Is, because it is our Way.

Gratitude is Giving Thanks; it is the Honoring of Reciprocity and

Celebration of Unconditional Love and Forgiveness.

Walking the Way in Gratitude and Love every day,

is Walking the Beauty Path. We can Reclaim Thanksgiving 

and Celebrate in a new way; the Beauty Way. We can celebrate

that We Are Still Here and We Rise Together, We can choose to be 

the living embodiments of Love here on Earth, by simply Being Love and 

Being Loving to each other every day, in all ways, always.

The most radical and political act we can possibly be and do is to 

simply Love.

Being Love and Loving, does not mean we forget the Indigenous

Genocide we have experienced as Indigenous people of North America

AND the World. Being Love and Loving honors All Our Relations, All Our 

Ancestors. Let's Reclaim Thanksgiving by simply Being Love and Loving.

We can choose to celebrate or not, on this American Holiday. We can 

choose a new Way of celebrating or an old one. 

As a woman of Native American descent I choose to celebrate in a 

new Way; by Being Love and Loving, by Praying the traditional 

Thanksgiving Prayer, and by Giving Thanks for All Our Relations.

To All My People, To All Our Relations, I Love You and Pray for you All 

each and every day. I walk the Beauty Way in honor of my ancestors

of this Earth and Beyond the Stars, Moon and Sun.

May We Rise Together in Radical Love, continually reminding 

each other to Love and be Loving.

Love is the Way.

Many Blessings Always, In All Ways

Shannondoah

Beauty and Bling 2009

Digital Photography Series 

Self Portraits and Still Lives 

The Barbie Doll Sets are photographs of various ‘Ethnic’ Barbie Dolls adapting or attempting to adapt to ‘Barbie Dolls’ Caucasian Eurocentric ‘world’. I also include photographs of Barbie Doll critiquing herself in her world. The Barbie Doll Sets are staged scenes where I create parodies and satires that critique stereotypical Barbie Doll beauty and Caucasian, European standards of beauty.

The Grillz Self Portraits are personas that rebel yet slightly conform with popular culture’s stereotypical beauty ideals. The Self Portrait’s personas loosely emulate the various Barbie Dolls’ ethnicities represented in the Barbie doll Set photographs. The Grillz Self Portraits confront beauty ideals, gender boundaries, various identities and social constructions of race.

Grillz represent pride in many cultures and in Hip-Hop culture; they represent the “flash of spirit”, (Flash of the Spirit : African & Afro-American Art and Philosophy by Robert Farris Thompson) self worth, and rebellion. Typically Grillz are worn by men who are often emphasizing their ‘machismo’. A woman wearing Grillz flips the gender construction associated with Grillz from masculine to feminine. Now the woman wearing  the Grillz flashes Her spirit, Her pride, Her self worth, and Her bling.

Both Grillz Self Portraits and Barbie Doll Sets critique notions of plasticity, beauty, identity, and race.

***Joan Morgan talks about hip-hop, gender and race in her book ‘When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost : A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down’.

Morgan states on page 80, “ I believe hip-hop can help us win. Let’s start by recognizing that its illuminating, informative narration and its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations. The information we amass can help create a redemptive, healing space for brothas and sistas.

We’re all winners when a space exists for brothers to honestly state and explore the roots of their pain and subsequently their misogyny, sans judgement. It is criminal that the only space our society provided for the late Tupac Shakur to examine the pain, confusion, drug addiction, and fear that led to his arrest and his eventual assassination was in a prison cell. How can we win if a prison cell is the only space an immensely talented but troubled young black man could dare utter these words: “Even though I’m not guilty of the charges they gave me, I’m not innocent in terms of the way I was acting. I’m as guilty for not doing things. Not with this case but with my life. I had a job to do and I never showed up. I was so scared of this responsibility that I was running away from it.” We have to do better than this for our men. And we have to do better for ourselves. We desperately need a space to lovingly address the uncomfortable issues of our failing self-esteem, the ways we sexualize and objectify ourselves, our confusion about sex and love and the unhealthy, unloving, unsisterly ways we treat each other. Commitment to developing theses spaces gives our community the potential for remedies based on honest, clear diagnoses.”
VIEW Beauty and Bling Click Here

Wildflowers 2005

Oil Painting Series 

12 Paintings 20” x 20”

I make oil paintings and mixed medium drawings. I work with images of plants and animals. I use very bright colors that evoke emotion. I also incorporate text in to several pieces. The text represents my personal commentary. The plants and animals represent people and our environment. They are visual metaphors. All of the layers connect to each other symbolically, they are separate but together. 

I collage images together symbolically considering their iconography. When I work with images of plants and animals I create a narrative. The story is sometimes a bit abstract, other times direct. My ultimate goal is to bring about positive change by making imagery that talks about multicultural, environmental, and spiritual awareness. I would like the viewer to be able to participate in the abstract discussion happening in each piece, and think about the messages I am sending. I would like my art work to tell interesting, provocative, memorable stories. My work starts the beginning of the sentence and the viewer finishes it. My work is talking to the viewer open, honest, and exposed.

Colors, patterns, and layers play very important roles in my paintings. Each layer says something unique. I prefer super bright colors like the kinds of colors that are found in nature. I work with color theory to 

provoke an emotional interaction with the work. The color is its own layer and it becomes a part of the 

narrative in each piece. I love 1960’s and 70’s floral textiles. I am influenced by all of the flashy, 

psychedelic patterns. The bright colors and wild shapes intrigue me. They seem so organic and surreal, like another dimension. 

Like a quilt I weave together fragments; stitches of my life, my opinions, inspirations and revelations. I hope each viewer can get something from looking at my work, even if its just a tiny bit of interest sparked. Maybe it will be given a second thought, hopefully a third.
VIEW Wildflowers Click Here

Dress Up 2013/2010

Digital Photography Series

Still Lives

The Barbie Doll still lives are satires that parody the

'Culture of Glamour' that exists in our society today.

These photographic images humorously comment on the commodification and glorification of modern and contemporary concepts of beauty and glamour.

I reference the very real issues that Barbie Doll brings up - sexism, racism, and identity. The issues that I reference in the Barbie Photographs are painful but I think, and hope others think, the final images are humorous. I beleive we can heal the darkest of shadows with humor and laughter. I think when we can laugh at something that could be considered painful for us, we take our power back. 

The digital photographic series title ‘dress up’ references the children’s game most of us have played, in one form or another. The game is typically about the experience of trying on our parents/caregivers clothes and accessories; a child experiencing a moment of an adult’s life. Playing dress up is a fantasy game that explores the unknown and the unfamiliar. One tries on different identities when playing dress up, like wearing a mask during Mardi Gras. 

I think the Barbie Doll still life photographs visually reference the game ‘dress up’ in many ways. In some photographs I chose to place ‘World’ Barbie’s in to Barbie Doll’s environment using Barbie Doll’s things. In other photographs I chose to focus more on

Barbie Doll’s things than on the Barbie Doll. And as for Barbie Doll herself, I chose to create ‘forensic like’ environments that reminded me of little TV crime scenes. These are the funniest images for me - the secret dysfunctional reality of Barbie Doll’s crime world.

Almost all women around the world have been exposed to the Barbie Doll at one time or another and most of us have actually played the game dress up while playing with our Barbie Dolls. Some of us love her and some of us don’t like her very much....

I chose to reject the Barbie Doll as soon as I learned what she represented - and I was a fast learner. I knew, as well as most women knew - we would never look like

‘Barbie Doll the teenage fashion model’ and some of us - really didn’t care. I embraced alternative punk rock culture and hip hop at a very young age so when I was young I fantasized about a being a punk rocker and a hip hop star as opposed to a Barbie Doll living in Barbie Doll’s world. Who knew that as I explore my social political identity, my photographic voice would be talking about Barbie. 
VIEW Dress Up Click Here