Ledger Art

Ledger Art was the topic of study for 2nd grade during our Cultural Heritage Week focus on Native American art last semester. Ledger Art is a unique genre of drawing on paper made by the Plains Indians from around 1860-1900. 

This is the summary I gave the students: When higher quality and more convenient art supplies became available after the Indian Wars (1870s), American Indians on the Great Plains started using them to communicate and make records. Petroglyphs (carved into rocks) and pictographs (paintings and drawings) had previously been used. Ledger books were easier to draw on and convenient to travel with. The drawings had a simple style designed for quick understanding. Instead of drawing what they saw, the artists drew the most important parts of the story.

Warning: Many of the ledger drawings show scenes of battle. Screen them before exploring with your students. I tried to avoid showing drawings with scenes of fighting and guns because the students made a big deal about it, and because I didn't want to perpetuate stereotypes since we only had time for a small piece of the overall picture.

I was planning to just offer notebook paper to the students to draw on, thinking it was the most similar to ledgers, but during my research, I also came across an internationally known Blackfeet painter named Terrance Guardipee and got a new idea. Guardipee has revived the ledger art tradition and put his own spin on it, adding collage elements of historical documents. Inspired by Guardipee, 2nd grade students used different papers (notebook paper, old worksheets, phonebook pages, etc.) to create a collage, which became the background for a drawing of a story or event from their lives.

The students drew in pencil and traced with sharpie to help the picture show up better on top of the layered text. Tempera cakes were mostly used to add color, with some students choosing to add detail with crayons. When students finished, they were given lined paper to write out the story in the picture (2-3 sentences.)

This was a good opportunity to talk about composition. What is the most important part of your story? How can you emphasize that with the composition of your artwork?

Some of my older students also gave it a try...

 

Here are some good resources on Ledger Art

http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/cool-things-native-american-ledger-art/10220

https://plainsledgerart.org/ 

http://terranceguardipee.com/

Adornment

For our Cultural Heritage study on Native Americans, 3^rd grade students explored the Plains Indians’ idea of adorning special clothing with symbols to honor or represent someone. After learning about symbolism on shirts and dresses, the students designed a shirt or dress to either honor someone special to them or represent the artist.

To begin the studio portion of the lesson, the students chose a specific person and brainstormed possible symbols to represent them. I asked the students to list good qualities of the person on the back of their paper because I wanted them to really work on the symbols, not just drawing things that "look indian".

After developing a list of symbols, the students drew the outline of a shirt or dress on their 11x14 inch paper. We spent some time talking about composition and how on the shirts and dresses we saw, the symbols made a really nice overall design- there was thought behind the placement instead of just floating pictures. The students laid their designs out in pencil, traced with sharpie, and added color with regular and construction paper crayons.

If you click to enlarge the photo, you may be able to read what this student wrote about his mom. :)

When the students finished adding color to their artwork, they cut out the "garment" and wrote a description explaining how the design represents the person they chose to honor.

My Friday classes didn't have as much time as the Monday/Tuesday classes, so to save time, they worked on smaller paper, didn't cut out their garments, and wrote out a symbol "key" on the front instead of attaching a separate piece of paper.

*The initial inspiration for this lesson came from a National Museum of the American Indian resource. It was available on their website (www.NMAI.si.edu) under explore, for educators and students but the link doesn't seem to be working today.

Background 

The Give Away Horses dress was created by beaders in the Growing Thunder family. Each design element is a symbol that helps tell the story of how Joyce’s grandparents would have a ceremony to give away horses in honor of their grandchildren. The women sewed beads on the dress for 16 hours a day to complete the piece for an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Traditional dresses worn for special occasions may be decorated with symbols that honor family members and connect the wearer to her family and community.

In addition to the images from NMAI, I found some cool pictures in a FiberArts magazine review.  The article said that some warriors wore shirts that “were decorated with personal images and designs that symbolized the deeds and valor of their wearers". (FiberArts Magazine, Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts).