Available Paintings

Connect with the Original Paintings For Sale page to see the full list of available paintings. Email BringsYellowArt@yahoo.com for inquiries.

Sarah Grandmother’s Knife

1910 Sarah was 10 years old when she was photographed in the image that this painting is based off of. Sarah is a Crow/Absaalooke girl who grew up and lived her entire life on the Crow Reservation in Eastern Montana. Due to her age, Sarah was one of the first generations of Crow children who would grow up on the Reservation instead of moving throughout the traditional homelands.

Due to the U.S. Government’s policy of forced removal, genocide, and forced assimilation in order to displace or remove Indigenous people from the land and then open it up for settlement Sarah would be living through a time of great transtion and turmoil for Native American people. She would be one of the first generations to attend boarding schools, be restricted from leaving the Reservation, and she would live through the illegalization of traditional Native American practices and ways of life. Despite living through these extraordinary experiences Sarah goes on to live to her late 50’s, primarily in Lodge Grass, Montana. Records state that she had 2 husbands and 8 children and relatives state she was a wonderful kaala (grandmother).

I chose to paint Sarah because despite her circumstances, Sarah chooses to pose for a portrait with familiar childhood joy and abundance of expression. She is unapologetically sticking her tongue out for the portrait in a time period where most photographers (especially those photographing Native Americans) required their subjects to be serious, stoic, and quiet. Her joyful expression, while most likely a byproduct of being a 10 year old girl being asked to sit still in the hot summer sun, serves as an act of resilience in the face colonization and oppression.

“Sarah Grandmother’s Knife” is currently available at the Medicine Bird Gallery in Livingston.

Bloom

“My country was like a flower and I gave you the best part”- Eneas, Kootenai

“Bloom” features a portrait of a young woman named “Agath” who shows up in historical photos taken on the Flathead Reservation around 1905-1907. “Agath” is most likely an English speaker’s misunderstanding of the Salish pronunciation for the name Agnes. After some further digging in the photographic archives, I believe that “Agath” is actually a young Agnes Incashola. 

Due to the age I perceive Agnes to be when she shows up in the photographic record, she most likely grew up as part of the first generation of Salish people that would be raised ONLY on the Flathead Reservation, forcibly removed physically and metaphorically from the traditional homelands in the Bitterroot Valley. She will live to see the passing of the Allotment Act, the death of Chief Charlo, the transition for the Salish, Kootenai, and Qlispel people from their homelands to life on the Flathead Reservation, to the opening up of the Flathead Reservation to non-Native settlement. 

Behind Agnes is an abstract rendering of the petals of an Arrowleaf Balsamroot plant. Balsamroot grows throughout the Mountain West including the Flathead Reservation and Missoula and Bitterroot Valleys.  Balsamroot is a hardy and resilient plant. It is winter tolerant, drought resistant, regrows after fire, and survives grazing and trampling.  It was used for generations by the Salish and other Tribes as a food source. Even further behind Agnes and the Balsamroot  is a muted copy of the Hellgate Treaty which had promised the Tribes land to remain “undisturbed” on. 

Bloom features Agnes and the Balsamroot as physical symbols of the resilience of Indigenous people in the face of changing and adverse environments. 

”Bloom” is sold.