“Meat” and “Medicine” are two paintings created with original ledgers from 1909 and 1910. It is my understanding that ledger art was originally created as a response by Native men no longer having access to traditional artistic surfaces like hide and needing a replacement surface that was available to draw their stories. With necessity being the mother of invention, the artists started drawing on paper ledgers that they had access to, and thus ledger art was born. 

I was gifted these ledgers and some others from a friend who is a ledger artist and who knows I love anything related to history and historical records. When I received the ledgers I spent several hours trying to understand what was being sold, what the purpose was, and their origin. 

On these particular ledgers the words “meat” and “medicine” appear over and over as commodities that are being sold. But meat and medicine used to be things people harvested from the land and were readily available. 

I added the buffalos onto the ledger because I think they tell the history of how we as people have moved from harvesting plants and animals from the land for our use and now we don’t have access to those things anymore and we have alternatives that we have pay for. 

Meat and Medicine are available as a pair or individually at the Radius Gallery.