Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

by Gerald Vizenor

  Gratia, we learned later, was the very first woman to direct a major city library. She was raised on a farm, graduated from the University of Minnesota, and initiated book stations for laborers and immigrants, and she seemed to appreciate that we were native newcomers in search of adventure and liberty. My brother was the painter, and the stories were mine.

  Carnegie was surely impressed with her philosophy of free libraries and enlightened dedication to the public access of books on the shelves. We were impressed that so many books were at hand, and touchable without permission. The books were not concealed, and instantly summoned for review. Books were federal prisoners at the government school.

  Gratia rested her heavy hands on the reference table. Her wrists were thick like a native or peasant, her hair was parted on the left, and her narrow nostrils moved with slight traces of breath. She leaned closer to my brother, and with a comic smile asked him to paint a blue raven with a copy in claw of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum.

  Aloysius turned to a new page in his art book, spit in the tin of blue paste, and briskly painted the abstract portrayals of Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman protected by the enormous wings of a blue raven on the reference table. He continued to paint an outline picture of the orphan Dorothy Gale and Toto depicted as a reservation mongrel on the back of a fierce raven with a huge dappled blue beak.

  Gratia raised her peasant hands in praise and laughed out loud in the hushed reference room. Several readers turned and stared at the head librarian. The younger librarian was anxious, of course, but she did not raise her finger or comment on the laughter or the saliva and blue paint in the library.

  Aloysius had never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but the story of the fantastic adventures were told by several teachers at the government school on the reservation. We resisted the peculiar scenes of wicked cackles and godly virtues because they were not recounted in any native experiences. Stories of the ice woman were much more urgent and memorable. Yet, our slight resistance to the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman must have encouraged the actual memory of the story. So, in a sense the cockeyed wicked scenes became a creative rescue years later at the Minneapolis Public Library. My brother remembered a crude summary of the wizardly story and portrayed the characters in a speedy abstract painting. The head librarian was very impressed by his talent and invited us to her office in the turret with the curved bay windows.

  Gratia served milk and cookies, and explained that she was always prepared to serve children treats and books because they are the future readers and patrons of the library. She had established the first reading room for children. Luckily we had entered the main section of the library.

  You boys are not children, of course, but we must share the cookies, she said, and turned toward the windows. The reflection of her face was curved and her nose and ears were elongated.

  Gratia was apologetic that she had never visited a reservation, but she mentioned Frances Densmore who had studied native songs of the White Earth Reservation. She was surprised to learn that our uncle published a weekly newspaper.

  The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts was located in the library, but the collection of paintings was not open to the public. Aloysius was downhearted that the art collection was not available because that was the primary purpose of our visit to the city. My brother wondered where he could see art, meet artists, and present his blue raven paintings.

  Gratia suggested that we visit art galleries to see the work of other painters. She named the Golden Rule Gallery in Saint Paul, and the Beard Art Galleries in Minneapolis. She was certain that we would be inspired by many of the artists who exhibited their work at these galleries. She warned us to be aware that the trendy and new abstract painters were not current or popular in the galleries.

  Blue ravens were totemic not mercenary.

  Saint Paul was another strange and distant city. The saintly names of missions made sense, but sainted cities were not sensible. Cities were enterprises, sprawling, noisy, and scary places, and not the centers of saints.

  The Beard Art Galleries were located on Hennepin Avenue near Lake Street. We boarded the streetcar, sat at the back, and counted the city blocks to the gallery. The conductor pointed to a building on the other side of the street. There, displayed in the bay window of an ordinary storefront were three paintings, a woodland landscape, a bowl of unsavory fruit, and a bright portrait of three Irish setters with feathery tails.

  Irish setters were not bound for museums.

  Aloysius was worried for the first time about his vision of blue abstract ravens. He had created raven scenes on the train, in parks, on the streets, department stores, hotels, and at the library. The Irish setters and fruit bowl were obstacles to visionary art and he refused to enter the gallery. Suddenly he was distracted and vulnerable in the commercial world of gallery art.

  The Irish setters were aristocratic posers, haughty pedigree portrayals, plainly favored over natives and the poorly. So, we walked slowly around the block, and then continued several more blocks west to Lake Calhoun, or the Lake of Loons, which was a native descriptive name. The lake was renamed to honor John Caldwell Calhoun, the senator and vice president. We rested on the grassy lakeshore and created stories about mongrel portraits and landscapes of white pine stumps in the gallery window.

  The actual paintings in the gallery window were good copies of a concocted nature, but not abstract native totems or chancy scenes of liberty. We watched the sailboats swerve with the wind and then walked back to the gallery.

  Our faces were reflected in the gallery window, and at that very moment a yellow streetcar passed through the scene of our reflection, a throwback to abstraction and native stories. The muted aristocratic setters mingled with passengers on the streetcar. That scene became the most distinctive story of our two days in the city. We told many versions of that story to our relatives. The Irish setters, native faces, and the slow motion of the streetcar that afternoon became a chance union of abstract creation.

  The Beard Art Galleries became an abstract scene.

  Aloysius pushed open the door with confidence, and we were surprised by the art inside the gallery. There were no bright fruit bowls or setters with feathered tails. The strain of art in the window was deceptive, and we decided that the display was only selected to entice passengers on the streetcars.

  The cloudy walls were covered with original art, gouache, oil on canvas, and watercolors on paper, mostly natural water scenes, evocative barns and country houses, railroad stations, sailboats, glorious summer sunsets, autumn maples, and winter landscapes. The trees and outlines were precise images, and the colors were intense and clean. The emigrants who moved to the cities must have been heartened by the romantic and picturesque landscapes.

  Three framed distinct watercolors were displayed on sturdy oak easels near the entrance of the gallery. Aloysius moved closer and reached out to touch the magnificent images of misty scenes, and then held back with his hands raised above the easels. The three watercolors, Snowy Winter Road, Summer Afternoon, and Woman in the Garden, seemed to reach out to touch and enchant my brother and me.

  Snowy Winter Road was a watercolor of giant trees on a curved country road. The trees were covered with heavy wet snow, a natural bow to the season. The entire scene was muted but the snowy trees, and the morning light, shimmer in the gallery and in my memory.

  The Summer Afternoon watercolor was a subtle diffusion of light and the waft and scatter of colors on a sleepy afternoon, a misty secret scene of lacy trees in praise of nature and memory. We could hear the sound of birds and insects in the scene, and the slight glint of dragonflies over the lily pond.

  The Japanese Woman in the Garden wore a traditional kimono, and she was crouched near a garden of lilies. We were touched by the subtle motion and magic of the visionary watercolor scenes. The elegant curves were natural, erotic, and magical.

  Aloysius was captivated by the Woman in the Garden.

  Harmonia, the gallery
manager, a lanky, intense woman with short blonde hair pointed directly at my brother, but not at me. She wore a dark gray pinstripe suit, bluish necktie, and black-and-white oxford shoes. Naturally, we were distracted by her manly costume and hardly noticed her severe gestures.

  Keep those dirty hands in your pockets, she shouted, and then shooed me toward the door. Aloysius lowered his hands and stared at the manager. She, in turn, folded her arms, raised one long pale blue finger, and stood directly in front of the three easels.

  The Irish setter in the window, how much?

  The setters are not for sale.

  The Woman in the Garden, how much for that watercolor? Aloysius moved behind the easels and read out loud the name of the artist. Yamada Baske, how much for the Japanese Woman in the Garden?

  Very expensive, what do you want?

  Aloysius told the gallery manager that we wanted to meet the watercolor artist named Yamada Baske. She turned in silence, rocked on her oxfords, and waited for us to leave the gallery.

  Aloysius announced that our uncle owned a newspaper, and he would surely buy the Woman in the Garden. Suddenly her manner changed. She cocked her head to the side, smiled, and pretended to be friendly, unaware, of course, that the newspaper was published on the White Earth Reservation. Yamada Baske was Japanese, she said, and he taught art in Minneapolis.

  Aloysius revealed that he was a watercolor artist. She smiled and again folded her arms with one finger raised as a gesture of doubt. One of our teachers at the government school raised her finger, but the gesture was more about derision than doubt. My brother opened his art book and presented several of his most recent abstract blue ravens, but not the ones he had painted earlier that day at the library.

  Harmonia slowly turned the leaves of his watercolor book, examined each blue raven, and then announced that Yamada Baske, or Fukawa Jin Basuke, was an instructor at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. Naturally we were surprised to learn that the art school and the Society of Fine Arts were located on the same floor of the Minneapolis Public Library.

  The same conductor was on the return streetcar and asked us about the art gallery. Aloysius told him about the window display, the bright fruit and red setters, and then described the watercolor scene of a beautiful Japanese woman in a garden of lilies.

  What does she look like?

  Her face was turned to the lilies.

  So, why was she beautiful?

  The elegance of her hands and feet crouched by the lilies, my brother explained to the conductor, but he was not convinced. We were touched by the mood and subtle hues of the watercolor. The Woman in the Garden was the only picture that was enticing and we wanted to be in the garden scene with that sensuous woman.

  Yamada Baske was standing at an easel with a student when we entered the studio. He smiled, bowed his head, and then turned to continue his discussion on the techniques of painting subtle hues of color, traces of reds and blues in watercolors. Baske told the student that the wash of blues was a natural trace of creation, a primal touch of ancient memories. The blues are a procession, he explained, and the turn of blues must be essential, the epitome and trace of natural hues of color.

  Aloysius was inspired by the chance discussion of colors, the hues of blue, and once again he flinched and turned shy. My brother was a visionary artist, and that was a native sense of presence not a practice. He had never studied any techniques of watercolor as a painter. So, when he heard an art teacher describe his own natural passion as a painter he became reserved and secretive.

  The contrast between visionary, mercenary, and gallery art was not easy to discuss with a learned painter. My brother created blue ravens as new totems, a natural visionary art, and for that reason the scenes he painted were never the same, and are not easily defined as a practice by teachers of art. There were no histories about blue ravens, no learned courses on new native totems. My brother was an original artist, and the images he created would change the notions of native art and the world. His native visions cannot be easily named, described, or compared by curators in art galleries.

  Aloysius mounted several of his blue ravens on the empty easels in the studio. Yamada Baske studied the raven pictures from a distance, at first, and then he slowly moved closer to each image on the easels. He described the totemic images as native impressionism, an original style of abstract blue ravens.

  Baske was reviewed as an impressionist painter, and exhibition curators observed that he had been trained in the great traditional painting style of the Japanese. Later, in the library, we read that his watercolors conveyed a traditional composition, “but rendered with the airy, misty technique of the impressionists. In some ways this reflects completion of a circle of influence given that the impressionist movement was deeply influenced by Japanese art, particularly watercolors and Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.”

  Aloysius created blue ravens, an inspiration of natural scenes and original native totems, and one day his watercolors would be included in the stories told about abstract and impressionist painters. My brother would create the new totems of the natural world in visionary, fierce, and severe scenes.

  Baske was truly impressed by the pictures of the blue ravens. He moved from easel to easel, and then mounted more pictures to consider. He commented on the mastery of the blue hues, the subtle traces of motion, the natural stray of watercolor shadows, and the sense of presence in every scene of the ravens.

  The blue ravens are glorious, visionary, a natural watercolor creation, said Baske. He raised one hand and waved, a gesture of praise over the blue ravens on the easels, and then he turned to my brother, smiled, and bowed slightly.

  Aloysius opened his art book and painted a raven with wings widely spread over the studio easels, misty feathers tousled and astray, beak turned to the side, a blue raven bow of honor and courtesy. My brother presented the watercolor to the artist of the Women in the Garden.

  Baske mounted the blue raven on a separate easel. Young man, he said, you perceive the natural motion of ravens, and only by that heart, by that gift of intuition, and distinctive sensibility create the glorious abstracts of impressionistic ravens.

  Aloysius was moved by the curious praise, of course, but he was hesitant to show his instant appreciation and sense of wonder. The blue ravens were in natural flight, and the studio was silent. We heard only our heartbeats and the muted screech of streetcars in the distance. The mighty scenes of new totems were gathered on the easels. No one had ever raised the discussion of blue ravens to such a serious level of interpretation or considered the abstract totems with such critical sensitivity.

  Aloysius invited the artist to visit our relatives on the White Earth Reservation. Baske smiled, bowed, and accepted the invitation. He walked with us down the stairs to the entrance of the library. Outside he paused, turned to my brother, handed him a tin of rouge watercolor paint, and suggested that he brush only a tiny and faint hue of rouge in the scenes of the blue ravens. Baske told my brother that a slight touch of rouge, a magical hue would enrich the subtle hues of blues and the ravens.

  Baske was a master teacher.

  My brother painted blue ravens over the train depots on our slow return to the Ogema Station. He practiced the faint touch of rouge, the hue on a wing or in one eye of a blue raven, and a mere trace of rouge in the shadows.

  › 5 ‹

  PEACE MEDALS

  — — — — — — — 1910 — — — — — — —

  Odysseus arrived as usual on horseback that early summer but his familiar songs were faint and unsteady. In the past summers we could hear the sonorous voice of the trader at a great distance. His hearty songs were gestures of amity on the reservation.

  Mine eyes have seen the glory

  Aloysius listened for the trader and created blue ravens as a present, an original totem of native respect. The scenes were finished by the time the trader arrived and raised his cowboy hat, as he had for more than ten years, to the banker, federal agent, newspaper editor,
priest and nuns, and then dismounted at one of three hotels, the Leecy, Hiawatha, or the Headquarters. Most of his lively summer songs were familiar and reminiscent of the American Civil War.

  Glory, Glory Hallelujah,

  His truth is marching on.

  That summer my brother painted a raven perched on a blue-spotted saddle. The raven and the saddle were in magical flight over the train station. Aloysius always created an original painting to celebrate the coming of our great friend the singing trader, and later my brother carved the fantastic image of a blue raven on a wooden pendant.

  Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,

  While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;

  But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,

  His soul is marching on.

  Odysseus traveled and traded with natives in many parts of the country, from Santa Fe, Navajo Mountain, Oklahoma, and Omaha, to Pine Ridge, and, of course, the White Earth Reservation. He raised his white cowboy hat, smiled, and waved to everyone on the wooden walkway as his two horses walked slowly past the government school, the mission, the post office, the new house of our uncle, Theodore Beaulieu, and past the Chippewa State Bank.

  Odysseus arrived that summer at the livery stable with a dislocated shoulder and a broken ankle. One shoulder was hunched forward, and his right ankle was badly swollen. He winced with pain as he tried to unsaddle the horses. Finally he moved on one foot to rest on a hay bale. One boot was fastened to the saddle horn.

  Aloysius loosened the cinch, and together we heaved the heavy saddle over a wooden horse. The brown leather skirt of the saddle was decorated with precious silver peace medals. Odysseus wore a similar peace medal on a thick leather band around his neck.

  Calypso, the blue roan mare, had carried the wounded trader more than forty miles from the headwaters of the gichiziibi at Lake Itasca to the Hotel Leecy. She ambled past two other hotels directly to the very best livery stable on the reservation, a natural choice of horses and traders.