Hopi Maiden
I've always had mixed feelings about a few kachina paintings I made when I was younger. I've never really felt comfortable that it's my place to reference the beliefs of the Hopi. True, I was always facinated enough, and have collected kachina dolls since I was a teenager, but I am an outsider to the culture and perhaps shouldn't assume that I know so much as I think I do. It's different, to me, than referencing Greek or Egyptian mythologies. These others are common property to our mainstream culture, and embedded in it, while the culture of the Hopi struggles to survive and struggles to protect itself from overt commercialism and corruption from the outside.
In 2012 I went out to the Hopi Mesas in northern Arizona on a few occasions to see the kachina dances. No one, not even the Hopi, are allowed to photograph or even to sketch the kachinas, and it is considered very disrespectful to do so. This is why it is almost impossible to find photos of kachina dances, and the ones that you might find are antique, and taken no later than about 1910. Of course, having experienced this, I've come to a greater appreciation for the sacred respect that the Hopi have of their kachinas, and also have come to have more conviction about my use of them in my artwork. As much as I love it, it isn't my place to depict certain things, if for no other reason than out of respect. And yet it is acceptable to them to show other aspects of their culture, and they are not offended by the photography or other depictions of kachina dolls.
These days, most Hopi people dress pretty much like everyone else, and when you go to the dances you'll see them in logo t-shirts and jeans. But it isn't unusual to see Hopi maidens dressed in the traditional manner at the dances either. These maidens wear black dresses, with red and white sashes around their shoulders. Their hair is up in maiden whorls, and their faces are painted white with corn meal. As the kachinas dance, about 50 in an oval, these maidens and other people will walk around the oval sprinkling corn meal on the kachinas. I've seen all of this myself. Kachina dolls are given to the girls at certain ceremonies. A kachina doll is neither an idol nor a toy, but an educational device by which the children learn the types of kachinas. As for the landscape of the area, it is desert, and they live in villages on three mesas there which are of a rather yellow rock.
Truthfully, it is a bit aggravating for me to go and witness such weird and beautiful things as what I see when I go to the Hopi Mesas, and then to be so restricted in what I can represent of it in good conscience. But my experience there has encouraged me to respect their autonomy in matters relating to religion. So I've made a painting of what I can show without guilt. Here's my Hopi Maiden with her kachina doll sitting among the yellow rocks of the mesas.