Vital Kinships: A Conversation with Eric Gansworth & Arigon Starr

Abstract

70 WLT MAY–AUGUST 2017 Vital Kinships A Conversation with Eric Gansworth & Arigon Starr by Susan Bernardin A central yet surprisingly undernoted facet of Native arts production is its interrelationality. Whether innovating across genres or moving across expressive forms, many Native artists refuse to settle. In doing so, they make visible vital kinships between visual and verbal forms, between image and text. Arigon Starr, a comics artist and musician, and Eric Gansworth , a painter and writer, exemplify the dynamic multiplicity at the heart of contemporary Native aesthetics. This interview, begun with Arigon at the Indigenous Comic Con in Albuquerque and concluded via lively email exchanges, was fittingly interactive . Following Eric’s suggestions, I asked each of them different questions. They then shared their responses, prompting more exchanges. Our ensuing asynchronous conversations are represented in abridged form here. Although they have not yet met, Arigon and Eric found ample interconnections, both in their work and in their affinities for nerd culture and 1970s rock stars. Comic Origin Stories Susan Bernardin: Whether we define the comics medium in Scott McCloud’s words as “juxtaposed pictorial images and other images in deliberate sequence” or as a form of visual storytelling, it has proved a generative source for both of you. What role did reading and writing comics play in your development as an artist? What were its stylistic , narrative, or structural elements that appealed to you? In what ways have your tribal nations’ forms of visual storytelling influenced or enhanced your aesthetic? Eric Gansworth: I came to comics through TV, latching onto Batman before the age of two. As soon as I could read, I leaped onto comics, and in fourth grade I made a comic, which went on display at the school (wish I still had it, but I remember it well). So, it’s always been a part of my thinking lexicon. Haudenosaunee culture is very image-driven —wampum figures carrying our culture, representational beadwork—but I didn’t really begin exploring its possibilities as a refractory lens until the beginning of my professional career. I was always aware of those images. From day one, giant electrical towers looked like monstrous wampum men towering over our landscape. Arigon Starr: There have always been comic books in my life, from Sunday funnies to Archie to superheroes. I started drawing my own comics in junior high, often featuring my favorite musicians of the time (yes, I made George Harrison into a superhero called “Hippie Man”). My tribal influences came from seeing artwork from Oklahoma artists like Acee Blue Eagle and Solomon McCombs (both from the Muscogee Creek Nation), who used a flat color rendering style with thick, traced outlines. Those paintings looked like Indian Comics to me! Additionally , my Kickapoo uncle Rudolph Wahpecome was an artist and architect, so I knew that an Indian might be able to make a living as an artist. Afterlives and Novel Forms Bernardin: Although contemporary Native artists and writers often work in multiple media, you two are unusually ambidextrous: Arigon, you are a musician, playwright, and comics artist. Moreover, your Super Indian, like any good superhero, has many lives, moving from a radio series to serial web comic to published volumes. Eric, you are a painter, poet, and novelist whose books feature interrelated visual and narrative designs. The vital, complex kinship between literary and visual forms is a signature feature of your work. cover feature new native writing WORLDLIT.ORG 71 How do you each perceive the relationship between the moving parts or platforms of your work? What does each offer? What kinds of work do you see each performing? How do you see these different platforms or forms engaging different audiences? Gansworth: Comics prepared me for flexing both sides of my voice. While I compose differently, visual and verbal forms are all the same story to me, filtered through different facets. Maybe it’s close to performance artists like Laurie Anderson and Karen Finley and progressive bands like Rush and Pink Floyd. Long before music videos, both bands explored the synthesis of simultaneously presented images and songs. I also (being a weird kid) loved early German expressionist silent films. By the age of nine, I‘d...