The sculpture depicts a Blackfoot native in the midst of a "Traditional Dance", decked out in "
elaborate feathers and a loincloth, holding a staff with feathers in one hand and a feather fan in the other". Created in 2000 by native Blackfoot artist Kevin Hope, it was his first life-sized sculpture after establishing
Spotted Eagle Art, an artistic welding venture. A welder by trade, Hope spends much of his time doing commercial welding on various projects across the West.
Traditional Dancer was initially placed at the Plains Indian Museum in Browning, but is now in front of an entrance to Napi Elementary School. Hope created the sculpture using various pieces of scrap steel salvaged from a defunct sawmill on the Blackfoot Reservation that burned in the 1970s and was never rebuilt.
Following is more on the story of Kevin Hope, Traditional Dancer and Spotted Eagle Art.
Kevin Hope's Traditional Dancer
Spotted Eagle Art is his new artistic welding venture. Already Hope’s artwork is on display throughout Browning and East Glacier.
His first life-sized sculpture, “Traditional Dancer,” which he created in April 2000 from scrap steel salvaged from an old sawmill and smokestack on the reservation, has been displayed in the Plains Indian Museum in Browning and is now in front of Napi Elementary School. Hope says the dancer is his favorite work so far, because after creating it he realized he could take “something that was practically nothing and turn it into a productive piece of art.”
The sculpture depicts a tall, rust-colored Indian dressed in elaborate feathers and a loincloth, holding a staff with feathers in one hand and a feather fan in the other, and with his knee raised in joyous dance.
Blackfeet Tribal Chairman Earl Old Person remembers when the sawmill that Hope used to salvage material from to create his masterpiece was a vibrant economic force in Browning. But after a fire destroyed much of it in the 1970s, the tribe didn’t have the resources to rebuild.
“It served a purpose for awhile,” Old Person says.
Hope took pieces of that economic success from the past and used it for his own future. When he needs scrap metal Hope will still shinny up the side of the towering, rusting smokestack shell that sits decaying at the sawmill. He moves with the excitement and ease of a young boy, even as he warns his own young son to stay away from the rickety structure.
From the University of Montana
