of waiting for people to help us. They're too busy doing other things. BEATIE: Too busy fucking up the planet. L FRANK: Yeah. Instead of taking care of the people who can help take care of the planet. BEATIE: When did you first hear about Corita and what did her teachings and spirit open up for you? L FRANK: I visited my friend who was at Immaculate Heart and I was immediately in awe of the place and that was where I found silk screening which I loved because art teachers were stealing my artwork and I thought if I made silk screens then they could steal some and I could have some. BEATIE: What do you mean they were stealing your artwork? L FRANK: Oh yeah. They'd go: “Oh no, it broke a kiln.” And then you'd find it for sale somewhere. So it was a very short time but one that impacted the entire rest of my life. I call that my Renaissance moment because it just cracked my brain open. I used to make art very small because I was so insecure about it that I figured if the art was small then the mistakes would also be small. BEATIE: You mention doing tiny art but you were part of this wonderful Tongva Land Billboard project which was the opposite of tiny? L FRANK: Yeah, my cousin Kara Rome who's a brilliant photographer, she had an art project in my homelands and included artists from my homelands to make it right. She chose a painting I did from a series called Coyote Opts out of the Choir where Coyote realizes that one can actually walk away from Catholicism. BEATIE: It's an incredibly powerful image. Did you feel that having it so large and visible was a powerful statement in addressing the gross invisibility? L FRANK: It was a powerful statement to us indigenous and our allies, but I really don't think that anyone else paid any attention. I think I saw it in one native art publication, but otherwise the art world didn't say a word about any of those billboards, there was absolutely nothing. But the indigenous people felt very proud. BEATIE: I feel like the best stuff of this world doesn't always get No. 109 appreciated at the time, but how symbolic that you have such a huge billboard campaign around this city and everyone ignores it. L FRANK: Yeah that's what it is. They can't recognize us. BEATIE: When talking about art and the need for art to address invisibility, is it also because there are so few tangible artifacts and touchpoints left of your culture that you actually have to remake them? L FRANK: Correct. And what is left is overseas in museums and are difficult to get to, and we don't have any imagery because a lot of our things were made on wood or on other pieces that don't hang around. So then I started making art about the fact that this is what we've got. BEATIE: Tell us about your basketry and canoe building and the first stone bowl? These artifacts, and ways of creating, that you are reviving and keeping alive as we start to lose those physical touch points and the wisdom associated with them. L FRANK: Absolutely. In 1991 or so, along with other people, I helped make the first steamed, glued, sewn together plank canoe in almost 300 years that we used to go out to the islands. And since then I've made a second and she's gone on four tribal canoe journeys up in Washington state. I also made the first stone bowl by someone in my tribe in 200 years because I saw in a museum we made stone bowls and I thought, Well, who does that now? And they said, “No one.” So, I did. And I've had to scrounge for money to go to museums in Europe to photograph and see the objects taken from our land. And I've been hit and chased by Neo-Nazis in Paris, just trying to see my things so that we can bring them home to our people so that we can see who we are. Touching these things, oh gosh, the visions and the voices that I hear and things that I learn are overwhelming. I started crying when I walked into the collections room because everything started crying at me and the museum people couldn't hear it. So it was pretty darn emotional. BEATIE: Didn't you say that with the first stone bowl, you didn't know what you were doing, but the stone had a memory of being a bowl and you dreamt it and there it was? L FRANK: Yes. I had this big square thing and no clue as to how to make it round. It was big and daunting and it’s a good thing the Haida L’S TONGVA LAND BILLBOARD VAGINA THEATER, JUST ANOTHER SHOW ON THE ROAD
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