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Native American Art Ledger Art Analysis

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During my visit at the National Museum of the American Indian in Manhattan I encountered a painting created by Dallin Maybee. He is from the Northern Arapaho tribe, this tribe is from the Great Plains. This artist specializes in ledger art. A ledger artist creates art on ledgers. Native Americans are known to use ledgers for their artwork. Ledgers are usually old documents used in the past for notes or other writing uses. Ledgers are very important to the Native American community. Ledger are easy to get access to. Alex Plamer from smithsonian.com notes how tribe members painted on these ledgers to record situations they faced:
As the U.S. government imposed policies aimed at assimilating Native Americans into the mainstream culture, and in many cases imprisoning the Plains Indians, the crafting of “ledger art” became a way for the warrior-artists to hold on to their heritage and document their experiences. …show more content…

According to the description at the museum Power Struggle used ledgers, ink, glue, colored pencils and paint. The image shows a movement towards the west. A train is shown being run by two Native Americans, next to the train is a herd of bulls running with another set of Native American, one is on a horse with a spear like object, while the other Native is riding a car. All four Native Americans are dressed in traditional clothing. An eagle is flying near the sun in the art piece. At the museum I noticed Maybee’s art has a trend of modern transportation, but still has traditional techniques

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