Sonoma Valley Museum of Art has two fantastic exhibits on view through April 30th 2023. I wanted to see both and a weekday morning visit was ideal as the museum was quiet and I had plenty of time to take in the extraordinary work.
I was initially drawn to visiting to see We Are Still Here — Pomo Artists and Our Cultural Landscape and was doubly delighted to be able to view The New Californians: Photographs by Judy Dater in the same outing.
We Are Still Here highlights artwork of native Pomo and Miwok artists and reflects the resilience of the region's first people and the strong connections to their land as a place for ceremonies, family events, gatherings and religious observances.
This powerful exhibit merges contemporary art with traditional culture, reminding us of the history and heritage of the Natives that are still here and remain connected to this land some 200 years (this July) after the founding of the last of the California Missions, Mission San Francisco de Solano, in Sonoma. The exhibit is powerful and profound when we consider the devastating impact of Christianity on the indigenous people.
As I wrote in my 2016 non-fiction book, Fog Valley Winter, the self-supporting 21st and final mission and its land in Father Buenaventura Fortuny's words, was in possession of some 996 neophytes (unbaptized enslaved native people considered novices in the Catholic faith), 6,000 sheep and goats, 900 horses, 13 mules, 50 pigs, 3,500 head of cattle, 800 Spanish bushels of wheat, 1,025 bushels of barley, plus beans, garbanzos, peas and corn.
It was the intention of the Spanish that once all the natives had been converted to Catholicism and taught European farming methods, each of the missions would become independently operated parish churches after 10 years. This plan was never realized, though the missions were built on the backs of the first people, many of whom were baptized only to tun around the back of its main building and have their Catholic rites reversed by waiting medicine men and women.
If you visit the mission and historic barracks in Sonoma, tread reverently as you cross the road on First Street East by its adobe church. It is said that hundreds of haunted spirits float about town — they are the ghosts of the nearly 900 native people, including around 200 children wiped out by brutality and disease and buried under the street by the mission and barracks they helped build.
A series of three plaques by the outside wall of the chapel and erected by the State Parks Association in 1999 bears testament to this tragedy with an imprint of the Spanish given names of those who died.
The Bay Area was home to the largest native population center north of Mexico prior to the enslavement for the provision of labor and goods for Spanish Presidios that were constructed to protect from a hostile or pirate invasion, neither of which were much of a threat in 1776.
It was the beginning of the end for most of the peaceful indigenous people of Northern California, who had an average lifespan in the ensuing mission era of a mere 10 years, due to rabid diseases such as syphilis, smallpox, measles, diphtheria and influenza. They lost their teeth and were chronically underfed. If they attempted escape, they were flogged, starved, physically and mentally abused.
Almost all native children under the age of 10 died during the California Mission era of 1769 to 1833. This brutal reality is rarely talked about in the teaching of California history. After everything of value was swept out of the 20th and 21st California missions by the Mexican government in 1834, any surviving first people were sent to the mines as forced labor. Adding insult to injury, huge environmental issues followed the Gold Rush. Mercury polluted rivers, streams, watersheds and flood plains. Grasslands were decimated, wildlife, forests and natural habitats forever changed.
In 1851, land treaties were negotiated between the U.S. government and the tribes. Most were never ratified and were put under an injunction of secrecy for 20 years. Most of these land treaties represented territory considered far too valuable to hand over. The University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles as well as SF State University's Native American Studies departments finally brought about a first public consciousness to conditions on surviving tribal reservations in the late 1960s and early 70s.
In 2019, California Governor, Gavin Newsom issued a formal apology to the state's native people, describing the state's maltreatment toward them as a genocide. “California must reckon with our dark history,” said the Governor. “California Native American peoples suffered violence, discrimination and exploitation sanctioned by state government throughout its history. We can never undo the wrongs inflicted on the peoples who have lived on this land that we now call California since time immemorial, but we can work together to build bridges, tell the truth about our past and begin to heal deep wounds.”
We Are Still Here highlights artwork by contemporary Native Pomo artists: Silver Galleto (southern Pomo); Bonnie Lockhart (Northern Pomo/Kai Poma); Clint McKay (Dry Creek Pomo/Wappo/Wintun); Meyo Marrufo (Eastern Pomo); Robin Meely (Southern Pomo/Coast Miwok); Kathleen Rose Smith (Bodega Bay Miwok/Southern Pomo) and Eric Wilder (Southwest Pomo).
"When SMVA approached me about an exhibition," writes guest curator Meyo Marrufo, "I knew it was to be presented during the 200-year commemoration of Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma. The devastating impact of the mission system on indigenous people is known and constiutes a disastrous time in our history. But what is our response? We are more than just the compilation of historical trauma. "We are still here is a statement that does not need to be shouted, but it is a strong affirmation that the California Native Pomo People are not gone from our communities."
As native people, todays community has merged its traditional culture with contemporary art.
"We share our story and through our art, we show the world that we are still here," Meyo writes. . . "This is about our continued resilience. It's about how we maintain strong ties to our land, where we still come for ceremony, gathering, family events and religious observances and how we are still a part of the landscape. We show this not only through our art, but through our languages, our traditional land management practices and the sharing of ourselves. We are still here."
Regalia dress (skirt, beaded belt and clamshell necklaces) 2022 cotton, seed beads, dried tule stems, clam shell — Meyo Marrufo.
Artist Meyo Marrufo offers Four Hour Beading the Pendant Necklace Workshops at SVMA March 25/26. Click here for more info.
Judy Dater's The New Californians is striking in its juxtaposition. Judy Dater was born in Hollywood, California in 1941 and grew up in Los Angeles. Her father owned a movie theater, so movies became the prism through which she viewed the world and they had a profound influence on her photography. She attended UCLA, majoring in Art. In 1962 she moved to San Francisco and completed her education at San Francisco State University, majoring in photography. She became part of the community of the west coast school of photography, primarily represented by the photographers Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Wynn Bullock and Imogen Cunningham.
Dater’s portraits of Californians reflect the diversity and cultural richness that immigrant, indigenous and itinerant residents contribute to our beloved state. She writes, “We are a typical cross-section of people residing in the San Francisco Bay Area; and we reflect, in microcosm, the population pool of the entire state. People have been drawn from all over the world to the fabled state of California, bringing with them cultural riches I welcome and love”.
Click here for details on an artist talk with Judy Dater at the Museum on Feb 26th.
- Wed:11am-5pm
- Thu:11am-5pm
- Fri:11am-5pm
- Sat:11am-5pm
- Sun:11am-5pm
- SVMA Members:Free
- General Admission:$10
- Seniors (62+):$7
- College Students (with ID):$7
- Sonoma Valley Residents:$7
- 18 and under:Free
- Family Admission up to 5 people:$15
