John Hitchcock

Bury the Hatchet: Prayer for My P’AH-Be

Bury the Hatchet is artist John Hitchcock’s mixed media, cross-disciplinary, multisensory installation. Hitchcock combines his interests in printmaking, Rock n’ Roll, and Kiowa and Comanche history into one visual expression that offers a re-telling of the narrative of the American Frontier. Working from the theme of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, Bury the Hatchet explores issues of assimilation, acculturation, and indoctrination through oral history and music. Bury the Hatchet develops a shared language to interrogate historic and modern institutions to prompt a re-definition and re-imagining of our present reality.

 

The visual and sound recordings in the exhibition work together to challenge western perspectives of the supremacy of the written word by reinforcing Indigenous views of oral history passed on from generation to generation through storytelling. 

 

Sound recordings include the artist on pedal steel guitar with soundscapes of cello, clarinet, accordion and guitars by The Stolen Sea, Jason Cutnose (Kiowa1967-2015) narrating a story about the Cutthroat Gap massacre in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, Juanita Pahdopony (Comanche) voice recording a Comanche prayer, Hitchcock’s grandfather Saukwaukee John Dussome Reid (Kiowa 1912-1996) telling a story of the old days on the Southern Plains, Catlin Mead reinterpretation of Cutnose’s stories through her Soprano opera voice and Intertribal War Dance Songs (recorded in 1978 on the Johnny Reid (Kiowa) and Peggy Reid (Comanche) Dance Ground). Video images include War Dancers in Medicine Park, Oklahoma and buffalo images recorded in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge by Emily Arthur.

 

MUSICIANS

Emily Arthur – Day is Done

Jason Cutnose  – Kiowa Stories

Hannah Edlén – clarinet, sound design

John Hitchcock – pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, electric guitar

Ryan Lansing – electric guitar

Allison Lenz – cello, percussion

Caitlin Mead – opera performance on Dohasan (When they attack)

Nate Meng – piano, synthesizer, percussion

Chad Oliver – Guitar Noise Samples

Juanita Pahdopony – Comanche Prayer

Johnny Reid  – Comanche Story

Justen Renyer – remix of Kiowa Story

Anneliese Valdes – electric bass, trumpet, saxophone, baritone

1978 Family recordings – made at Johnny and Peggy Reid HYW 49 Dance Ground, Oklahoma

1999 Comanche and Kiowa hymnals - recorded at Lawton, Oklahoma

1996 Kiowa Flag Song and Set'tainte Song  – recorded at Saddle Mountain, Oklahoma

 

The Bury the Hatchet 12-inch vinyl album, CD and Digital downloads are available at Sunday Night records: https://sundaynightrecords.com/

 

The limited edition Bury the Hatchet 12-inch double color vinyl album released on Sunday Night records includes: two white vinyl albums, insert, screenprinted colophon, four hand-printed letterpress works on paper free digital download. Available at Sunday Night records: https://sundaynightrecords.com/

And Hybridpress: https://www.hybridpress.net/bury-the-hatchet

 

The Bury the Hatchet CD- released on Sunday Night records includes: two CD’s, insert and free digital download. Available here:

https://sundaynightrecords.com/

https://www.hybridpress.net/bury-the-hatchet

 

Bury the Hatchet limited edition screeprinted posters by the Artists are available here:

https://www.hybridpress.net/bury-the-hatchet

 

The Album and set of letterpress prints will be released with Sunday Night Records Spring 2019:  https://sundaynightrecords.com/burythehatchet/

​https://www.hybridpress.net/bury-the-hatchet

Letterpress Printing Workshop with John Hitchcock, Roberto Mata Torres and Rachel Melis

Friday, January 24, 2019 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, CSB Welle Book Arts Studio, BAC A62 (basement below the art gallery)

Join visiting artists John Hitchcock and Roberto Mata Torres and CSB/SJU art professor Rachel Melis in printing a letterpress broadside as a part of MLK Week. Learn the basics of using a letterpress to print plastic plates, take a print home, and even add your own linoleum block print or stamp. If you have a 5 x 7” or smaller block or stamp related to the theme of dream/spirit animals, bring it, and if not, we will have blank blocks and already-carved images on hand we can teach you how to use.

 No art experience necessary.

Public welcome.

Stop by anytime within the three hours for as long as you’d like.