Marcus Amerman

The inspirational and moving pieces of Marcus Amerman not only relate to his

roots and the history of Choctaw but he also expresses deep meaning in his work.

Marcus is an amazing artist he has such variety of culture and it is incorporated into

historical superheroes like Lloyd Kiva New. His beautiful and realistic beadwork is

outstanding and one of a kind. Not only is he amazing with beads but he also paints

does glass work, performance artist, and is a fashion designer. Growing up in the Pacific

Northwest and his history of the Choctaw has a big influence on his work.

Marcus Amerman addresses much social commentary and an inquisitive

nature that blends together and shows his diversified art. Amerman expresses in his art

the unifying relationship and the beautiful mysteries of life. He makes you really think

outside the box when you looks at his work, it really makes you contemplate and

reevaluate the way you look at things. Much of his work and painting address cues from

pop art, an interest that Amerman that developed while studying fine arts at Whitman

College and later, at the Institute of American Indian Arts. “Amerman infuses his unique

pop-art style with Native American images from the mid-twentieth century, mainstream

advertising and portraits of iconic Indians all throughout history” (Igloliorte). He has

included and expanded on a large portrait genre, he has beaded of Janet Jackson, as

well as Barack Obama, Wonder Woman, and other non-Native cultural figures.

Amerman reconstructs American pop culture in his own way by challenging his audience

to broaden their understanding of what it really means to be Native in America.

In many ways Marcus Amerman includes culture in his art. He has dozens of his

intricate beadwork that shows and describes Native Americans in there everyday lives.

In his early work, Postcard in 2002, looks just like a postcard that reads Greetings from

the Indian Country of the Great Southwest. This piece is all beadwork and beautifully

shows a brief part of Indian Culture in each letter of “Indian Country”. In some of the

Tyler Croisetiere

C. Cadge-Moore

ICS 5 Tues/Thurs

24 May 2011

letters you see things like buffalo, landscape of the country, and Native American

people. Amerman has also included depictions of a exploding atomic bomb, fighter jets

taking off in the sky, and realistic dancing indians and stoic chiefs. The wonderful crafted

beadwork of Marcus Amerman like many of his other multicultural pieces shows the

construction and imagery if the Indian Country and the Old West. This is one of my

favorites beadworks that Marcus Amercan incorporated the culture and history of

Native Americans.

His first input of realism in beadwork came from a piece called Iron Horse Jacket

in 1993. A Highly detailed image of Brooke Shields in a studded leather jacket in just

colored beads, it’s absolutely amazing to see. He also decided later after he had finished

Iron Horse Jacket to add a portrait bracelet to Brooke Shields. Other example of realism

can also come from apiece know as Chief Joseph from 1995. This beaded portrait of a

Native American is stunning in many ways; he amazes us by making the man look so

natural and proud. The man in the portrait has long braided pigtails for hair and eye

popping purple earrings. What I like most about this piece is the marvelous mountains in

the background, it’s so well done and the parry like grass at the bottom and the snow to

cover the top of the mountains make it that much better.

In his piece called The Gathering, it shows a large group of Native Americans

standing in a line on their horses in front of a commercialized modern day city. I believe

this portrait represents the hardships and the sacrificed that the Native Americans had

to take in order to live in the cities of America. The often-negative stereotypes and the

unaware citizens of the American city often made the Natives uncomfortable and stared

at by others. This piece represents the differences and the struggle to fit in to society

that the Natives Americans had to go through to settle in the city. Marcus Amerman

knows how hard and difficult it was to try to live in a new environment while trying to

keep your old ways and traditions incorporated into your everyday lives.

The Beadmaker is another beadwork piece by Marcus Amerman in 2005 that

shows a Native sitting down beading what seems to be a necklace. I really like this piece

because it shows the man in a deep peaceful thought with a unique sun like design in

the sky background. This piece makes you think of contemplating memories and journey

that you have encountered in your life. In my opinion this shows Marcus Amerman’s

complex and deep side to his beadwork because it interrogates a meaning of tranquility

and peaceful happiness to oneself in nature and I fully understand this piece and love it.

Also contributing to Marcus Amerman’s multiculturalism and his ethnic

background, besides his cultural in depth beadwork and design and including the vast

importance as a Native American of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, are his paintings.

In is work of Something Wicked depicts a train pulling cargo that includes Buffalo Bill,

the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and the American flag, among other objects and

personalities, yet in the foreground buffalo are scattering in fear (Brockman). In an

interview Marcus Amerman said about his painting that, “The train is just American

culture coming into this continent and all the things good, bad and strange it brings.”

This describes the painting perfectly and it really show Marcus’s multiculturalism by his

painting. This influential piece reminds us how much of an impact that Americans

culture had on Natives but also everyone else in society.

"I believe there is another world beyond this one. We tend to imagine an

impregnable wall separating these worlds, but I think of my role as an artist as being a

clouded window in that wall. I seek to be the open door" (Amerman). His multi-faceted

imagination and cultural history amazes me in this work called The Man with No Name.

This portrait shows a stoic Native American dressed in traditional wear and feathered

headpiece with a content smile all in front of a background that represent space and

stars. The meaning behind it is that there is more to life that what we already know and

there is endless imagination and opportunities in store for our future no matter what

happened in the past.

Marcus Amerman has and continues to repatriates misappropriated Native

Indian imagery and identity to let other become more aware in a beautiful artistic

fashion in performance art, fashion design, film, sculpture, beadwork, and painting. He

chooses not to let the negative stereotypes get to him, but to let him embrace them and

let them become an inspiration and a motivation for his art. Marcus has beaded colors

into historical pictures of famous and traditional Natives Indians and Americans. His

majestic work of creativity and persona has changed the way tons of people and I look

and understand the way we think of Native Indians, but also the culture of America and

its influence on us in everyday life. “Sometimes when I mention that I am an artist to a

stranger, they'll often ask 'What do you make?' I tell them 'I make excitement’ ”

(Amerman).

Postcard, 2002 The Beadmaker, 2005

Something Wicked, 2007 The Man with No Name, 1995

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Works Cited

1. Amerman, Marcus . http://www.marcusamerman.com/. 23 May. 2011.

<http://www.marcusamerman.com/>.

2. "A New Dawn for Museums of Native American Art." The New York Times 20

Aug. 2005. 23 May. 2011 <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?

res=9507EFDC103EF933A1575BC0A9639C8B63&pagewanted=2>.

3. "Marcus Amerman." RainMaker. 23 May. 2011.

<http://www.rainmakerart.co.uk/artists/amerman.htm>.

4. Igloliorte, Heather . "Marucs Amerman." Institution of American Indian Arts. 23

May. 2011. <http://www.iaia.edu/museum/vision-project/artists/marcus-

amerman/>.