With a load of bronzes and an ochre-painted version of the "Opening" sculpture, I drove through this storm to Cody. Bob had just had a heart attack so severe that he nearly died. In fact, his personality was changed. There was no possibility that he could drive the little Ford Econoline, overloaded, and there was no employee we could trust to do it. The value of the work was in the hundreds of thousands, an exhibit for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center as it opened a new wing for Western Art.
The head of of the Buffalo Bill was Harold McCracken, a small man with enormous power in a certain circumscribed world about the Western vision of hunting, ranching, rodeoing, and so on, including the domination of Native Americans. It was a white man's literary idea. Bob was afraid of McCracken's influence and when the man DEMANDED that the Scriver works be available on May 1, to Bob it was as if God spoke, though it would have been simple common sense to say, "Delivery will be a few days late."
The snow was over the hubcaps. By the time I got to Great Falls, the little old van's motor was stumbling so I stopped at Bison Ford for help. The foreman opened the cover on the motor (in a '61 model between the seats) and found that the compartment was packed with snow that was shorting out the sparkplugs. He gave me the stick he used to poke out the snow, and I went on. I was suicidally brave. Cell phones had not been invented.
It was snowing harder, getting dark, but the 18-wheel trucks that had been throwing me nearly off the road were now gone. I went forward very slowly until I came to a large dark object: it was the snowplow. The driver came to the window and cursed. "We closed the road an hour ago, woman! Get off the road!" Oh, sure. There were no towns and the snow beside the road was feet deep. He finally led me to the next town's truckstop which was full of the drivers that had endangered me. They had eaten all the food and were starting on the booze.
The next day the weather was glorious spring and we convoyed to Cody behind county plows. One would take us to the county border where the next one met us and led us on. After a while we drove past the snow and were met with meadowlarks.
The next day the weather was glorious spring and we convoyed to Cody behind county plows. One would take us to the county border where the next one met us and led us on. After a while we drove past the snow and were met with meadowlarks.
Scriver's heart attack was so recent that he had tried to paint the real-colors version of "The Opening" while he was still in the hospital, but he couldn't. The ochre monocolor version was really a spacer to hold the place in the Cody museum until he was able to send the colored one. He was so afraid that McCracken would change his mind about including it in the exhibit. The show was an amazing opportunity for the one hundred pieces of sculpture, but it was necessary because the new art wing had few walls for hanging paintings.
We divorced in the next year and I never heard much more about "The Opening" and actually forgot until long after the hand-painted version had been sent and had replaced it. We never even thought to ask whether it were safely stored down there, waiting to be picked up. Many years later, even decades later, after Bob had died, it turned up in an auction in Great Falls, but then I didn't know where it went.
We divorced in the next year and I never heard much more about "The Opening" and actually forgot until long after the hand-painted version had been sent and had replaced it. We never even thought to ask whether it were safely stored down there, waiting to be picked up. Many years later, even decades later, after Bob had died, it turned up in an auction in Great Falls, but then I didn't know where it went.
After I'd been back in Montana since 1999, I got a phone call from a man near Lansing, Michigan, who had questions. Richard Turbin had acquired that ochre "Opening of the Medicine Bundle" and was starting a little museum in Charlotte, MI. He or a friend of his wanted to cut the sculpture up so that they had the people in it as separate portraits of real people. They wanted to sell castings of each. What could I tell him? By this time there had been great political surges against the portrayal or possession of ceremonial Blackfeet objects. I told him the sculpture was a Sacred Object and if he cut it up, he would be bringing serious trouble down on his head. He took me seriously and wanted to be responsible.
This article turned up on Google:
"One of the most prized pieces of art in the collection of Richard Turbin is this hydrocal sculpture of the Secret Opening of the Thunder Pipe Bundle from the Blackfoot Nation by Bob Scriver. According to Turbin, Bob Scriver was able to join the sacred ceremony and sketch the actual participants in this ritual". Monday, Oct. 23, 2017.
Article by ROBERT KILLIPS | LANSING STATE JOURNAL
Cool Spaces: Windwalker Underground Gallery in Charlotte
Richard Turbin talks passionately about his journey to restore and remodel a former Odd Fellows Lodge building in Charlotte Monday, Oct. 23, 2017.
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As far as I know, that was as far as the matter went. I do not want to be involved in this matter. It was part of the wave of de-accessions that sold many warehoused works of art out of many museums without anyone knowing it was happening. There are legal ownership questions.
Apart from that, this sculpture resides in a unique space between art and religion. If it is art, the article is wrong. (They always are.) Bob Scriver was not a privileged observer who made sketches: he was a participant who sculpted studio portraits of the real people. Not exactly secret, it was certainly protected. But the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody did not exhibit the piece in a specifically religious way. Rather, they took it as a anthropological "salvage" piece, with whites having privileged access in the double-standard anthropology preserved from the 19th century when anthropology was invented. Must it go on as "religious" -- in which case it must be preserved as Sacred, or must it be seen as art done by an outsider, although with accuracy and permission? In that case, a work of art should not be pieced out for profit.
The answer is a little different than it is when dealing with century-old native-made objects for ceremonial purposes, but not a lot. The high value of all these objects complicates the answer. Most of all, what IS art? What IS religion? We don't seem to know right now.
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